The Ben Mulroney Show - The Punjabi "Jingle Bells"? / Canadians fed up with DEI on campus

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

GUESTS:   Geoff Sigalet and Brad Epperly – McDonald Laurier Institute/UBC Okanagan 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 Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] 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. Welcome back. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show on this Friday. The 12th. of December. Thank you so much for joining us. Okay. So, this could be the most Christmas story of the year. I want to hear what you guys have to think. Yesterday, we talked about the lottery and Mr. Outlier over here. Dave Spargala decided he wanted to take the annuity

over the lump sum. But this woman, there's a woman who stole 7,000- Allegedly. Okay. I'm not saying her name. Okay. There's a woman. Allegedly.

There's a woman who allegedly stole $7,500 worth of jelly cats. What is a jelly cat, you ask? It's one of the most popular toys out there. Wimical animals, plush toys. And not just animals anymore. It's performance art. Yeah. Because some of the stores you go, and it's like you go to Tim Hortons and they,

oh, they grab the special croissant with eyes and arms. And then they put it in a wrapper and stuff. Yeah, my daughter, we got my daughter an avocado. no way it was an avocado but there are certain stores that are known for having great ones

they're so cute yeah my daughter's and there's different sizes right but I went down I took my daughter to what's it called to indigo

before they have them there they have some of them there look at the pickle I know they got them all they got them all and they're so cute and she said she said

I gotta get by a birthday present I said all right we'll go there and she couldn't pick She couldn't pick. So she wanted, so she said, can I pick two? I said, okay, two small ones. 100 bucks. No.

For two of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's actually cheap. You're so small. I know. They're really expensive. So the question is, did this woman seal them because she thinks they're like Amy? Amy's going to go off.

Don't go and steal. Oh, my God. Do they, because she thinks they're cute or, and she's obsessed with them or resell? Because their resale is probably huge. Yeah, and look, we all, we saw the Beanie Baby, uh, crash. So who knows how long these guys are going to be in the sun?

So just so you know, is it BS or is it real? There might be some thematic stuff related to... Is it like Christmas? A Christmas thematic episode later on today. So the 52-year-old woman was arrested in Guelph after the stolen toys

were recovered from our house. So Waterloo Regional Police executed a warrant and found about 140 stolen toys valued at $7,500 bucks. mostly jelly cat stuff toys. They sought her out after a business in Kitchener reported $2,000 worth of jelly cats stolen.

So they believe there are other victims out there. So they're like, so what other stores are unaware that their jellycat merchandise is missing? By the way, I like that we've got a lot of stories where the cops are just coming down hard. Jelly cat theft. Yeah, well, because it will not be tolerated. Guess what, though?

I bet you she doesn't get bail. Yeah, she'll be the one. They want to make an example at her. But so Rudy Giuliani He won't get bail So in Rudy Giuliani Before he became the joke that he became

Was actually well respected Right It was a well respected mayor And And there are plenty of reasons Where why he did a lot of things wrong But And one of the reasons

One of the things he did was He helped solve the crime problem In New York City because what he did was he said, we're not going to let the small stuff slide. If we see somebody tagging a building, they're going to get arrested. Because that, they believe that there was a trickle-down effect

from the small stuff to the big stuff. If you start with the small stuff, you were going to do the big stuff. So I think, all that to say, yeah, you steal some jelly cats, $7,500 worth of jelly cats, you're going to go to the big house. At least, or a tour of the big house

because you'll be right out on bail. Yeah. You're going to be in maximum security for that. Yeah, but again, like, yeah, she's probably going to resell them. Apparently, hope to double her money. Research has found that buying collectibles had positive mental health aspects that helped adults cope with turmoil. Well, she's got some turmoil if she's doing this, so we'll have to see. My kids have incredible, incredible collections of Pokemon cards.

and I collected comic books I collected hockey cards I collected baseball cards I collected baseball cards and I collected basketball cards I don't know where any of them are anymore Me too My mom burned them when they moved

No In front of you? Is that the reason? Is this the, we're learning more? She burned all my stuff In front of you while you're sitting there in a chair not allowed to move? No, I was at university

Okay, good to know All right, hey, and listen I'm gonna, I'm gonna sneeze so you talk All right, so we're going to move on to another video that is being making the rounds that has been very, very popular. That has been sneezing like crazy. Wow.

Allergic to chips? I think he's allergic to the air. I'm feeling a little under the weather. I think what's going on in my house with the kids getting sick, I think it's finally hitting me, just in time for the weekend. Maybe you got the BDGs. Big Daddy germs. BGE. I didn't call you Big Daddy.

I said, big germ energy. Don't start ascribing nicknames to yourself. Big Daddy, Jern. No one around here has ever called you Big Daddy, and no one will. That's what I think I'm probably looking for. Big Jerm Energy. Yeah. Okay, so go on, go on.

So anyway, so we have this song, and people have been redoing Christmas songs for years. This one is different and unique. I think it's kind of catchy, but, you know, you might like it or you may hate it. be offended by it. Up to you, but let's give it a listen. Oh, jingle, jingle, jingle all the way. Oh, what fun is to write in a one horse opens lay. Oh, jingle bales, jingle all the way.

Oh, what fun is to write in a one horse open sleigh. Okay, so look, there's a... It's a YouTuber named Sanderu Sassara. Yeah, and he's honest about it. He's genuine about this. He's from Sri Lanka. He lives in Australia. But he's done this with another...

He's done covers of a lot of songs. He's done a Imagine Dragons believer. Bon Jovi's It's My Life. Ellie Gouldings love me like you do. I'd like to hear that version. And then he's done this. You wouldn't be forgiven if when you heard that, you might have thought that it was somebody

as they say in the UK taking the piss because there is that sort of that that soundtrack to a lot of memes out there of someone who kind of sounds like this singing another Christmas carol and anytime you have a story of an Indian immigrant

who's you know it has an accident in his big rig they play that in the snow so but this isn't that this is a guy who seems to be coming by it honestly. And I like it. I like it. I like it. I love it. Yep. I mean, listen, if I were precious about this sort of thing, I would say,

hey, that's cultural appropriation, man. But no. Isn't it? No, but he, well, it kind of is, but it's, but if you did it the other way, it would be called that. But regardless, there's a dance along with it. Yeah. It's actually, it's really well produced. Yep. Yep. Yep. And he does this stuff. He says he does these things as a form of love because he wants to connect people. Yeah. And I think it's not doing it too. No, no. It's definitely making a lot of money. He thinks a YouTuber.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, not everybody on YouTube makes a lot of money. Yeah, no, no, no. The Benmo, we don't. Yeah. But he's got a lot of subscribers. He's got a lot of subscribers.

And I like stories like this. I like stories like this. And he's at... Are you going to play it at your house during Christmas? It's already in my ear. It's in my mind. It's in my heart. It's in my soul.

Okay. And I'll play it the way I play Phil Collins. Once in the Blue Moon. No, I play Phil Collins all the time. Oh. I think you can dance this one. Absolutely. Oh, hey, do you know who would be dancing this one?

A terrible joke. Justin Trudeau would love to dance to this one. Remember when he did his... Oh, that was a bad one. Sorry. You know what, man? We try our best to limit the references to Justin Trudeau on this show for our own mental health. And there you go, just like...

It's just the image of him dancing when he was in India that one time. Oh, that was... That was the height of embarrassment. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, I would hope that he wouldn't be. because this song is actually good. And, no, stay away.

I remember when I was on the red carpet for the Oscars and it was the year Slumdog Millionaire was up, they wanted, E, entertainment was next to us, and they wanted us all to do the dance. And I was like, nope, sorry, not happening. No, no, everyone else did it. I was like, I'm not going to be part. Wise choice.

Yes, wise choice indeed. Yes, you am, not just a hat rack, my friend. All right, up next, we know that DEI hiring is rampant in our universities, but do Canadians accept it? We're going to drill down when we come back right here on the Ben Mulroney Show.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. Thank you so much for joining us. All right, we need to talk about DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion because it had been part of our lives for long enough now that, you know, we wonder how we ever did without it. I'm just kidding. There are a lot of people who don't like DEI. There are a lot of people who think that it has swung too far in the wrong direction.

And there are a lot of people who, yes, there are tons of people who work in DEI at universities and at big companies. But do they represent the will of the people? Well, we're joined now by two gentlemen from McDonald-Lauri Institute and the co-authors of Rise public backlash, Canadian universities and demographic-based faculty hiring. Please welcome to the show, Jeff Sigelette and Brad Epperly. Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for having us. Thank you.

Okay, so Jeff, the two of you decide you're going to write a paper. Why? Well, we, as a background matter, we both experienced the EI hiring in the university environment. I, myself, you know, I'm fairly junior faculty and was on the market during the time when a lot of the jobs I was applying for were restricted, so I couldn't apply for them.

And I thought that that was interesting. And I wasn't a fan of it for obvious reasons. And I would talk to people about it in my own personal life and just was always surprised by the reaction people had. And then I was hired here and my senior colleague here had the idea that we should ask people what they think about it. So we designed a survey experiment to look at that. Okay, and so how did you go about surveying people? What sorts of questions did you ask them? And we'll go with Brad on this one.

Yeah, so it's not just a survey. It's a survey experiment. So if you think about an experiment, you can have some sort of control and some sort of treatment. Most people think about this in the context of like medical trials where you have some placebo. So it's a sugar pill and that's your control. And then you have some sort of drug. And what you're going to see is how well that drug works. So you can embed experiments into surveys if you give different respondents different information in the survey.

So we had a random sample of about 1,500 Canadians, and it's nationally representative, and they were given three separate treatments and one control. So each respondent was randomized into one of those categories. And the treatments were a sort of, so the control was a paragraph about universities in Canada. And then we had three treatments. One was a pro-DEI advocacy treatment about the importance of hiring diverse faculty and prioritizing that. One was a fairly neutral, although people who might say it's a little bit critical, take

on sort of internal hiring practices when the administrators at a university might tell the department that if they want to make a hire, that person will need to diversify the faculty. And then the last treatment was just about the Canada Research Chairs, which are the federally funded to the tune of about $300 million a year research chairs that were designed to bring in global talent or retain top Canadian researchers from heading elsewhere. And so we just wanted to see what that information did to people's responses on a variety of questions related to faculty hiring at universities, trust in research, and the like. What we find is that these treatments do, generally speaking, both decrease people's desire to support university DEI, and they also

decreased trust in the research that is produced here at the universities of Canada. That's interesting. But you know, like as you, as you spoke, there were there, there are all sorts of different news stories that were popping into my head. For example, the, the, the story that we covered here maybe maybe six months ago on our show about how university students today are if they have if they believe they have an opinion that is an outlier from what the conventional wisdom is with a large group of people in their class they will not speak up in fact they will probably lie just to get along they do not want to be viewed as the sticky wicket they do not want to be viewed as the people who uh who are making trouble you know and they

certainly don't want to go against the grain the uh of a particular type of social just a student. And so how do you know that you're getting accurate responses? Well, that's a separate question. When it comes to campuses, I would very much agree. Actually, yesterday, I just gave a final for a course that I taught, or I team taught with a colleague in philosophy called Dangerous Ideas. And the whole point being is we got the students to engage and to. Did you? That's fascinating. It was a really cool course and a really fun course. Wait, wait, wait, okay, I've got to ask, I'm sorry, we've got to take a second here. Did you, did you tell people that they could, could they record you?

Because a lot of students, they like to record their professors, and they like to catch some saying stuff that they could run a foul with. Yeah, we didn't. And that was no, and we actually had them agree to use Chatham House rules, which is where you, you can talk about what was said in the meeting, but you can't ascribe names to who said it. Okay. Because the whole point was for them to speak. Yeah. We didn't do a whole lot of talking. So that recordings would not have really, I think, been a problem for my colleague and I,

but we wanted the students to be able to speak freely. On the context of the survey experiment, however, it's an anonymous online survey. So there shouldn't be any social disability that's really affecting people. Yeah, and we made sure to make sure it's demographically representative. So we tested every, we tested for people from different political parties. Like who did you vote for and applied the treatments to those different groups, differentially, you know. Yeah.

I remember there was another story that I heard in the news. This took place in the United States, but it was an African-American researcher, and he was doing research on, I believe it was black people being killed by cops. Golden Fryer. Yes. And he tells the story that his research, he had to do it twice, and even having done it twice where the results flew in the face of the narrative. that everybody had accepted about

cops and their propensity for killing unarmed black men and he's a black man himself and he couldn't get it published and I wonder if that's where my head went when you said that people are less likely to trust the research that goes on at these universities

I think there's a link I think there is a link there we didn't we didn't like that's not part of our study here our study is designed we intentionally designed it so that even someone who really, really supports the EI, needs to look at the survey and say, oh, this is a problem for us. Like, if people, once people learn, like, even a very neutral basic description of just how the Canada Research Chair program works, they recoil. And we found that from the way the survey

works is it shows you the difference between someone who just supports diversity in the abstract and doesn't know what that's going on with it. And then versus somebody who hears that story about how the CRC is hiring, and they have a very negative reaction, both in terms of their support for diversity on campuses and their trust in the recent reproduced, right? So that's a big issue, even for somebody who doesn't have any initial skepticism about these kinds of things. Well, also one of the things. Oh, yeah, go on. I'm sorry. No, no, please. So one of the things that we say in the paper at the end is that we're not surprised by any of these results, which is not usually something you want to say as an academic. You want to say these new

surprising findings. We're so sexy here. They're really not all that surprising because we have 50 years of regular survey data from like polling firms that show that like Canadians love diversity and they support diversity. Yep. We don't like using demographic characteristics as the way you hire people. Right. Right. We have we have lots of data on that. We have 50 years, almost 50 years of survey data on that. And we find that as well too. So only 6% of Canadians who responded to our various treatment and controls supported the idea of hiring somebody based on their demographic characters. Right.

Yeah. As being the preferable thing to do. So, you know, one of the things that we also try to really show or say is that, you know, not all diversity or DEI policies are created equal and that there's going to be differential support for different policies, but it's something that we should really pay attention to because if certain institutions are leaning heavily on those policies that are incredibly distinct, favored by Canadian voters and citizens and the taxpayers who fund the universities, then it's a potential, you know, medium-term problem for these.

All right. Well, gentlemen, we're going to have to leave it there. Jeff Siglett and Brad Epperly from the McDonald-Laurier Institute. The paper is called Risking Public Backlash, Canadian Universities, and Demographic-based faculty hiring. To the both of you, I say, we should know really quickly. Yes. Sorry, that we are, so this paper is from the MLI, but we're faculty at the University

British Columbia, Okinawomen. Wonderful. Well, thank you very much. So go back to campus. Have a good time. Enjoy the rest of the semester. And then have a happy holiday. Thank you.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. All right. What could the reason be for MP Michael Ma to have crossed the floor from the Conservatives to the Liberals? Could it be that he just likes Christmas parties? Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show.

It's Friday, which means we have an all-star team joining us for this week in politics. Please welcome. Warren Concelling Chris Chapin to the show. Guys, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. All right. Let's jump into that Mark Carney got an early Christmas present yesterday.

And he's very happy to show it off. So let's give a warm welcome to our newest member of the Liberal Party, Michael Maugh. Wow, such a big welcome. Thank you. Thank you. All I want to say is Merry Christmas. Happy holidays and a great 2026 coming to all of you. Thank you.

And enjoy the party tonight. I mean, okay, so he's in a room full of liberals. He's the only liberal in the only liberal in the world. room who didn't vote for the budget and he got a standing ovation so that's that's 2025 to me uh warren why why was everybody so happy about that well because they're one seat closer to a majority like it was it's it was a christmas present it was a new year's present it was a birthday present wrapped all in one he's one seat away from majority and i am hearing that there are other conservatives at least two who are about to be in the wind,

and he's going to get his majority. So, yeah, they're pretty happy about that. They don't have to worry about an election for another year. Yeah, I think a lot of people, I'm fine with that. I don't need to go back to the hall. But like these politicians, Chris, traditionally, if you're a floor crosser, you don't have the longest career.

Scott Bryce is probably the exception that proves the rule. But most of them are one or two terms after that and they're done. So the long-term success is for the liberal brand. It's not for these floor crossers. No, absolutely. You know, there's very little win for most people that cross the floor. I think it's probably just vested in the fact that there's always going to be trust issues with who you are. You know, you abandoned your team to come join and play on our team.

So, you know, but that said, it's a huge win for the Liberal Party of Canada. And Mark Carney specifically to Warren's point, he's one seat closer to a majority guy. government that the people of Canada didn't give him. You know, they're playing great politics. I hope they don't get the majority, but I've heard similar rumors to what Warren was insinuating that there's a couple more in the wings. And given what they just went through, you know, you look at the drama around getting the budget passed, but then bringing forward the pipeline MOU a week later, Elizabeth

Mayf said she felt blindsided and wouldn't support the government again. There's a couple of people in his own caucus that I think are questioning the prime minister's policy directive. So getting that much closer to having that majority vote in parliament and not needing to stress about the things you're going to do for the next couple of years is a massive coup for the for the prime minister. But a warrant, the longer this gets drawn out, in my, in my opinion, just one man's opinion, the floor crossers, the later in the game it gets they start looking more and more psychopathic to me. Meaning like yes, yesterday you had On Wednesday, he's at the conservative Christmas party,

smiling it up, yucking it up, big smiles on his face, dancing with everybody. And then the next day, he's a liberal. That takes a special kind of cold calculation. Yeah, well, welcome to politics. You know, that's just how it is. And like, it's all about winning, guys, right? And Carney's that much closer to winning.

And so, you know, I give him credit. I thought, you guys know, this guy never been involved in politics before at this level, but he's playing it pretty good for somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience. Number one, number two, this is a comment on the leadership of Pierre Paliab, whether conservatives like it or not. I don't even actually care what's going to happen at his leadership review in January. Right now, his caucus are voting with their feet and saying, we don't have confidence in this guy.

like this wouldn't be happening just because of Kearney it's also happening because of polyev the the people within that caucus clearly were dissatisfied with the leadership of their own leader and you know i'm sure i'm sure that's playing into it as well but chris anything to add to that no i i you know i i won't let one or two MPs speak for for polyev's entire leadership but uh if if a couple more start crossing the floor it's uh i think there's going to be a lot of questions being asked around that that caucus table. Yeah. And, and there, you know, there's no question, uh, losing to this quickly after an election. Um, you know, I think Michael Ma's a bit lower on the, you know, the pecking order than

Chris Dantrumont was. I mean, you know, Chris walking being their, their lone Nova Scotia MPs is a lot different than, you know, one of your Markham MPs crossing the floor, uh, who frankly most people had never heard of. But, you know, it's certainly of concern. And I, I thought Pierre had kind of cauterized this issue within caucus. Yeah. I'm not so sure anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, we're going to be paying very close attention, especially over the holidays. All right. On Monday, I believe it was Monday, we started musing about who could be a good replacement to Ambassador Hillman in Washington. And a number of the names that came up were Tory stalwart.

You had the Jason Kenneys. You had the Jean Chares. You had the Lisa Rates. All of them said, you know what, if Mark Carney wants to do. do something to reach across the aisle, if you really wants to blunt any sort of criticism from the Tories, pick one of those people. They would do a great job, and they've got a lot of connections down there, and it'll be great. But now we're hearing that Mark Wiseman is on the short list, and he was one of the loudest voices of the 100 million population for Canada Front.

And I know we have to get to 100 million at some point, but the speed with which that was going to happen is um was a little dubious uh what do you guys think of of mark wiseman potentially being the frontrunner for the ambassadorship of in washington um we'll start with you uh mr kinsella i couldn't pick him out of a police lineup yeah either could anybody else so i i don't really have a strong opinion about him what i did have an opinion about was miss hillman as competent and as experienced a diplomat as she was was not getting the job done you know Carney sent down his a team supposedly to get a trade deal with Trump and they've been down there for months I think some of them have actually had a change of

address and and like nothing's happened so he had to make some change so I don't think she resigned so much it was it was urged to head to the exit so that wasn't working so they needed to make a change I don't know if this new guy is it the one thing I've noticed about But Trump is he surrounded himself with people he's personally comfortable with. They may not be experts, but they're people he trusts, like Lutnik. So maybe that's what Carney's doing here is getting somebody that he trusts that he thinks can get the job done. Yep. What do you think, Chris? Well, I think if there's one thing I've been impressed about the prime minister over, you know, the couple months he's been in power,

has been his willingness to get his people into the roles he wants them to. And this, you know, to Warren's point, screams, I think Hillman was pushed out or politely asked to leave. And I mean, from what I've read on Mark Wiseman, he was described as Mark Carney's protege, somebody who he's worked with and clearly has a large deal of trust in. And so, you know, making him potentially the ambassador to the United States is a position, you darn well better trust the person given the circumstances we're in. So I don't know a whole lot about him beyond that. I agree. I'm a little concerned with anybody who thinks this 100 million population idea is a great place for us to be as a country. But from the perspective of having somebody that the prime minister trusts and thinks can do the job down in Washington, that's somebody

we should all be rooting for. And if this is the guy that the prime minister thinks is best suited for it, then, you know, Godspeed for it. Well, listen, I think, Warren, I think we're losing you after this segment because you've got work to do. But before you leave, I wanted to highlight, We had a conversation with the head of the Lawfare Project who is doing some work based on reporting that you did in the Toronto Sun in 2024 relating to charitable organizations that may or may not be running afoul of the law here in Canada. I want to congratulate you on that.

Thanks. Yeah, the story is there's been some unfairness. CRA, which is in charge of charities, has been letting some so-called pro-pans. Palestinian charities do some things that do not reflect what they're supposed to be doing. Whereas long-time charities, like one I've been involved with, like the Jewish National Fund, been around for a century, plants trees and builds parks and Israel, got decertified, got shut down by the government of Canada. And that's not fair. And that's not right. And so I think the Lawfare Project, Brooke Goldstein, who is a proud Montrealer like you, Ben,

and now lives in New York and is a very impressive person she and her team who are formidable. I've taken this on and said enough is enough and welcome to it. So hopefully they have some success. All right. Well, thank you very much for that. And when we come back,

we're going to be discussing why everyone should be paying attention to the reinvention of the BC Conservative Party. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you very much. Is that the lemon heads? Whatever happened to the lemon heads? They went sour.

Oh. Well done. You can take the rest of the day off. Okay, good job. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We lost Warren Concella, but that's okay because we are still strong in that. We're going to have twice as much Chris Chapin on the show. Chris, thanks so much for sticking around.

Always a pleasure, Ben. So, look, a lot of us who are not. not following the British Columbia Conservative Party every single day. Woke up one day, we're like, oh, the leader that brought them from irrelevance to within a stone's throw of government has been turfed. So I wondered if we could spend a few minutes talking, you know, not necessarily about why it happened, but why this party needs to get this new leadership, this leadership thing done right? because I'm watching this NDP government and there needs to be an adult alternative to the NDP. There absolutely does, Ben.

I think the challenge in front of the BC Conservatives right now is a huge one. You know, like John Rustad or don't, what he did to build that party up and like you said, get them a stone's throw from forming government. government in the last election was one heck of an accomplishment. I think for most people that don't follow BC politics, and I understand most across the country don't. You know, the BC conservatives hadn't elected somebody, elected somebody from 1975 to 2024. You know, they were an irrelevant party in British Columbia politics. It was very much just the NDP and the BC liberals, which was, you know, as you know, a bit of an amalgamation of conservatives and liberals in British Columbia. But what they were

able to do was, was nothing short of almost a miracle, you know, taking power. But that said, British Columbia is not the most conservative province in the country. You know, it is a very progressive province. And I think the challenge ahead of the BC conservatives is finding somebody who can lead that party in a, in a similar manner with similar values that John Rustad had, but that can get them over the finish line. And I think that's going to be one heck of a challenge because they do not have much of a track record of doing that in that province. But, you know, like as we're watching what's happening with the and look to be sure the land title

the couch and land title thing that was the BC Supreme Court that wasn't David Eby but David Eby keeps doubling down and saying this isn't going to be a problem it's not going to be a problem and it is a problem there's an Ontario hotel operator that backed out of a major purchase of Richmond's 14 story Versante Hotel shortly after the Couchon tribes

Aboriginal title ruling citing new uncertainty there was a withdrawal that came just weeks after the offer was accepted like this is this is happening this is very very real and we there needs to be an alternative to this to the NDP that's that's how I feel there I couldn't agree more Ben I think the the challenge is just the politics yeah right the um well because like I said there is there's it feels to me like there are there are two sides of this conservative party you've got you've got the I would say ultra conservatives because ultra is

relative but you've got some pretty like you've got some staunch social conservatives they want to stop they want to stop land recognition and they want to they want to I mean they're they're getting a lot of attention

right they're getting a lot of attention on social media and then I'm sure on the other side you've got to sort of the the mushy liberals and it's got to be very hard to keep them together but it's something that the liberal party of Canada understands very well. Winning solves a lot of problems, right?

It sure, it sure does, Ben. And I mean, I think that's where the challenge that really faces the BC conservatives is are you a conservative party, first of foremost, or are you just the BC liberals with the name BC conservatives? You know, have you just rebranded? Because, I mean, that's if you look at the history of the party, that's what they, you know, where it stemmed from, you know, BC United fell apart under their rebrand. and the conservatives were able to emerge

as the counter to David Evey and the NDP. But that's easier said than done. I think, you know, you've got the moderates that are still within that party, the moderate liberals, you know, maybe red Tories. And then you've got some very blue Tories that make up a chunk of that party that have been very, very vocal.

Yeah. And I think that's the balance they need to figure out is are you going to be, because John Rustad was certainly on that side of that party. Yeah. You know, John Rustad was unabashedly conservative of in a province that that position typically wasn't overly successful. Can they find a leader that can bring those red Tories, those liberals, back into the fold,

or are they just going to keep leading them to David Eby and the NDP in a two-horse race? That was going to be my next question. If you were advising them, like who should be running for this party? I mean, I think whatever the answer to that, Ben, is a healthy, you know, thorough leadership race. I think that's what that party desperately needs. I mean, John Rustad put the party on his back and brought them to relevance where they are today. I think they need a healthy leadership race to figure that out. I think there's such a, you know, I don't want to call them a young party because I think the BC Conservatives were founded in like 1903 or 1904.

But this, you know, this version of the BC Conservatives Party is very young. And so I think they need to do, you know, we always joke and say some soul searching. But I think they need to figure out who they are in a party. And the best way to do that is a leadership race. Get some good names that step forward. There's been a couple that have already put their names forward that are considering running in it, but really define what that party is because I think you'll quickly realize through that leadership race. I mean, that's something you'd know better than better than most folks is the value of a thorough debate within a leadership race and figure out what the ideas your party stands for. And you'll quickly realize whether they resonate with the public because, you know, people will either flock to you or flock to the other guys.

That's right. That's right. Okay. So we got to talk about what's going on on Parliament Hill. We got to talk about how, I mean, it's a really interesting time for a prime minister. A prime minister doesn't have the traditional office of the prime minister, and the prime minister does not live in the prime minister's residence. So where he works and where he hangs his hat, those are off. But at least we know that on the parliament side, they are spending a lot of money to refurbish it, modernize it, and really give it a new lease on life, and that's going to be great.

However, I didn't know this. This chocked us up to like, yeah, we should have been doing this. The story in the Globe Mail is instead of bailing out steel companies, wouldn't be nice to, I don't know, buy the damn steel from the major projects like Parliament. Like, why aren't we using Canadian steel on the, on the reimagining of Parliament Hill? So I know we have politicians who love saying they're standing up for business. Best way to stand up for business is to do it yourself. I listen bad I couldn't agree more I somehow I wasn't surprised when I saw this story you know it just seemed fitting for how phony I think sometimes our politicians are talking about defending Canada and defending Canadian interests that you know of course we're using American steel to rebuild Parliament Hill meanwhile we're we're also announcing you know half a billion dollar you know I don't want to call it bailouts because I don't think that's entirely fair to you know companies like Algoma but half a billion dollars to Algoma.

to keep them on their feet. Yeah, because, you know, because there is no demand south of the border because of what Trump's done with tariffs. And then, yet, we're using American steel to build, you know, literally the heart of our democracy. And I'll be honestly, they are using some of our aluminum and some of our steel, but they're not using nearly as much as they could. And this is, like, I want to be done with this part of our history. I want to be done with a part where we do, we are politicians do the easy thing. They make the announcement. They get the credit for it.

They get the social media likes. But then they don't, then they don't do the follow through. They don't do the follow through. The same things, we saw the same thing with the, you know, with the Stalantis contract.

You know, it made for a really great photo op. But ultimately, if you're telling me that they, there could be language in there that allowed them to do what they did, and we still haven't gotten confirmation of exactly what's in it.

That tells me that, as I've said before, on yet another thing. where we should be serious, we are decidedly unserious. No, but you're completely right, Ben. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case far too often across this country. It's something that drives me nuts. And I think it drives most Canadians nuts.

I think it's where you see cynicism go through the roof when it comes to elected folks. It's the same with, you know, our trade barriers. We still can't figure out how to ship BC wine to Ontario without, you know, taxing it ourselves because we said we'd break down trade barriers, but we never. Yeah, of course. Of course not. Just like we said, we'd back Canadian supporters. Like this deal would have been baked in.

I think it's 35% American steel. You know, when we would have signed these contracts, it would have been years ago. The idea of a trade war with the United States would have been something we'd all scoffed at. But you could change, you can change contracts. I got to go, my friend. I got to have a great, have a great weekend, my friend. All right. Yeah, you too, Ben.

Thank you.