The Ben Mulroney Show - The prairie hour! Canola, Alberta trans debate and the anti-Trump globe.

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

- Curtis McRae - Farms Canola on just under 5K acres north of Winnipeg - John Geiger — CEO OF THE ROYAL Canadian Geographical Society   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

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Hey, thanks, son. What do I owe you? Don't worry about it. It's payday. Payday, huh? I bet you it went straight into your bank account and you didn't even check your pay stuff. My what? Your pay stuff. Back in my day, you had to wait for a physical check. Then, you had to go to the bank. Deposit it, and wait for it to clear.

Your pay really meant something. Payroll is incredibly complex. It's art and the science. It literally keeps the economy moving. Parole professionals do a lot for us. You know, it's about time we do something for them. How about we ask our leaders to name a day in their honor, a national day to recognize payroll professionals?

I got it. This is perfect. Why don't we explain to people just how important the roles are the payroll professionals play in our lives. We can even ask them to sign a petition. We can even ask them to sign a petition to recognize the third Tuesday in September as the National Day to recognize payroll professionals. We'll rally support and bring the payroll party to the nation.

National payroll party? Precisely. 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. This show is sponsored by Better Help. Let's be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places. the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And, hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually trained to help.

That's what BetterHelp is all about. They connect you with credentialed professional therapists online. And what makes them stand out is their therapist match commitment. After a quick questionnaire, BetterHelp does the hard work of finding someone who fits your needs. Most people get it right the first time. But if it's not a match, you can switch counselors, time at no extra cost. It's flexible, totally online, and you can hit pause whenever you need to. With over 5 million people supported to date globally, BetterHelp is now available in Canada

with a network of counselors who have expertise in a wide range of specialties. With a 4.9 out of 5 rating based on over 1.7 million client reviews, BetterHelp makes counseling affordable and convenient, and you can switch counselors at any time for no cost. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash Mulrooney. That's BetterHelp. G-L-P.com slash Mulroney. You've gone as far as you can go. Winter nights and long, summer days are now. You're listening to the Ben Mulroney Show.

You are listening to The Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Thank you on this Tuesday, September 9th. We appreciate your ears. We appreciate your time. We appreciate your commitment to helping us build this show into, I think, and I hope to be the best version of itself. Before we get on with the show, a little bit of a programming note, I suppose. It's a personal, it's a personal piece of information for you. Starting this week, I will be assuming the role of the host. of Global News's West Block every Sunday on global across the country. The great Mercedes-Stevenson is on Matt leave, and so I will be assuming the caretaker role of hosting that show. It is the number one Sunday political news program in the country. It is, as far as I'm concerned, where the conversation is set for the rest of the week. And it is a privilege.

It is an honor that I take very seriously. uh it is um it is not my show it is mercedes a show i have every intention of leaving it in at least a good position as i found it uh it is um uh a great honor that this was uh offered to me and uh and look a lot of people are going to ask themselves well you know you you're an opinion guy ben what are you doing hosting a news show and that's that's fair uh but i think that uh one of the things that i share with a great many people on the news side is a willingness to engage in respectful conversation and a desire to hold people in positions of power to account. And so that's what you can expect each and every week from me on the West Block.

And anybody who thinks that if they tune in and they say, well, you're not behaving the way you do on your radio show. To that, I say, no one behaves the same at a party on Saturday night as they do at church on Sunday morning. But they are the same person. So you can expect that. And so thank you to global news, thank you to global, thank you to Mercedes, I will do you proud, I promise. And to my dad, who always wanted me to do something like this, I hope you'll watch as well, Dad.

All right, I'm in Winnipeg. That's where I am right now. I'm here for a few days. Tomorrow I'll be hosting an event at the Museum of Human Rights, where I'll be sitting down and chatting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on issues of anti-Semitism, hate, and where Canada finds itself in the world today and where we go from here. It'll be a wide range in conversation. And we will either have pieces of that conversation on the show, or if we're lucky, we'll have Prime Minister Harper in studio with me. And so stay tuned for that.

But very glad to be back here. I was shocked. I'm looking at the window right now. And it's a beautiful day. They say it's going to be about 20 degrees today. This is, yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous out there. and very happy to be able to do the show from C.J.O.B. here in Winnipeg. The population of the city, about 850,000 residents. It's the largest city in Manitoba.

Eight largest in the country. A lot of cultural diversity, highly multicultural, indigenous, Filipino, South Asian, Ukrainian communities, tons of people that make up the mosaic that is Canada. As I said, famous for the Museum of Human Rights. It's the first and only museum, part of the national network of museums that isn't in Ottawa or the national capital region. So a huge, huge accomplishment for this city, much credit, in fact, all credit to the Asper family, Gail Asper for making that happen. It was her dream, it was her project. She willed it, manifested it, and it's here because of her. obviously the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, oldest ballet company in Canada,

internationally acclaimed, and my illustrious producer, Mike Droulet, very proud that his daughter danced at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, I believe last summer. No, two summers ago, and she loved it. It was a highlight of her ballet. Good for her. Famous people from Winnipeg, Neil Young.

You should end it right there, Neil Young. But the guess who, classic rock band? I think we just played them off the top of this segment. Jonathan Taves, hockey player. Chantelle Creviasik, a good friend of mine and a great singer-songwriter in Canada. She's a wonderful human being, and we are in her hometown. And I said it before, about 10 years ago, I was in Winnipeg. It might have been even more than 10 years ago.

I was here for the Juno's or something. And we had a team dinner at a place called Pizzerie Augusto. and one of the great pizza experiences of my life was at that restaurant. I had a pizza called The Dawn, had big chunks of sausage on it. I am going back tonight. Now, just think about what that means. For 10 years, let's call it 10 years, I have been pining for a pizza I had in Winnipeg so much. So I even remember the name of the pizza itself.

So I'm going back tonight to see if my memory matches the quality of the pizza. I suspect it does. I was reading that Petriagusto was on some list of 50 best places to eat in the country. I remember it as such. We will see if that is the case. But one of the things that we're going to be tackling is we want to talk about the big issues here and see how they line up with issues across the country. Issues like crime, for example.

Crime is a big problem in the city of Winnipeg, as it is in big cities across this country. Downtown in particular is an issue. So apparently there have been a number of 7-Elevens that have closed multiple locations since early 2025. At least six 7-Eleven stores in Winnipeg have closed. Some stores were reportedly losing up to 600 bucks a day due to theft, making operations just unsustainable. They decided we'd rather close up than keep losing money. Starbucks and other restaurants and businesses have closed. Actually, when I showed up at the radio station today, I asked my Uber driver,

I was like, is there like a coffee shop around here? Because I got here a little early. And he said, no, there's nothing around here. I was expecting a Tim's or something like that to be available. We're right at the, pretty much at the corner of Portage in Maine. And so you would think that there would be something around here. But maybe that's, this is one of those reasons. But one of the biggest issues for the region is canola.

and you know we talk a lot about canola a lot but you know if you're from if you're from Toronto if you're from the east it's it's a word it's an expression it's a thing but it's here it is so much more than that first of all I didn't know that the word canola means Canada's oil can can Ola means oil that's it's a registered trademark I had no idea I had no idea the name comes as I said for Canada and Ola and oil Canada is the world's largest producer and exporter of canola supplying about 90% of the world's canola exports. So it's a bright yellow plant. You've seen the pictures of it. And it's used in cooking, food processing, margarine. It's prized for being low and saturated fat, high in omega-3 fatty acids.

After the oil extraction, the leftover canola meal is used as a protein-rich animal feed. And it's also a biofuel. Canola oil is also processed into biodiesel and renewable fuels. But right now we are talking about the impact that tariffs from China are having on Canada's canola industry. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Mo cited a study claiming Canada's canola industry generates 43, almost $44 billion in economic activity and supports over 200,000 jobs. That suggests it outweighs the auto sector. And yet, let's not forget, one of the reasons of the, no one of the reason, the reason the Chinese placed 100% tariffs on our canola is because Canada placed 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, essentially preventing them from coming into the Canadian market.

And if I'm the canola industry, I'm like, what did I, I don't have a dog in this fight. I didn't start this fight. I'm the, I'm getting the short end of the stick. So it's a big, big problem. And there's a study that came out that shows that Canadian grown canola contributes $43.7 percent, a billion dollars to the Canadian economy each and every year. And so, and yet, we have nothing to do if you're out here.

I say we, because I'm here out right now. We, the West, had nothing to do with the fight with the Chinese regarding those EVs. And I don't have it in front of me. If I'm getting the number wrong, I apologize. But from what I understand, China is the number one purchaser of Canadian canola in the world by a country mile. They're not buying anything from us. And so they bought $15 billion worth of canola from the next producer, which is Australia. So Australia's gain was certainly our loss.

So we're going to be talking a lot about this coming up, including what the heck is going on with Canada's oil. Farmers are, farmers should be worried. So we're going to drill down next. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. You can find us pretty much anywhere.

You can find us on YouTube. You can find us on social media at Ben Mulroney's show. You can find us on streaming apps on the radio on YouTube and, of course, on the podcast platform of your choice. All right. Before the break, we sort of laid out generally the importance of the canola industry in Canada and specifically how important it is out west. We're joined now by Curtis McRae. He farms canola on just under five acres,

5,000 acres north of Winnipeg. Curtis, welcome to the show. Hey, good morning, Ben. What a great morning we're having here. Oh, it's gorgeous. I mean, I just assumed it was going to be cold when I woke up today. It was 10 degrees warmed up really quickly, so I'm really happy to be here this time of year.

Something tells me in a few weeks it's going to start turning. Yeah, fall is coming. This morning, I'm happy to say that our canola crop has been kissed by the morning due and should be ready for harvest this afternoon. Well, I'm glad that we're starting out on an optimistic tip, my friend, but things aren't, you're not bullish necessarily on what's to come, are you? Oh, absolutely not. I mean, pricing is how we put money in our bank accounts, and with lower pricing, it's going to be

tougher to do. So, yeah, so talk to me about how, like, what was life like? in the heyday. And how many years ago was the heyday for the canola industry? Well, I think ever since canola became into real production, it's kind of been in a heyday. It's been the crop that usually makes your paycheck. A lot of the other crops are there for rotational purposes. Canola has usually been the one that pays the majority of the bills. Yeah. During COVID, during around 22, 23, there were some shortages, and the canola industry price or the canola price really spiked

and I was telling canola at $25 a bushel. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm looking at the price in, just even in June compared to what it is now. I mean, it's been on a steady decline significantly the past three months.

And how much of a, how much of a kick to the teeth was were these terrorists by China? Well, currently they're looking like at the dollar or bushel for us is what we're going to have to just consume on that one. The upside is that we do contract on the future, so ahead of time we could have

pre-sold some canola, but we don't know how much Mother Nature is going to let us have. There's a lot of risk in that. Yeah, and climate change is very real. I mean, we talk about the wildfires that have consumed so much of this country. How much of an effect is the changing climate on the yield of your crop? Yeah, so canola is quite vulnerable. on that one because it doesn't like to get too extremely hot. So that's why it's growing in Canada, not so much in the U.S.

So, yeah. Now, I have to assume canola's got a strong lobby that's able to communicate with various levels of government. Do you feel that the lobby is meeting with deaf ears in Ottawa? Because it seems to me, I mean, this is a defining aspect of the agricultural wing of our economy. And you guys are taking such a significant hit right now. Are you finding that there is an effective communication between your industry and the powers that be in Ottawa? Well, I mean, the communication is definitely happening.

It's just that it's very hard to push Eastern Canada to what Western Canada needs. Okay, so listen, you're talking to a national audience right now. A lot of our listeners are in Central Canada and, you know, the city of Toronto and Ottawa. What do you want them? Central Canada. Where is the center of Canada? You're at it right now. I know.

Winnipeg is the center, physically the center of Canada. But the people who feel they are the center of Canada. So tell me, if you had the ear of those who could affect change, what would you want them to know? Well, I think importantly, if you're going to send out a sacrificial lamb, there needs to be some kind of compensation. And not ridiculous, you know, have to hire lawyers and accountants to do the paperwork to claim back, I don't know, $2,000. Like, this is real money that we have lost. And this is how I feed my family. Yeah.

On Friday, when the prime minister made his massive announcement on what really, to me, was an indicator of how this government views the role of the federal government inside the economy. There was talk of sort of a fund somewhere around 300 million plus for canola to help you guys through this tough time. I was surprised I didn't hear a little more about engaging with the Chinese government to get us through this tough time. How did you see it? Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to run through ag stability, which is quite the expensive way to get funds back to farmers, at least on the farmer end of things. I think importantly, we should control what we can control. And, Ben, I'm just going to steal you on a little bit here because, like, hey, why not go out and buy some.

canola oil and help a farmer out. Yeah. And if you don't know how to use it, there is hello canola.ca. They have recipes and ways to help you figure out how to do it. Like, these are things we talk about by Canadian all the time. I don't see why that's not top of mind for everybody. This is a homegrown industry that we depend on so much. And if it's a product that we can be using as opposed to an American or foreign product, why not?

And it's environmentally very sound. Like I have more solar collectors. Anybody I know, every plant of mine, it's only job for the summer is to collect that solar radiation and produce food for humans to eat. So it does a lot of great things. Yeah. I heard something. I said it before that I'm not quite sure if I'm getting the number right.

But, you know, China accounts for about 67% of all of our canola seed exports. That's clearly not their priority anymore. And from what I understand, they went to the number two canola exporter in the world, which was Australia for a contract valued at somewhere around $15 billion. That's got to be, that's got to hurt. Yeah, that's going to make the price just shatter here. But the price is also traded on the world market. Yeah.

But look, the cynic in me says that the price of canola is going to go down and down and down and down. And then at that point, that's when the Chinese are going to come in and say, okay, now we're ready to buy your product. if I had to feed a billion people I think I would use that technique as well you know what that's a very charitable very kind thing for you to say if it were me I would look at that and say that is a really underhanded way and a bad faith way of playing the market to your advantage at the expense of hardworking farmers oh absolutely but I mean everybody has to wear everybody else's shoes to figure out

why they're doing what they're doing so talk to me about long term here how long Can the status quo stay the same before you have to make some really bad choices? So I guess there's two things that can happen. Number one, it can be just as simple as changing out canola acres, which then is very detrimental to our crushers, which we've just got established to handle way more crushed capacity, to try and keep things in-house. And I guess the other thing is like,

when do you just say enough is enough, this government in this country does not feel the need to keep farmers going, we won't protect this and we need protection. That's why we pay taxes. It's time to sell and ship out. I don't know. Does it hurt more or less, knowing that this is a fight that you didn't ask for, but you're the ones on the receiving end of the bad news?

I mean, look, I understand the need to protect the Canadian automotive industry from low-cost EVs that the Chinese are just manufacturing and flooding the market with in certain areas of the world. I get that. There are a lot of investments have been made in ensuring that Ontario remains sort of the central to automotive production in North America. But that has nothing to do with you. And so all of a sudden you guys wake up and you're on the receiving end of a punch in a fight that you're not in.

Yeah, no, I think it's important to look after our car producers in Ontario. There's a lot of jobs and a lot for the economy. And as a Canadian, yes, we need to help them out. But we need to be realistic on how much I need to bleed on doing that, I guess is the correct way to put that. Yeah. How's your family dealing with this? So it's harvest time. So we're really good at being farmers that's just controlling what we can control.

So today's job is to go out there, gather as much canola as we can, and then try and find a way to sell it for a little bit more. Yeah. Well, my dad's idea was the only solution to low prices is to grow more crop. So we just have to get better at her job again. Well, Curtis McCrae, thank you so much for joining us. I wish you the very, very best. I'm best to you and your family and to all of your colleagues in the industry. I'm thinking of you because I just think this is a problem that has gone on long enough.

And hopefully the leadership that we have can find a solution that makes everybody happy. Good stuff, Ben. Have a great day. You take care. Absolutely. What a kind man. All right, Alberta girls must now prove their sex at birth to play school sports. And critics call it unfair and transphobic.

We break down the controversy next right here on the Ben Mulrooney show. Welcome back to the Ben Muleruny show coming to you from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Thank you so much for spending. a little bit of your time with us. So we're at the beginning of the new school year, and this is the time of year where kids reclaim friendships and sort of try out new things. And they begin the season of fall sports.

And the time that we're living in means that the act of trying out for a sport and participating in a team sport is politically charged because what to do with the question of biological mayor, who identify as female who want to play female sports. It's a tricky one. It's absolutely tricky. And in Alberta, they are trying to add clarity to this very tricky situation with the fairness and safety in sport act. And it requires girls under 18 to submit a provincially mandated form confirming their sex at birth to play female only competitive sports.

They have a very particular view. and that is reflected in the fairness and safety in sport act. The student reaction has been the subject of a CTV News story out of Edmonton where a 14-year-old volleyball player named Natalie Elzinga, who is not trans, called the requirement transphobic and unnecessary, saying it traumatizes trans youth and creates unfair barriers. Now, her mother, Leah, said that in her decade of experience at volleyball events, no parents, no parents had ever raised concerns about trans girls playing sports, calling the law discriminatory.

The implementation of this law is that the forms are collected by school coaches. They're kept at school offices. Boys playing boys only sports are not subject to the same requirement. And the position of the Alberta government is this. Alberta officials argue the policy ensures fairness, safety, and accessibility, while critics say it unfairly targets trans girls and lacks clear guidelines leaving room for abuse. Look, my position on this is I try to say it as respectfully as possible. The problem is, no matter what I say, if it doesn't subscribe to the orthodoxy of the pro trans-trans side,

it is labeled as transphobic, which is insane to me. It's an insane way of having a discourse that for me to have a slightly different position, I am labeled X, Y, and Z. It's been happening for people who have been far more outspoken on this matter than I. I come at this from a position of my daughter. If she were to play sports, I do not want her playing with somebody who is my daughter's 12 years old now. I don't want her playing with somebody who's 10 pounds heavier and three inches taller. I just, I don't want it happening.

And let's listen to a little bit of Leah, the mother, and her opinion on this position by the government. They don't care about trans athletes in sport. Otherwise, they would care about all trans athletes in sport. You know, they care about girls specifically and limiting what they can do. Well, of course, of course they do. Of course, they don't care about the other way, because the other way is not biologically, physiologically, unfair. Women, by definition, do not have a physical advantage over men. That's the reality.

And to suggest that because they're not looking at the other side of the equation, somehow makes it exposes a hypocrisy, absolutely not. It exposes the reality that trans athletes who are born males have a physical advantage over their female counterparts with whom they would be competing. And look, there is a universal truth that I can't get around, which is, and everybody has this in their lives. I don't care how privileged you are. I don't care if you're black. I don't care if you're white. I don't care about any of that. None of that matters.

The universal truth is as follows. nobody gets everything they want in life let me say it again nobody gets everything they want in life I come from I'm the luckiest son of a gun on the planet the lottery of my birth

made it so that I have had experiences that nobody else on the planet will ever have I have a list as long as my arm of things I wish I could have done that I thought I deserved to do that I didn't get to do. And everybody has that list. We are living in a time where just a few short years ago

the idea of the vast majority of people accepting and embracing our brothers and sisters in the trans community, that was an impossible dream just a few short years ago. And here we are today in 2025 living in a world where if you are trans, you are. accepted by most and certainly from a legal standpoint accepted on a on most levels with everybody else that is a huge accomplishment and so to then make everything the litmus test about whether or not somebody is open enough of heart to make space for everyone including their trans brothers and sisters to to make the litmus test whether or not somebody can play sports that's the indicator as to whether or not you're a transphobe or not is insane to me.

It's insane because there are a bunch of sports I wanted to play that I couldn't play. I made peace with that. A bunch of jobs I thought I deserved I didn't get. I made peace with it. There are a bunch of things in life that everyone is going to have to deal with. And they are going to come out on the losing end of that fight that doesn't make the world unfair. It makes the world what it is. There is pushback by the world on everything all the time.

How we deal with it is what makes us resilient. And we are living in a world now where, as, you know, if you want to, if you feel that you need to identify as a gender that you were not assigned at birth, the world is there to help you. But when it comes to my daughter and her safety in a competitive sport, I do not want her playing. with such a disadvantage that she could get hurt and we are seeing more and more examples of them in the press of young women whose safety is compromised because they are playing against people who are so overwhelmingly stronger than them that to me is it's a fact and for anybody to take that one thing that that thing that represents such a small sliver of the the trans experience and make that the defining aspect as to whether or not a person like me

is a transphobe is unfair, it's bad faith, and it's toxic to the conversation that we should be having. I try to engage respectfully and I get that disrespect back. You think that that makes it more likely that this conversation is going to be, is going to continue in a respectful way? Absolutely not. And so when that mom says something like that, it reminds me of what Malcolm Gladwell said. So Malcolm Gladwell is the intellectual who wrote the book Outliers. He wrote the book about people who marched to the beat of their own drum. And he was on stage a few years ago of having a debate about trans athletes. And he sat there agreeing with the majority on stage that trans athletes belonged in female sports. Here's what he says today.

if we did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan Conference this coming March it runs in exactly the opposite direction and it would be I suspect near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in the female category I don't think there's any question I just think it was a strange

I mean I felt I mean I was the reason I'm ashamed of my performance of that panel because I share your position 100% and I was count. The idea of saying anything on this issue, I was, you know, I believe in retrospect, in a dishonest way, I was, I was objective in a dishonest way. He was afraid to speak his mind. He was afraid to be the outlier. And so when the mother of that girl says, no one's ever expressed an issue before, maybe some of them didn't express the issue because to express their true opinion would be to have them tarred and feathered as transphobes. The difference is in 2025, I don't believe you can get

there from here anymore. As my dad used to say, that dog don't hunt. All right, a new handcrafted globe was just delivered to Canada. It's turning heads, not the least of which because it rejects Trump's changes to the world map. That's next. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and shout out to our board operator, Dave, who's really nailing the intro songs today. Well done, my friend. Thank you very much. We're joined now by a new friend of the show. He was on last week. He's back this week. John Geiger, he's the CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

We're talking about a new globe that was commissioned by the Canadian Geographical Society that is of interest and should be of interest to our listeners. John, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much, Pam. Okay. Talk to me about this globe, what it means, and what's on it that is of note and worthy of conversation. Well, I mean, the globe itself is an extraordinary work of art. It's actually five feet across. Wow. You know, it's gigantic.

It's stunning. It's a handcrafted globe. It had 12 artists working on it. And it was a wonderful gift. One of our major donors has. has funded this for the society. So, you know, it really just as an, you know, artifact, as an, you know, it's an outstanding addition to our collection.

And, of course, as a geographical society, you know, I can't think of a better and more fitting gift to our society. But really what's interesting is this is the same type of globe that was created for Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt by the U.S. Army during the Second War. So it's on the same, it's the same size and scale as the famous Churchill globes of that air that that that's the name of of the globe and it's Lerby globe makers they're the only company in the world that creates these these bespoke special globes you can

actually that the purchasers can can have input in the creation of the globe and the content of the globe so I got to ask before we continue is this one of those globes that when you open it up there is a bar on the inside uh I hadn't thought of that I didn't thought of that I I mean, if you could open it up and had some Canadian whiskey in there, I would think it's the best globe ever. I should have thought of it. I'm just kidding. I was just kidding. I can continue, my friend.

So, yeah, I mean, it's interesting that during the process of creating this globe, and it took about 18 months from, you know, commissioning to completion. You know, Trump appeared on the scene, and at one point I was given, you know, kind of a template of what the globe would look like, the actual. color scheme and so forth. And, of course, immediately jumped out of me that Canada and the U.S. were the same color. And that's because the convention for this type of globe is to have color a continent, not my country. And, you know, I just said, look, that that would not be acceptable.

We would not want to be the same colors of the United States. And so we went with Imperial Pink, which is the traditional color, of course, of the maps, the Empire, the British Commonwealth. the world and uh canada throughout history so are all are all the national borders uh on this on this globe all the borders are on but the um but the continental color the color is continental not by country so that's where yeah that's that's where you know it we needed this has got to be a canada focused uh globe and it has to emphasize canada's place in the world and it's kind of sovereignty frankly which is obviously an issue and uh and yes and and and and and yes and and

And the president took a few, made a few changes to geographical changes in the early days of this second term that bristled some people and made them feel a certain way from changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Apparently, what was once Mount McKinley, America's highest point, actually, the continent's highest point, was changed to its indigenous name, Denali. And he reverted it to Mount McKinley. Yes. What is reflected in this map, on this globe, rather. Executive orders of the U.S. president have absolutely no barrier on the cartographic conventions and, you know, outside the United States. And so what the U.S. government does, they could name any place in the world, you know, they like. But the fact is it's not recognized outside of the United States.

So, of course, on this globe, the Gulf of Mexico appears not the Gulf of America. Yeah. And we've stuck with Denali, even though that is within the United States. That is its traditional name. It means the great one. It is the great one. It's the great mountain of this continent, as you say. So, you know, we have adhered to that.

I used to own a GMC Denali. So it's a name that has history, at least in the automotive space. So if it's good enough for GMC, it's good enough. enough for me. But I guess my question for you, at what point, when geography butts up against politics,

which trumps which? Because I have to believe that there are disputed land claims around the world. And depending on whose map you're looking at, you're going to see a border that may be over here versus over there. So to me, this is, you know, a lot of

people got very upset with Donald Trump when he made these changes. But, But as Kevin O'Leary said, he's like, so what? Like if you go to Google Maps in the United States, they'll say Gulf of America. If you go to Google Maps in Canada, it'll say Gulf of Mexico. It's, you know, it's 601. And so I struggle to see the emotional explosion or the value of that. When to me, look, it's a change.

Would I have made the change? No, can somebody change it back? Sure. It's sort of just a product of the time. It's more performance than anything else. It's sort of red meat that he throws to his base. But as somebody who's steeped in geography, does it mean something different to you? Well, you know, there are these conventions.

You're absolutely right. You know, this globe, just like any map, is a snapshot in time. So it will change. It's probably in the process of changing as we speak, you know, if and when the war in Ukraine ends. there will be perhaps, unfortunately, borders being redrawn there. So, of course, it'll change, and it'll change again once this administration comes to its end, assuming that happens. But, you know, there have been some things that directed at this country, you know, statements from the U.S. administration and the U.S. President that, you know, without some sort of imagined subsidy Canada would cease to, quote, cease to exist as a country. Now, these are, these are, you know, pretty serious statements to be coming from someone in that kind of responsible office.

They're haresing, you know, words for us to hear. And so we have to be very careful in terms of how we respond. And we don't accept that analysis. We don't accept that view of the world. In fact, I'm kind of feeling guilty that Greenland appears in the same color as the United States on this goal because the rest of the continent. Yeah, our, you know, are adhering to the convention of a continental color scheme. But so, so I, you know, that's the one thing that makes me feel a little badly. But, you know, it's very important that we, at this time, especially in Canada, assert our place in the world and celebrate our identity.

And, you know, this is just one small object, but it's, you know, it's the only Churchill global. a globe of this scale made by Bellarby in Canada. And it's really a national treasure. And so we felt it was very important to reflect, you know, Canada's central place in our hearts with this globe. Well, before we let you go, I know that you're having a conversation with my producer about something you wanted to ask me about my dad's, what my dad collected over the years. Well, so exactly.

So we have, for example, Lester B. Pearson's top house. the hat that he wore when he accepted the Nobel Prize and so forth in our collection. So anyone who's been a fellow of the society, we ask if there's some really special object that we can remember them by that won't end up in some storeroom at the, you know, never to be seen again. So I wondered if, you know, your father was a fellow of the Rochanger Graphal Society. He was a gold medalist of our society, and we really honored to have him as part of our community. and celebrate him. So I'm wondering if you might consider a question of you, would you consider making some sort of gift of something that belonged to him that was special to us?

I can tell you, everything that my dad ever owned is he passed everything to my mom. So I'm going to check with her, but you have my commitment. I'm going to check with her. But thank you very much, John, for joining us, and thank you for sharing the story. All right, you take care. All right, coming up, when Mark Zuckerberg is told he's not the Mark Zuckerberg, lawsuits get filed. We will explain next on the Ben Mulroney show. The end. For four years, Noah and Sarah have been clying out from beneath the Denver airport.

They have faced monsters, secret armies, and killing machines. But they're done running. This season on escaping Denver, the truth is revealed. Captives become legends, and a war a thousand years in the making erupts around them. Join us for the end of our story. The final season of escaping Denver drops August 11th on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.