The Ben Mulroney Show - The temperature of this campaign is getting more aggressive and nasty

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Guests and Topics: -The temperature of this campaign is getting more aggressive and nasty with Guest: Caryma Sa’d, Lawyer, Journalist, Protest watcher If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Elbow shot! Elbow shot! Elbow shot! Elbow up! Elbows up! Elbows up! Elbows up! Elbows up! Elbows up! Elbows up! Alex Pearson in for Mr. Ben Mulrooney.

I think you've heard enough of that. Right? I thought maybe we could put the theme song music behind that for the chicken dance or whatever. What's a song you play? Da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Elbows up, that's what it reminded me of. I don't know, there's something about this election that's making people really, really ugly, right?

I mean, there was the elbows up chant when the cameras were around at one polling station. There was another polling station where you've got an elderly guy flipping the bird, right? I call him Two Finger Freddy, and he's now gone viral, right? It's being taken as an up yours to younger generations. He's not taking himself off of Facebook because he's now a meme, right? And so it's just an uglier kind of election campaign

where those who, I guess, feel that they are winning or wanna win are kind of putting it in the face of those who they want to lose. are kind of putting in the face of those who they want to lose. I just don't see it going well if either side, if either camp, Carney or Poliev, cheers and is overly excited during this process because people are very, very divided right now. But what is it? What is going on?

And is the conflict and protest changing? Let's bring in someone who follows this more than anybody I think I can give credit to, Karima Saad, is a lawyer, journalist, protest watcher, and we were just saying in the break Karima, that you must plot out hours and hours of these things because you don't miss anything. So it's quite a feat.

Thanks Alex. Yeah, there are especially of late lots of events to attend, including some of the campaign events where the incidents you just referenced happened. I mean we started to see that with Justin Trudeau where you get people kind of following around, right? The F Trudeau clan and that, that you'd get that kind of stuff. But I don't recall, maybe I mean, do you recall seeing kind of an ugly voting period like this? Have you seen this complexion?

Ugly is the perfect adjective. And, you know, having trapped these movements, protest movements, political movements over the past five years, I would say it's gotten uglier. I would say it's gotten uglier. So in the 2021 election, there were incidents like what you just referred to with the gravel throwing, you know, the whole escrudo campaign in and of itself is quite vulgar, right? And I think that since then, we've just seen continued degradation of language, political discourse, where really everyone is at their worst at this moment in time. And where are you seeing it that surprises you most? Or are you? I mean, I didn't really have the over 70 crowd doing the old finger to the camera. I mean, I'm not

sure where they think that's gonna go, but where is it coming from? Oh, that's such a great question. I think a lot of this stems from political parties themselves and the way that they communicate to their members, particularly trying to incite fear, incite hatred, and this idea that our neighbors who see things differently are in fact the enemy and are therefore a threat to be neutralized. And that never leaves anywhere good any time in history. So that I think is at a critical juncture

with respect to some of the language and slogans coming out. I will say in particular from the Liberal Party, although this is a phenomenon across the board. But the very idea of Elbow Duff, I think, is putting people in a frame of mind where they want to take an aggressive stance. They show up not to take an aggressive stance. They show up not to just celebrate, you know, their leader or their candidate, but also come with some baggage of hostility that gets directed to, whether it's protesters, or even in our case, just independent media capturing the event. If you're not with us, you're against us. That's very much the mentality I'm seeing on the ground. Yeah, it's really unfortunate because so much of the story is only told from one slant, right? And there's a

lot of information missing. I mean, you're an independent journalist, you've been doing this for a long time. Most people should know who you are, but you've been kept out of several carny events, right? You haven't been able to go in and cover those things. Other independent media have not been allowed into certain things. And then you've got you know the Poliev side where you've got the mainstream media you know complaining that they don't get access. So it's it's not a great look I think all the way around. Having said that, what does it look like after next week?

You know because you've been covering these certainly a lot of the anti-Israel protests, all that stuff. All of that stuff is not gonna go away. But what does Canada, in your mind, as far as the anger and the division and the protests that you've been seeing, what does that look like or move forward on Tuesday morning? Unfortunately, I don't think it just dissipates and goes away entirely.

Whatever the outcome of this election, you are going to have a substantial camp of very unhappy people. And you know, that isn't going to stop over the next four years. Whoever manages to come into power will have a serious responsibility to turn down the temperature. That's something that we haven't really seen any of our leaders do. And the impact of that is regular people starting to lash out and behave in ways

that are totally incompatible with a civil society. So whoever wins is going to have that responsibility and whether they will honor that or continue along this line of divisive politics remains to be seen. Yeah, but again it's not going to end well and I mean I will say on the situation with Israel, the Jews, certainly around Toronto, Pierre Poliev has been pretty unequivocal like since day one in his stance and trying to say like enough is enough. But we have not seen that leadership, not from the true government, you know, pandering back and forth between votes, also Jagmeet Singh. And I don't know who will actually stand up to it. And that's a concern.

We've not seen any leadership, certainly from Olivia Chow, chiefs of police. And so who's that leader? Olivia Chow, Chiefs of Police. And so who's that leader? There are so many moving parts and stakeholders. I think a big part of it is police and what they are willing or have been guided to do, the approach that they have been mandated to take. I think that a lot of the protests and unrest that we currently see, you know, if the actual

troublemakers from the groups, and they are often identifiable, often repeating across different protests, if that was addressed, I think that, you know, we would be able or in a better position to honour people's civil liberties, charter rights, but not at the expense of public order and public safety. So that balance has not been struck. And for what reason, why are leaders unwilling to be principled? I don't know. And that is very troubling.

As I said, there are lots of stakeholders, there's money, there's power, all of those factors play in. And you know, until we actually take a principled approach, right, the laws exist, we don't need new laws. I think both the Liberals and the Conservatives and the City of Toronto are talking about installing new laws, protest bubbles, etc. We don't need that. We just need to apply the laws that we currently have in an even-handed way. Yeah, it's called leadership.

It's like do the basics of your job because as you know, there are a lot of agitators and there are paid agitators. Two years in, I'm sure you can pick out of the crowd those who are there to do that professionally, these protests. And again, if you remove that element, maybe these things would start going away. And I don't know why it's so difficult for leaders to actually act like them. It makes no sense. We could spend hours unpacking that for sure. Well, I would like to not have to

unpack it, right? Like how many more of these are you gonna cover, right? They're only going to get worse as we allow them and normalize them. I find it hard to disagree. Over the past few years, the general trend, I would say, is escalation in behavior. As certain things become normalized, then it just gets more, you know, push the boundaries a little bit more, a little bit more each time to the point that it's total chaos.

You know, it's trite, but democracy and rule of law are fragile in that it requires people to kind of self-correct and act right within the agreed upon boundaries. If we don't agree on those boundaries anymore, or if they are being unevenly enforced or selectively enforced, then everyone will just get away with whatever they can. And that is bad for society as a whole. Indeed. Look at the convoys, how they were handled and this not handled. Two rules for different groups.

I'm out of time, but so much appreciate yours. Thanks Alex. Always thank you. That's Karima Saad joining us here and she is the one covering all these protests. Worth watching what comes out of it. Alex, we're just in for you, Mr. Bo Memorand. He'll be back with you on Tuesday.

Great to have you on this Monday, which I think turns out to be a pretty nice day off. For a few of you out there, certainly kids get another day off school, so they're hanging out. Going through a couple of the things. If you're watching on the campaign trail, I think we're into that last week of throw everything at the wall, right? You've got Piyarpolyiev in the 416905. This week, the players, all of them, will go to the places that they think they can shore up of votes.

So Mr. Poliev will hang out in the 416905 area, hoping to get that battleground solidified for his party. He came out today with a real estate or a housing announcement building of 2.5 million homes over four years, right? So everyone's making their promises and then on the week and the big announcement out of Mr. Carney's campaign was the announcement of $130 billion in new spending, which basically, you know, everyone's, I think, eyelids should have been folding back by then because that's

a pretty astonishing figure, right? If you're trying to channel change, how is it change when you're actually just spending the same as the old guy? And I think if anyone is asking questions today of the fiscal steward, because that is what Mr. Carney says, he's a fiscal steward, right? He is the guy to fight the crises. And then you think, okay, but you sound a lot like the old guy and you spend a lot more than the old guy, right?

And then you've got former BC liberal Premier Gordon Gordon Campbell who's saying, look, we've got the record of the last 10 years. You know, when you're going to the polls, we know what this government does. You can swap out the guy that they just brought in, but you're still stuck with the same advisors, the same MPs, nothing changes. But here is what he said. He didn't really mince words, the BC Liberal Premier, former. No, I'm not thinking about where my support should go. I think we should hold governments to account. The liberal decade was a dismal decade for Canada. Their immigration policies hurt every one of

our cities. They made our housing problem worse. They made our health care problem worse. They made our educational problems worth. We have to hold governments to account. One person does not a government make. You know, I wouldn't count on the federal government delivering and executing a program anytime as long as it's the same group that's been there the last 10 years. They've been incompetent and they've led us down the wrong road. I'm not saying they weren't well intended. They just didn't do the job. They have to do the job, not just for me and my generation. We've been taking care of pretty well. But I'll tell you, my grandkids deserve to have a government that's thinking about them, not thinking about debt, not thinking about expediently taking care of this group

or that group. How are we building the future for Canada? That's what I'm voting for. And I think that Mr. Poliev has the platform that will get us there. All right. So he throws his endorsement to Mr. Poliev. And I guess quite a few people certainly in these last few days will have to do some pretty hard thinking. Right. What does what does the world look like after Tuesday in this country? And certainly, you know, a lot of young people might be very, very angry at an older generation if they just give the Carney government just a carte blanche, do whatever you want. Other issues, right, have to be solved. It's not just about Trump.

We've hardly heard Trump's name in the last couple of weeks. But we are hearing about issues. Like this is the thing, when we're not talking about Trump, you have to start looking at all the other issues. And one of the big issues in this country hasn't really been talked about during the campaign, but certainly a huge issue, right? And that is the drug issue, the crisis that we have in this country that's ravaging this country and nothing's been done to stop it. Trudeau government brought in, you know, they wanted to bring in and decriminalize hard

drugs, they brought in and wanted to run harm supply and safe supply, all these things, and they've ravaged communities right across this country. And that stays if the Carney team stays in, right? There's no guarantee that's going to be going anywhere. That view of how drugs are, you know, doled out and the way we treat those who are addicted. I don't see that stopping if you don't get a change of government. It is something that Pierre Poliev is running on, of making it so that judges will force you into treatment. If that saves your life, you'll get a choice. You either go to jail or you go into treatment.

And so that is one thing he is doing. We asked our calls, got lots of lots of interest, 4168706400888225 talk, whether or not this is the kind of policy change that would bring you to a vote. Because again, what these issues look like now, if nothing gets done about it, imagine what they look like in 10 years, if we have not drastically changed the approach to this issue. It's not gonna go away. We've had 50,000 people die from fentanyl and opiate overdose.

We know that it's not working. And so at some point, we gotta figure out a new way to do these things. And the pivot from Poliev is to get people into treatment, get rid of the safe supply, the harm reduction, that kind of stuff, and also make it so that if someone's before the courts on a charge, then they have a choice or the judge will make it for them. You can either go to jail or you get treatment.

Now, I'm all about compassion, but I want compassion in the form of sobriety. Sobriety. And there is a point when a drug addict, or an addicted person, can't make those decisions for themselves. You know, and people who are family and loved ones, they can't force them to do anything, and they can't get help to do anything.

And so if the judges, if we could equip judges or police to make those decisions, isn't that how we should be going? 416-870-6400, 888-225-TALK. Otherwise, you're going to get policies with the Carney government that just continue on with this. Imagine that. Hi Mark. Hey Alex, you know what, I think it actually is not a bad idea. I think people who are intoxicated and addicted to drugs, obviously they're out of this world and all they can think of is their next fix.

So I think it would be much better than what we have now. I actually voted today and I'm not an ideologue. I've voted for every different party, so has my wife and daughter, but we all voted conservative today because we can read that candidate sort of off the rails right now. And nothing personal against Cardi and nothing personal against Trudeau, but we think that it's time for a change. And where are you? Where are you located? You're in Oakville. Okay, there you go. Okay, thanks very much, but I appreciate this. And I do think, look, this will be an issue. All of these things that we've been told during this election are not issues, very much are

issues because Trump's not our only problem. If we don't solve our own issues here on this side of the border, this country, I don't even know what it looks like because we already see what the drugs and the ravaging of this opiate crisis, we already know what it looks like. We already know how the drugs and the ravaging of this opiate crisis we already know what it looks like we already know how organized crime is getting involved right fix it or let it fester hey James hi yeah one of my buddies he was involved in drugs still it probably still is and he he had one of those did my point is is the judges already have this authority where they have several diversion programs.

There's one if it's your first defense, then you can get your charges wiped away completely. But they also have like, you know, either you're going to... You have to do seven days or seven weeks in this facility or this program. And if you don't, then we're gonna come back and we're gonna send you to jail. And he got sentenced to jail after being in one of these diversion programs. So not only do the diversion programs not always work, but they're already part of policy in the, at least in Ontario

as part of the administration of justice. Yeah, I would have to look into that just to see where it stands now. But it's my understanding that that is no longer like you can't, you can't actually commit somebody. I will double check that. But again, I think there are other barriers that come up. Let me get to David. Hey, David. Hey, David.

Hi, Alex. I am absolutely in favor of intervention. I had a partner who had an alcohol addiction for me for three years until we moved in together. I tried everything, everything to get her to go to treatment. I had emergency crisis social workers come over and take her only for them to release her later the same day. I gave her every opportunity she could ever ask for and I really cared for this person

and it came down to the point where things escalated where she got very physical. She threw an ashtray at me, a heavy, heavy glass ashtray, can trust me with it. At which point I had no choice. I had to get the police involved, which got her out. And then I pressed charges against her for assault. And, you know, in the end, I eventually dropped the charges because I didn't want to, I didn't want that record overhead

for the rest of her life. I'm gonna run out of time, Dave, but you are for this. You are for this, right? I'm gonna run out of time with Dave, but you do everything and you're as patient as you can be, but ultimately, you gotta get help, right? Want to transform your space and your Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving you the chance

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