The Ben Mulroney Show - The Toronto hour -- Drug dealer charged with manslaughter, protester steals reporter's scooter

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

- London City Councillor Susan Stevenson - Caryma Sa'd/lawyer and independent journalist If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! �...�⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This podcast is sponsored by Better Help. If you've been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be. Politics, conflict, uncertainty. It's a lot to carry. And for many men, there's this expectation to stay calm, stay in control, and not talk about how it's affecting you. But the truth is, you're allowed to feel overwhelmed. You're allowed to say, I'm not okay right now.
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Starting point is 00:00:54 BetterHelp, help.com slash Mulruni. This is a paid advertisement for Better help. These days, it feels like everywhere you turn, someone's got a new theory on how to improve your mental health. From ice baths to meditation apps, there's a lot of noise out there about what's supposed to make you feel better. But the truth is, finding what actually helps you isn't always that simple. When it comes to mental health, there is no one size fits all solution. That's why speaking with someone who is trained to listen and to help, someone who can meet you where you are and help you figure things out can make such a difference. Trust me, I know what I'm talking. about. BetterHelp connects people with mental health professionals from around the world
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Starting point is 00:02:20 Thank you so much for being here. This month went by very, very quickly. But we will all remember where we were when we heard the news that Taylor Swift got engaged to her longtime boyfriend member of the Kansas City Chiefs
Starting point is 00:02:35 Super Bowl winning Travis Kelsey and I'm so happy for her I'm so, so very happy for her I love Taylor Swift I love her I still have my friendship bracelets and I don't care if it doesn't
Starting point is 00:02:52 I don't care if I'm an old man and I'm not supposed to do this I do what I want okay and I'm just, she deserves happiness. She's dated some not so great boyfriends, but those not so great boyfriends turned into some hit songs. So are we going to enter a new era in Taylor Swift's life? And is this going to be the era of, you know, love that found purchase, right?
Starting point is 00:03:20 The seed was planted and it grew as opposed to those false starts and unfinished symphonies that were all her other relationships. I don't know. I don't know if she's a very talented lady and I believe she writes the songs that exist in my heart. Like she writes my feelings. That's what it is.
Starting point is 00:03:36 So to Taylor Swift and to Travis Kelsey I say congratulations and we will be cheering yon from the Ben Will Rine show. People were asking me earlier today how this, like what this wedding is going to be like? I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm not a, I'm not a,
Starting point is 00:03:54 I don't follow entertainment news the way I used to. And so I have no idea. But I hope, I hope that they do it private. I hope they do it very, very privately. I do enjoy how some people found out about it, though. Oh, yes, that's right. Yes, thank you very much. So, okay, I just telegraphed, I'm a big fan.
Starting point is 00:04:16 I had to tell you I'm a big fan. This woman, what's her name? Her name is Olivia Ronaldo. as she works for CBS News and she was waiting for a hit. She was going to do a hit for CBS News from the White House lawn. Like that's where you want to be
Starting point is 00:04:33 if you're a journalist on the way up. She did not, you can see in this moment, nothing else matters. The tariffs, Ukraine, whatever the heck she was talking about, did not matter in this moment. Let's listen. Taylor Swift is engaged.
Starting point is 00:04:51 Taylor Swift is engaged. This, come back. to me she just posted it oh my god oh my god oh it's huge the ring is ginormous this is so exciting oh my god oh my god oh my god it's on her Instagram it's on her Instagram it's on her Instagram oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god I feel like Paul Revere right now like this is a very exciting moment for me in my professional career because I get to announce that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are engaged She did not sound like a journalist right there
Starting point is 00:05:27 She sounded like a fan girl And good for her Because that's what Taylor Swift does How many? Oh my gods were there? Eight maybe 12. Oh, there's 12? I think there. I think yeah, it's something like that Yeah, and she put on her Instagram
Starting point is 00:05:38 She's a fan Everybody, if you're a fan of Taylor Swift Then you're not Yeah, you're a Swifty You're not a banker and you're not a student And you're not a this and you're a Swifty And in that moment she was a Swifty She was not a CBS reporter about to go live
Starting point is 00:05:54 into one of the most storied news programs in American history. She was a Swifty. Yeah, she went from going from super serious talks about tariffs and policing and taking over police departments in various cities to Taylor Swift. Well, so that's, that was a lovely story we just shared. Here's one that was shared yesterday on a show on another, on this radio station that we broadcast from. Brad Smith
Starting point is 00:06:23 For those of you who don't know Brad Smith He's been really He's been learning the ropes here At at a chorus radio He's been filling in for a lot of people He's been acquitting himself
Starting point is 00:06:33 Very very well You may recognize his face Because he was the He was the original Bachelor Canadian Bachelor And he's also been on food network And reinvented himself As a Bon Vivant in the media
Starting point is 00:06:47 And he's doing a great great job Well yesterday He was on a show on this network, and he relayed a personal story about Taylor Swift. I'll show you this picture. I have a picture of me and Taylor Swift in my phone. I interviewed her in 2014 for when 1989 came out. When she walked into the room, I understood in that moment, even though this was like
Starting point is 00:07:10 pre-superstar, why she was a superstar. She commanded the room. She was so nice to everybody. But when she spoke, the people listened. her PR person did ask if I wanted to go to Soho House it's like a members club in Toronto
Starting point is 00:07:27 and she wasn't asking so that I could go join the PR person but I was engaged at the time from that TV show it happened a couple times but the other famous one was Madonna actual true story
Starting point is 00:07:39 yeah he was they set him up with Madonna and they tried to set him up with Taylor Swift I met Taylor Swift a couple of times and she was she could not have been nicer. Now, I didn't meet her at the height of her fame. I met her on the way up. She could not have
Starting point is 00:07:57 been nicer. She showed up early for her interviews. She stuck around as we were trying to, the expression is, jege the set, you know, make it pretty, change the lights. She was patient. She did not complain. And she also didn't mind when I brought my niece to meet her, which is a no-no these days. Oh, big time. But I was not going to, I don't, I didn't care. Like, You're not paying me enough. So at least I'm going to get these bonuses out of it. Anyway, so congratulations. Congratulations to her.
Starting point is 00:08:27 And I think we should talk about Air Canada for the last couple of minutes here. So as we know, voting on Air Canada's new tentative agreement for flight attendants begins today. And there's a growing discontent over the proposed wage increases with an online petition already collecting 4,800 signatures. So it's a four-year deal. deal that offers 16 to 20% total pay raises with starting wages at 33, 60 an hour, top wages reaching $68.14 by year 10. Many of the flight attendants argue that this remains below a livable wage in cities like Toronto and Vancouver. How is $68 an hour, which translates into about $130,000, $140,000. Yeah. I don't know. And I don't know what their schedules are. For
Starting point is 00:09:20 example, one of my best friends in the world is an Air Canada flight attendant. And he's been working there for 20 some odd years. As long as I've been in media, actually more than that. I think he started when we both got out of college. So he's been doing it for 20, almost 30 years. And so he does that job. But he's also a real estate agent on the side. So it's not a nine to five.
Starting point is 00:09:47 And there are certain times where you are working a lot. but, and other times when you're not, and that's when he does this other stuff. But when you take the job, you accept that these, you have these weird hours. Sort of like our job, we have, we have bizarre hours ourselves. Yeah, well, he's, so we're all going to pay very close attention to this, because if, if in fact, the flight attendants decide to say no to this deal,
Starting point is 00:10:12 what we learn today is it probably will not result in going back to the picket line. I think they're going to go back to work, but they will be, they're going to go to binding arbitration. So that's a, 16 to 20% pay raises. I know that they had to level set because they had a 10 year deal before and a lot has changed in the past 10 years. And so they needed to catch up a little bit. But look, I would kill to have a 16% raise over four years. I mean, that's pretty good.
Starting point is 00:10:39 Yeah, that wouldn't be too, too bad. So I don't know. There's, there are, whenever I hear about these negotiations that take place in public for these big. collective bargaining things, whether it be the post office or whether it be Air Canada. I get jealous of what they're asking for. Yeah. We've had deals in the past where
Starting point is 00:11:00 I worked previous. I remember a four-year deal we had. I think it was zero two and two. That was it. Yeah. See, that's more than media. And we were apparently lucky to get that. Yes. Yeah, we're all very lucky. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you both for that
Starting point is 00:11:16 and thank you for joining us at the top of this show. York police have laid a rare manslaughter charge against a suspected drug dealer after an overdose death in Vaughn. But is this just one case or the start of a new way to crack down on crime? This is The Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. And sure, it's called The Ben Mulroney Show. But in this segment, it's all about your opinion.
Starting point is 00:11:45 So give us a call at 416-8-60-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. Here's what we're talking about. Investigators with the York Region Police Number 4 District Criminal Investigators Bureau, that's a mouthful, have charged a man with manslaughter and drug trafficking following an overdose death in the city of Vaughn. So this person died, and they're going after the drug dealer for manslaughter, right? Didn't intend to kill him, but you killed him. Might as well have been a gun.
Starting point is 00:12:15 And this is new. This is, or at least it feels new, right? It feels new, but it's not. So the guy named Jafari Rootsari, 29, town of Georgina, was charged with manslaughter and trafficking of a schedule one substance. Possession and breach of probation. Breach of probation. And so it feels new, right?
Starting point is 00:12:40 It's like, ooh, they're weaponizing the courts against these drug dealers, which is a good thing. But when you think about it, this sort of. of pain point, this sort of leverage over people in their behavior, it happens just in other places and gives a call 4168-870-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. We'd love to talk to you about this. Parents and guardians can be charged in cases of medical neglect. So a parent refusing to seek medical care for a sick child due to religious beliefs or mistrust of doctors.
Starting point is 00:13:17 And a lot of people have been, their parents have been charged. that have been charged. If the only way to save your kid is a blood transfusion and you don't want to do it because you don't believe, you can be charged. I don't believe you'll always be charged, but you can be. Drunk driving, right? If whoever hosted the party,
Starting point is 00:13:39 if you kept serving and someone got in their car and drove drunk, you can be liable. And then there's also same thing with bartenders. If bartenders know that they are overserving somebody and then they go outside and they get into some trouble, the bartender is going to be in trouble too. And you might remember a couple, I think it was a couple of years ago, there was a school shooter in Michigan. And his mother was charged as well because there was, and when you heard the evidence against her, it was damning. Like this was a woman who just refused to see the warning signs and her son eventually took one of her guns and killed a lot of people's school. So she is now in prison as well.
Starting point is 00:14:29 But it's just interesting with the manslaughter case with a drug dealer. You think about the opioid crisis in the United States, especially, the pharmaceutical companies were held liable and had to pay billions in damages. But this is the next step. It's that dealer, the guy that provides the drugs to someone being held liable for manslaughter when, I mean, they took the drugs willingly, supposedly. Well, what's going to be, well, it'll be interesting is I've watched enough law and order. We've all watched enough law and order that sometimes the drug dealer, the street level drug dealer that you get, that's not the prize. The prize is the gang running the whole thing. And I don't know what they're going to do here.
Starting point is 00:15:11 But if this were, if this were district attorney McCoy. He would be going, he'd be trying to leverage this guy, flip him. So he goes, so he tells you who his supplier is, flip that guy and all the way up, the criminal enterprise, you go until you get to, you can't go any further. I don't know if they're going to do that. I don't know if they have the capacity to do that. If this guy is, even if they stop and are settled on this, I think that's a net positive. I think it's a net positive.
Starting point is 00:15:40 But yeah, so give us a call it 416-870-6400 or one triple-8. 225 talk and this is interesting though right this is we don't to be adding
Starting point is 00:15:55 to the what is your responsibility in any given place I mean this guy is a drug dealer he is he's conducting
Starting point is 00:16:03 illicit illegal work so it's not like you're responsible as a bartender or you're hosting a dinner party but I do like
Starting point is 00:16:13 that they are trying I very much like that They are trying to use the courts to change behavior. Although, if I'm a drug dealer and I watch this case carefully, if you end up getting arrested and then charged, and if he goes to court, if this guy doesn't actually spend any time in jail,
Starting point is 00:16:37 if he gets time served, then if I'm the next drug dealer, I'm thinking, oh, I can handle that. Yeah, it'll be a pain in the butt to have to go to court and defend myself. But even in a worst case scenario, if I end up going to get convicted, nothing's going to me. I'll be right back on the street selling my drugs the next day. And we've spoken about this many, many times.
Starting point is 00:17:01 That's one of the problems that has came out of all of the liberal soft on crime policies and laws is that there were examples out there for everybody. And if you're a drug dealer, if you're a drug dealer, you're going to pay attention to this one very, very closely. Okay, Dan on line two. Welcome, Dan. Good morning, Ben. Hi. I've called and spoken with you and said this exact thing.
Starting point is 00:17:28 When I heard this yesterday, I cheered. Yeah. For the first time in a long time, I cheered. And I said, on my call with you, I said that drug dealers nowadays with fentanyl being laced and everything, they know that there's a possibility that someone's going to overdose or die. Therefore, it's the intention. There's manslaughter, it should be an instant manslaughter or second-degree murder charge instantly. Yeah. And I'd even give death penalty. The one except for me is a drug dealer. There's no correlation with the example you're saying with parenting and so forth. Parenting, the intent is to put out good kids. A drug dealers,
Starting point is 00:18:05 there is no good intent. Yeah, well, look, but the intent is obviously is not to make sure that one of your customers dies, but that's not really the point. It's about It's about having, like, what would a reasonable person do in that safe? If the reasonable person test is applied to a drug dealer, then the reasonable person would say, you know what, there's a lot of fentanyl out there, and I'm selling drugs, this might have fentanyl in it. And, but so if you don't then take the step to test it or be careful. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:18:37 Which is why manslaughter fits. It's like selling guns that have one bullet in the chamber. Yeah. It's Russian roulette. Every time you give someone a packet of something or a perk a set or whatever the hell they're buying, it doesn't matter. There's zero. Dan, I got to drop you, but thank you so much for kicking this off for us. Appreciate it.
Starting point is 00:18:54 And let's now say hi. Steve on eight. Welcome, Steve. Thanks for calling in. Hey, Ben. I lost my son in 2021 to a drug overdose. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.
Starting point is 00:19:05 Well, the guy who manufactured all the drugs down here was caught with a pill press with was caught with pounds of fentanyl in his garage and who was making it, got two years, two 10-year sentences served concurrently, which means he'll probably be out in six. Yeah. Yeah, that's,
Starting point is 00:19:24 uh, that's, uh, that's, we let these guys walk. Yeah. I'm in, I'm in,
Starting point is 00:19:31 I'm in, uh, and you, the overdoses we've had, it's unbelievable. Yeah. And this guy gets six years. Yeah,
Starting point is 00:19:39 he'll get six years. And, and, and meanwhile, your, your, family's life was was torn asunder and I just even the worst part I went to court to watch this guy get sentenced he turned and smiled at me oh gosh my he knows everybody knows you're still
Starting point is 00:19:58 drugs in Canada nothing will happen to you yeah and and people are watching this that's my point the other the other drug dealers are going to be watching this very carefully and if this guy gets off or gets of you know two two two weeks in in prison And then they're all going to say, you know what? Let's just keep doing what we're doing. Hey, thank you so much for calling in. I'm so sorry that this happened to your family. And where are we going to go?
Starting point is 00:20:20 We're going to go to Sergio now. Sergio, thanks so much for calling into the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, thanks for having me on. So I just have a quick point to make, I work in the court system. And as much as people want to blame the liberal soft-on-crime laws, I think the bigger problem that needs to be addressed is the liberal soft-on-crime case law that judges have imposed on our society over, many, many years. So I hope this is a step
Starting point is 00:20:45 in the right direction. I hope that if, you know, the crown is successful in pursuing these charges and hope it gets appealed and it goes right to the top. And I hope we have some brave, you know, Supreme Court judges who take a bit of a turn here and start to
Starting point is 00:21:00 shift the case law that judges are bound by, but sentenced people. So the law is one thing, but the case law is what's drowning us and I hope that gets pressed. Serja, thank you so much. That was important for us to end on that And to Frank and Dave who called in, I do apologize, but we're taking a break. And much more to come, including a London-Ontario city counselor was vilified for her views on homelessness and drug abuse, but is what she said wrong?
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Starting point is 00:22:41 Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. So we are on our way. We're ramping up. I think Sunday is international overdose awareness day.
Starting point is 00:23:18 And we at the Ben Mulroney show have decided that we are going to pick up that the challenge of being a voice for what we think is a reasonable position in the debate around drugs in our society and drugs amongst the most vulnerable. and yesterday we had a woman on our show who was she faced a lot of scrutiny from Peterborough the city she's in because she wanted to open a treatment facility apparently that was not allowed and so
Starting point is 00:23:55 the question that we're asking yesterday is why are people so afraid of treatment why are we so excited to throw drugs at people throw drugs at the drug addicts Here, come, come, try him here. Can we make you more comfortable? Would you like to shoot up in where it's nice and warm?
Starting point is 00:24:14 Why aren't we focusing on treatment? As we said on the show, I've said this before. The drug addict will take the path of least resistance. Meaning, if I'm standing in front of the drug addict and I have two things in my hands. On one hand, I've got drugs. And in the other hand, I have a 30-day all-expense paid trip to the world's great greatest treatment facility. Which one do you think the drug addict is going to take every single time?
Starting point is 00:24:43 Unless they've hit that rock bottom thing and they just can't do it anymore. They're going to go with the drugs. So we have to work even harder at making treatment more accessible and more attractive and more effective. So with that as the backdrop, we're going to continue these conversations. And there was a London city council by the name of Susan Stevenson, who in July 23, committed a cardinal sin. I mean, this was a big deal, guys. Like this, I'm surprised.
Starting point is 00:25:16 Yeah. Yeah. Susan, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, Ben. Yeah, okay. So I hear this. I hear that you were, you had committed a terrible crime.
Starting point is 00:25:29 Why don't you tell everybody what this terrible crime was that you committed? Well, it seems that, talking about what's wrong in our city or wanting to help people beyond the help that, you know, we're currently offering is really not allowed here. Okay. So let's let's get specific. Okay.
Starting point is 00:25:51 So in July 2023, what? You're at city council? Yes. Okay. Not even into my first, like just not even into the first year yet. Okay. And I put out, I retweeted a smirkownish article called How to Solve Homelessness. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:05 And by the way, for people who don't know, Peter, I think it's Peter Spurconish, he was the mayor of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or something, yeah, Pittsburgh. And now he is, he's on CNN. He also has his own Sirius XM radio channel. And he is the face, the face of the modern centrist in the United States. He's not left. He's not right. He's dead center. That's his brand.
Starting point is 00:26:28 So you retweeted a centrist position by the most centrist guy in the United States. Yes, with the title, with a provocative title that says how to solve homelessness. Okay. Oh, yeah. And it was this crazy utopian idea that I think most people support all levels of government, work together. Everyone who needs a home gets it. Everyone who needs treatment gets it. And if somebody refuses all of those things and insists on living on the park, they would be arrested. And that, I mean, listen, that, that, that word injured me. That, that, that word was an act of violence against me. I'm feeling unsafe. I'm feeling triggered. And so, so what happened to you? So you say this. And you put this out there. Yes. God forbid people hear ideas that they might disagree with. But go on. So what happens?
Starting point is 00:27:18 What happens to you? Yes. Well, we have some drug user, you know, some people who support drug users and fight for drug user rights here. And they retweeted the article and retweeted my post and said, let me be perfectly clear. Counselor Stevenson is calling for the internment of homeless people. She wants them rounded up and arrested and put in internment camps. It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high. That's correct. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:51 Because this went national news. I did as many radio interviews and newspapers. I kept saying, no, I am not saying we're going to arrest every homeless person. I'm saying, you know, they deserve to have all of these offers and treatment. And yes, if they absolutely refuse and say, I'm digging a stake in this park and this is where I'm going to be, what would happen if it were you and I? Yeah, yeah. The same treatment would be the same. And, you know, sadly, this quote leader in our community who did that repost of my post, it ended up with criminal harassment of some young person from the university.
Starting point is 00:28:31 threatening me and my family because I think they probably didn't even follow what I'm doing. They just follow these leaders who are saying, we've got this crazy politician who wants to arrest every, yeah. Okay, so let's go back to what happened to you at city council, because this is a person on the outside, but these are your colleagues, right? This is, you got voted in. It must have been an honor for you. What happened?
Starting point is 00:28:54 Well, it certainly was an honor for me to get elected, although it seems to have put a shock through the whole system here. I didn't realize that people who weren't already sort of known and weren't, you know, I got in and they're still not sure how this happened. Oh, of course. They think freely and just wants to represent the people. It's actually got a place with a voice. That's terrible.
Starting point is 00:29:18 Terrible. Yeah. Okay. So, so what have you? You were sanctioned by counsel. I was sanctioned by counsel. The integrity commissioner didn't follow our code of conduct protocol. They just emailed me and said, we've,
Starting point is 00:29:30 have a finding against you. And I said, well, you skipped a bunch of steps. Yeah. So actually that particular one was dismissed by the integrity commissioner. Yeah, because it was a process without any integrity. No, that one actually, the integrity commissioner said, although they found it a bit provocative, there wasn't anything wrong with me posting that. Okay.
Starting point is 00:29:49 But a couple of months later, in September of that year, I had posted out some pictures of homeless people in my area, which is, it's ground zero for the addiction crisis in our city. People are devastated in that area, unhoused and housed. Yep. And I posted out a few pictures of homeless people. I did try to block out the face on one. And basically, I was saying, where's the help for these people? Like, there wasn't anything, they were just sitting there drinking juice boxes or walking down the middle of the road.
Starting point is 00:30:18 I didn't take any pictures that were, you know, disparaging of them. And for that one, the integrity commissioner found me guilty and recommended a formal reprimand. and counsel did vote to do that. Found you guilty of what? They said conduct unbecoming of a city council. Oh, Jesus, H. And the next, you know, not even a year after that, senior management of City Hall filed a complaint against me
Starting point is 00:30:48 of bullying, harassment, and targeting. And the integrity commissioner found me guilty of that. And in it, they said, even though her words and tone are moderated, and she sounds respectful. The persistent questioning on the issue of homelessness is experienced by the senior management as harassment. Okay, so this is, this, it feels like, uh, crazy town.
Starting point is 00:31:10 It feels like we've taken crazy pills. 30 days pay. So, and you lost 30 days pay. So really, we don't have a lot of time left. So I want to get through a few things with you, uh, Susan, is, are we in a better place today to have these conversations than we were a few years ago? Well, I think so in that I'm going to speak freely now. I mean, there's a year left of our term.
Starting point is 00:31:30 Our city's in crisis were worse off than we were two years ago. The hunger strike where the drug user rights activists were out there have somehow been given a position of power in terms of our homeless response. Counsel is deferring to these, quote, experts. We don't get the briefings. We're not allowed at the table. The city is worse, and we don't want to talk about it. But I am going to talk about it because the people have had it here.
Starting point is 00:31:55 Are you going to run again? I am going to run again and I'm going to speak very vocally off. I'm going to be bringing things to counsel this fall. And we've got to know where are counsel on this situation and if not the public has a right to choose differently next fall. Look, fundamentally there has been a co-opting of our language by one side of the political spectrum.
Starting point is 00:32:19 And what they don't like, they call hateful. What they don't, what, and if there's an idea out there that would challenge their dogma, well, they just ban it. It happens all the time. We see it almost every single day. And you, unfortunately, sort of bore the brunt of it, but it seems like you've picked yourself back up
Starting point is 00:32:37 and you're ready for the next round. Yeah, absolutely, because this is a worthy cause, right? Like, we have to talk about this. I am not going to have my language police. They can take my pay away, but they cannot silence me, and the people deserve to be represented. even those who are addicted and on our streets want better. Yeah, of course they do.
Starting point is 00:32:55 They want better than a clean piece of foil and a needle and to be called a person who used drugs instead of an addict. Yeah, well, Susan Stevenson, London counselor, thank you so much for being here. We will follow your re-election campaign very closely here on the Ben Mulroney show. I wish you the very best of luck. Thank you very much. Thanks for covering this. It's important. All right, coming up from covering a protest one moment to chasing a protester who stole her scooter the next,
Starting point is 00:33:20 We have a great story for you. Don't go anywhere. This is The Ben Mulroney Show, and welcome to the show. If you live in the city of Toronto and you have been perplexed that the pro-Palestinian protests have continued almost every single day. But one thing that's also continued is the work of our next guest covering not just those protests, those are really quite central these days. But covering those protests and making sure, essentially it's the expression,
Starting point is 00:33:56 like who's watching the watcher? Our next guest is watching the protesters. And so please welcome to the show, Karim Asad. She is a lawyer and she's also the lawyer who has made a second career out of exposing the truth, both good and bad, behind the protests in Toronto. And Karima, welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben.
Starting point is 00:34:18 Now, I want to point out that I'm very thankful. thankful for you and your team because I walked in the St. Patrick's Day parade with my sister, who was the Grand Marshal. And when we got to the end of the parade route, she still had some ceremonial duties, which I was not going to stick around for. And I decided to make a B-line through Young Dundas Square, which is what I'll be calling it forever. And I started walking, and I saw some police, and I had a nice conversation with the police, and then I walked until I got into an Uber. What I didn't notice is there. was one of these rabble rousers
Starting point is 00:34:52 who's made a credit name for himself by being a very loud thorn in people's side. He was following me with his camera. But he stopped when one of your cameraman caught him following me. So thank you very much for that because had you not done
Starting point is 00:35:08 that, he would have followed me for blocks. That's what we are there for to catch sort of what's going on whether good or bad. And so before we get into this, you essentially taking the law in a good way into your own hands.
Starting point is 00:35:24 Why did you start this? And when did you start it? As I've been documenting protests for about four years now and got really serious about it after I tried hosting a comedy show that was blockaded by some of these protesters. And there was no real rhyme or reason to it. And it made me committed to
Starting point is 00:35:49 understand this subculture. And so I've been really studying and keeping close tabs on the ground and observed throughout the years all manner of disruption, everything from statue beheadings to railway blocking, intersection closed, union station occupied, you name it, I've been there. And consistently, there are some of the same individual who are present at all of these events. Okay, so that then brings us to, when did this incident happen? July of 2021 is where I was documenting protests. Oh, no.
Starting point is 00:36:33 No way. I meant the incident that has brought you to the show today. Oh, well, today I'm here, not with respect to a protester necessarily, but something that happened at a protest. Yeah, so you were at a protest, and where was the protests? So this was at Young and Bloor, just across. from the Israeli consulate. And it happened on Saturday, I believe.
Starting point is 00:36:54 So you're at the protest, and we'll give our listeners a little bit of the color, because as you're there, one of the protesters recognizes you. Yeah. No, the protester, the guy with the, the guy with the, he's wearing a kaffia. He's on the street. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, basically, when I go to these protests, my videographer and I, we rely on scooters to get around.
Starting point is 00:37:18 And, you know, it's a very effective mode of transportation. It allows us to weave in and out to the crowd. And our scooter was there. And then suddenly it wasn't. And this happened right before my videographer's eyes in plain view of police directly in front of the facial recognition ban. And even though police who were on bikes, they, to their credit, sprung into action and tried to face the culprit down. they were unsuccessful. Yeah, they gave Chase and he was faster.
Starting point is 00:37:52 And so, okay. So, no, I was going to throw to the, to the, to give people the color of what you do when the guy asked you if you were proud of yourself. But we don't. Yeah. Yeah, can we, can we, can you play that? Are you proud of yourself? I am actually.
Starting point is 00:38:11 I am, actually, very proud of my experience. Like, super proud of. are buried off the school. Yeah, so I wanted people to sort of hear what you typically come up against. Okay, so now we're back at the, we're back at the guy who took your scooter and the cops tried and gave up.
Starting point is 00:38:33 They tried valiantly to catch this guy, but he was too fast. Yeah. But then I look at your Twitter and I see you caught the guy. So. That should take some times. Okay, walk me through.
Starting point is 00:38:46 First of all, like, Sometimes people will just say, you know what, I'm just, I'm writing that off as a loss. You didn't do that. No, I don't like taking unnecessary losses. Okay, fair enough. And this is a mode of transportation. I also have like a real, a real gear to grind with people who steal things like bicycles and scooters. Because, you know, maybe it's a crime of opportunity, but typically you are directly harming another citizen.
Starting point is 00:39:15 So it goes for cars as well. So how did you find this guy? Well, I have an air tag in all of my scooters. I highly recommend that any scooter users do the same because that led me directly to his front door. How far away was the scooter from where this gentleman had absconded with it? Relatively close. So we were at Young and Bloor, and I had to go down Bloor just around the Dina area. And you show up and he knows.
Starting point is 00:39:50 He knows the jig is up. I think so. And in fact, the neighbors surrounding him assisted in pointing out that the likely culprit was among them. So I don't think I'm the first victim of this particular nature of crime. And hopefully we'll be the last. so yeah so i've got to ask you know you've been you've been covering these protests for years where people don't get arrested and and they break the law and they and they don't get they don't have permits and yet they're allowed to take over the city um do you think this guy is is going to
Starting point is 00:40:29 face any sort of justice you know we'll see um certainly i've done my part um in in what i can to bring it to the appropriate uh attention of the authorities um i also you know observed and heard some things that would suggest there were other vehicles that perhaps didn't belong to him in the unit. Yeah. So it's now really in the hands of Toronto Police. And we'll see what happens. But like from my perspective as a lawyer, I'm constantly mindful that rule of law is fragile and really only as strong as our willingness to enforce it. Yeah. And so whether it's a big or small, like, there has to be some measure of consistency in enforcing the law. But if everything
Starting point is 00:41:22 is just, you know, who cares? She got it back. Yeah. I've done. It's over. I don't find that to be a satisfactory resolution. Karima, real quick, if people want to follow you on your social media channels, what's the address? You can find me on X at Karima Rules. That's C-A-R-Y-M-A-R-U-E-S. Or just Google, SAD, Lawyer, Toronto. Thank you so much, Karima, keep up to fight. Thank you. Stad being in craziness. New house guests, new twists, same epic drama.
Starting point is 00:42:20 Bro, I'm gunning for you. You're my number one target. Who can you trust when everyone's watching? Game on, baby. Big Brother. All new Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays on Global. Stream on Stat TV.

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