The Ben Mulroney Show - The working remote debate heats up/Political spectrum demonization

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more. You are listening to The Ben Mulroney Show. Happy Friday, everybody. Friday, September 19. Thank you so much for joining us. It's been a heck of a week. I don't know what everyone has planned for this weekend,

but tomorrow I'm going to go to New York for the night for my friend's 50th birthday party. And just in and out, it's going to be a lot of fun. I haven't seen my friend from college, one of my first university friends celebrating his 50th. He has been a lifelong politician. We served in student government together, and he was a state representative in Kansas. And now he's living in New York, and I hear he's going to be putting himself forward for office statewide.

So I'm looking forward to celebrating the 50th with my friend Raj. All right. So I live in an area of town that is like in the young in St. Clair, area, the Avenue in St. Clair area. And I saw a development that is going to be going up, right? And it's always really interesting. Every time I drive into this city, I'm sure a lot of you are like me, you drive in and you start counting all the buildings that weren't there when you moved here. I do it all the time. And there are so many buildings that have gone up in the past five years, 10 years, 20 years that just weren't there before. And the entire area near where I'm living,

It's going upward, up, up, up. And right at the intersection of Avenue and St. Clair is what looks to be a beautiful new tower going up. But as is the case now when, you know, if somebody puts a development forward, there are certain requirements from the city. And one of those requirements is you got to have some public art. And so at the foot of this beautiful new building, proposed new building, they haven't broken ground on it at all is going to be a piece of public art

that is an elephant in a bathtub that's not code that's literally what it is it sounds like the start of a joke yeah I mean some people are going to look at it and they're going to say that it's a Republican in a bathtub

I don't know but you know it's public art supposed to make you think right and if I walk by an elephant in a bathtub every day it would make me think if I was walking down the street and I was thinking about something and I looked up and saw an elephant in a bathtub,

it would change what I was thinking. And I think that's the point. It is the point. Think about some of the more interesting art pieces around the city. There's the one with the soldiers for the war of 1812 down on the lake shore and bathers. That's one that you look at and you go, wow, that's interesting. I'll tell you one that I always look at.

It's somewhere in the financial districts, either on Adelaide or on King. I can't remember what, but it's like right in front of a building, and it looks like a person's face. It's a big, giant, white, yeah, it looks like a mask. That's on Adelaide. But depending on where you look at it, from, what angle you look at it from, it's either a 3D or it's trunk. I don't know what they've done there. That is a fascinating piece of art to look at.

Anyway, so yes, I like this. I like the idea of something being put there that's just weird. I like weird art, especially in the public spaces, like I just said, because it's going to collide with whatever you're doing and it's going to force you to change tax, right? And I like that. I'm a fan. But you have to go out to see it, right? You got to go out to see it. That's true. So, for example, if you are a member of the provincial civil service and you have been told that three days a week, they've been in the office three days a week, and then they were ordered back as of a few weeks ago, four days a week and on January 1st, five days a week. And I have to say, in an effort

of full disclosure, my sister is a member of Doug Ford's government. And she was the one who made that very announcement on this show when I wasn't hosting and it was hosted by Mike Drillet. And so, listen, so if you're not going to leave your house, you're not going to see the public art. These guys left their house. They left their house to go down to Queens Park, to let Queens Park, no, they don't want to leave their house. Massive protest at Queens Park. Let's listen to just a few seconds

of the protest. We think you should moralize your dedicated stop. Okay, now before we go down our rabbit hole, let's listen to Global News' Colin DeMello. He's going to lay it out very, very clearly.

It's a major pushback on provincial policy. Thousands of civil servants are being forced back into the office in 2026. A decision unions say will lead to departures and lower productivity. I think what's going to happen is going to be a definite dampening of morale of the workplace. How good they're not be, right? You've had something for so long and all of a sudden you're deemed distrusted in something to some extent. At a rally outside Ontario government buildings, public service employees argued that flexibility benefits both the government and its workers. Employees say they put in more time at home. Basically, the days that I work from home, to be honest with you, I don't care

how many hours I'm working. It could be more than eight hours and I don't notice because I'm enjoying it so much. And some claim the costs of coming in would dramatically increase their expenses. It's harder and harder for us to afford coming into the office, you know, paying for parking, paying for transit. All right. So listen, I am a big proponent of working in the office for a lot of reasons. You know, for a long time we heard about, like, at the office, the microaggressions, right? That was an expression for a long time.

And I coined a term that really did not take off. But I think it's the flip side to the microaggression, which is the microaffirmation, which is when you are walking and someone says, oh, hey, you know, you. you got a new haircut. Well, neither of you got new haircuts. But, oh, hey, you tell a joke. When you start a Zoom call, the Zoom call starts,

the meeting starts, and then it's over. And there's no chance to build those bonds of camaraderie. And I think those are the things, that's one of the things that is lacking these days from the work from home. That's an interesting point. If you think about the criticism with kids

and their devices, they're always on the advises and we're like, why don't you play with the other kids or talk to the other kids, look out the window. And yet we're still so fixated with not going into work and having these relationships. We're telling our kids that it's better for their relationships and for their to be able to build them as people. Yet we're not following those same, that same of those same instructions. And look, I don't know. We're looking into it.

Maybe we'll get it for next week to see how many governments around the world think that their entire civil service should be working from home. because I don't know that there are any. I haven't heard too, too much about it, but for some reason in Ontario, we have a civil service that is hell bent on staying home. And I take all of their points. I take all of their points.

It is more expensive. A lot of them live outside the city. They have to spend time coming in and then they might have to park and the traffic is terrible and there's more cars on the road than ever before. I take all those points. And I discount them.

I'm sorry. This is the job. And it was the job before the pandemic. The pandemic was an exceptional moment in time. And we had to change things up for everybody's safety. The pandemic is over. So life goes back to normal, which includes going back to the office. And to me, the conversation ends there.

And if you don't want to work and you're saying you're going to leave, I don't know that a conservative government is going to have a problem with that. attrition is how you how you trim the civil service and I am not this is not a judgment on the hard work of those in in the civil service I this is not that this is what the way I view and value work I can work from home it's but it's something I do exceptionally I prefer working amongst my colleagues I think this is where our ideas collide and this is where the good stuff happens and and if you're working from home you're working from home you're working in a silo. That's how I feel. And now, just because I feel this way doesn't mean I'm right.

Just because I feel this way, it doesn't mean I know how this is going to end. So give us a call. 416-870-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. Oh, Malta is adopting blanket remote working models. Turkey has implemented regulation to allow civil servants flexible working stuff. So Malta and Turkey, these are the examples that we're going to uphold. And Canada to some extent as well. Yeah. All right. Give us a call. If you're working from home, tell us why you won't or don't want to return to the office should government employees be held to a different standard. It's an important conversation. So give us a call on the Ben Mulroney show. Talk. We're talking about the civil service being forced back to what life was like before the pandemic, going to the office five days a week. A lot of them, none too happy about it. So we're asking you, did you get forced back to the office? Is your life horrible now? Is it a different world now because of congestion? Does it take longer to commute than it did before the pandemic? Let us know. Or are you happy to be back? I want to hear all sides of this. Let's start with Ben. Ben, welcome to Ben. Mulrudey show. Good morning. How are you? Well, thank you. I just want to, you know, the greater Toronto area is now surpassed Los Angeles within North America as the worst traffic congestion

within North America. And anything that we can do to negate that, and if government wants to get serious about things like that, then maybe we should stop wasting like $20 billion in Ukraine and going ahead and spending that money here at home and fixing much needed infrastructure. Well, listen, there's a couple of things there that I think you make good points on. The traffic is terrible. The provincial government does not send money to Ukraine, so that's two different levels. The federal government can't. Yeah, sure.

But if we believe, listen, if we believe that the civil service and the civil servants are important to the function of government, then in my humble estimation, they should be close to the seat of government. You should be close to where it's happening. Like it's accountable government, by definition, means if you need to go find somebody to talk to, you can find them. And if we have emails and we have telephones that can do the exact same thing and jobs are getting done.

Jobs were done, Ben, out of necessity during the pandemic because we couldn't congregate. We can congregate again. Are you still getting done? Honestly, I don't know. I don't know if it was being done as effectively. I have no idea because they're not there. I don't know.

And to me, it's, look, listen, whatever is decided upon by the employer should be respected by the employees. That's, I mean, it's kind of how it should work. And if they don't like it, it's not up to the actual individual to help sparse economy and, you know, to do things like keeping the path open. And those are things that Doug Ford wants. And it's not up to the individual needs. It's to go government to step in and to make, to make, to make.

make things like the commute better for taxpayers. Sure, but I'm not struggling money. You know, everyone's got a commute. Everyone's got stuff. Everyone's got stuff. Welcome to living in the world. I mean, it's not, there's not, thank you, Ben. This is, there's nothing, I don't know what to tell you.

Like, there's nothing special about a, the commute done by a civil servant that's different than the commute done by somebody who works at Ford or works at IBM or works in, in, in a small business. It's the commute. And, and just because you say it doesn't. it negatively impacts your life doesn't mean you can't then factor that into building this new

work life balance. Danielle, welcome to the show. Yes, hi. Hi. Hi. You know, I really just feel like the comment that was made comparing people out in the working world to children on their devices was really just sort of tone deaf. Children are not paying the bills. No, no, no, no. Danielle, I think what he was saying

was we were talking about the connection that people have. It wasn't comparing the children. I understand that, and I just really love to not be interrupted so I could just complete a sentence, okay? So, you know, if parents are being forced to both work now, and there's no such thing as a stay-at-home mom anymore, and we can't afford the cost of daily living right now, you know, personally, my husband works in the sector that you're speaking of, okay?

Now, he's one of those people who is being forced to go back to work. you know if our kids are in extracurricular activities and we're trying to pay for our mortgage which we just had to refinance at a higher rate you know gas is more costly insurance is more costly transit is more costly and unsafe now as well like where like how many how much more thin do we have to spread ourselves may i speak yeah okay um i every every point you bring up is valid but every point you bring up is shared by everyone else on the planet and everyone else in the country. The people that you're taught, with all due respect, and I don't mean this in a rude way,

your experience is not special compared to everybody else's by thank you for your call, Danielle, and thank you for taking over the show the way you did. That was quite forceful. Anna, welcome to the show. Hi there. How are you? I'm well. I just want to say I am someone who has to go to work.

I got hired to come in. And I am going as is. If they got hired to come in when they got hired, go to work just like we all do. Yeah. And you're not special like anyone else. They're overpaid. Yeah, Anna, let me just make sure nobody misunderstands me.

They're not more special than anybody else. That's what, they're not more special. Everybody's got their stuff. Everybody has their burdens. Everybody has their costs. everybody has aspects of their life that are frustrating. There's nothing special about this group. Of course

not. Just like anyone else. It wasn't human. We all have to work. You know, we go. There's people who have to take the bus. I have a car so I'm obligated to get to work in a car. But hey, that's life. I have to pay for gas. I have to pay expenses. I have kids

who are in school. Hey. Yeah. Get over it. And look, there are a lot of people. There are a lot of, you guys, the civil service, they've got collective bargaining rights. You know who don't? Entrepreneurs, small business owners, restaurateurs, people own coffee shops. They have the same commute. They have the same taxes.

They have the same costs. They have the same pressures on their time. They have kids. They've got bills. And they don't have the safety net that these people have. So I'm not saying that they can't complain. But they're going to complain like everybody else complains. There's nothing special about this dynamic.

Anna, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Let's go to John. John, welcome. Hey, how are you doing? John, well, thank you. Good. Listen, I've done both, and I can honestly say, we don't need more cars on the road.

You don't need more people going to work. And you mention that, you know, it's great to have the in-person and in the meeting and after the Zoom meeting you don't see anybody. But if you're going into the office two or three times a week, you're getting that. You don't need it five days a week. We don't need more people on the road. travel, I have to go into the office or I have to go around city. And I can just

tell you, the traffic is horrendous in that if you're thinking that, oh, you know, the people of the businesses and stuff like that, they don't have that choice. Yeah, but we can make it easier for them to make, to relieve the traffic so that

it doesn't cost more for transportation. And I take that point, too. We are stretched in. Gridlock is terrible. I like the idea of our government having people staffing the government buildings. I like that idea. I like knowing that there are people who are paid by our tax dollars who are working in

the buildings that I can look at and say that's where the work is being done. Why do we need that though? Why do you like that idea, but it doesn't work nowadays, not in the past. But by your standard, then we should tell everybody to stay home and stay off the roads. That'll fix our gridlock. No, that's small thinking. I'm not telling everybody, I'm telling we have an opportunity to move forward with the new future that we've, we have the technological advances that these people can stay at home.

But again, but you could apply that to any industry. And all the other industries are saying, no, we want you back in the office. We want to build this. We want to build our company as a team. We need teamwork. And remote does not necessarily facilitate that. And I think if there's ever... Well, listen.

No, that's not true. Well, okay, let me rephrase. Let me give you another point. Let me give you another point. For all the people who got their jobs before the pandemic when they had to work five days a week, they don't have an argument. You were, you knew what your terms of employment were. It was five days a week in the office. And all of those people should, honestly, they don't have an argument.

They don't have an argument. You were going back to the way it was when you were hired. Everybody else... Ben, we, COVID gave us an opportunity to make life better for a... Oh, I would love to live in a world where I can look at COVID and say it made life better. John, I got to go. I got to go. Thank you for the great conversation.

And let's, let's, oh, we got time. Ben, we got time for this very quick. Tell me your thoughts. Yeah, yeah, for all the people who are saying that it's made them more productive to be at home, we know that government bureaucrats, especially the federal, is at an all-time low, the productivity. And what I'd like, I don't have a stake in the game. They could stay at home if they want. But I want a third-party auditor who's not on the government payroll,

who's obviously going to fix the data, to audit the productivity, set in the metrics, just like the private sector does. If a private business says, hey, my employees are doing great at home, that's because their dollar, their paycheck is coming out of their pocket. Yeah. All right. Hey, Ben, we've got to leave it there. Thank you so much, my friend.

And thank you to everybody for calling in. It was spirited. I hope everybody had done. felt heard. I know that one woman told me to shut up, certainly felt heard. All right, up next, let's talk labels. It's getting out of hand, isn't it? You're far left,

you're far right, you're a fascist, you're a communist, but are you really the things that people call you? That's next on the Ben Mulroney show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. be honest. We've all shared our problems in some pretty funny places, the group chat, your barber, maybe even a stranger on a plane. And hey, sometimes that helps. But when it comes to stuff like stress, anxiety, or relationships, it makes a big difference to talk to somebody who's actually

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Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. I want to talk about labels and what we're called as individuals for what we believe and whether those things are true. I've taken this job where I'm asked to wax poetic on my opinions on all sorts of things. And I, believe that I'm a centrist. I know I am because I think the CBC poll tracker every year, election tracker. I take it every election and I find myself dead center every single time. But despite that, because I find myself to the right of certain people, those people call me, well, all manner of sin.

I get xenophobe, racist, sexist, what are the other ones? Nazi, fascist, a genocideer. all that stuff, colonialist, everything. But when you ask for example, say, you have to prove it, they never can. They never can. And in some cases, they can't even give you a definition of what they're calling. Exactly. Their words.

They're key words. I'm looking at it from my perspective. But it happens on the other side as well. You'll hear, you hear, you know, radical left-wing agenda. You'll hear Donald Trump, a lot of his people, that person's a communist, that person's a socialist, that person is a far-right extremist. Antifa. Antifa. Hi. Now, there are people on the fringe who absolutely are those things, but the vast majority of us are in the middle, and that's where we all used to have conversation and debate. And so we want to talk about this today because of what

What happened with Jimmy Kimmel, you know, positioning everything is extreme left, extreme right, left, right, like, what do you consider far left? What do you consider far right? And when we ask, was it, was it ever like this before? I don't think it was. I mean, I remember growing up in the Reform Party, it was to the right of the progressive conservatives, they were just called, like, they were called a conservative party. They were never called extremists, I don't think.

I don't think so. And certainly not, certainly not at the rate that people are called extremists today. And it wasn't so long ago that the political spectrum you would look at in Canada, the difference between, say, the left and the right was not that great when you considered what was going on in the United States. It was so much greater down there. Yeah. We were really very much centrist, center right, center left. Yep.

Let's listen to Representative Rashida Talib. And she's one of the left, she's on the left wing of the Democratic Party. I think that's fair to say. That is fair to say. Okay. We could say other things, but we are going to stick to that definition today. Here's what she had to say about what's going on on the other side of the political spectrum. So nobody over there should take anything we say, you know, like so personally as if we're attacking them.

No, we're attacking a process. We're not attacking people here. And I think it's really important we need to stand up against this. fascist takeover that's not a bad word it's a fact a fascist takeover is happening it's a fact so we have to take her word for i take her word for let me see this that that's my point and again happens on the other side as well but that that is unhelpful because of course the fascists aren't taking over of course they aren't they're okay is there musselini is he around here so let's bring it back to our our experience here on the show here's some of the issues that

are important to us at the Ben Mulrudey show that we talk about as much as we can because we think that these are the issues of our time. Crime. Crimes at the top of the list. With violent home invasions, carjackings, youth being charged with murder, we talk about the need for bail reform. I mean, that's far right if I've ever heard of it. I mean, that's straight out of mind conf. The homeless issue. All we do here is advocate for a better system. There isn't this, I've never once said, like, round them up and put them on an island or round them up and let them fend for themselves or get rid of them or whatever. Never. I just don't think what we're doing works.

There was the comment made by the Fox talk. Yeah. Announce her last, earlier this week. Brian Kilmead suggested that they be forcibly euthanized. He apologized the next day. I've never said anything remotely like that. No. Okay.

So there's that. Then there's the shelters issue and the issue of putting them. in residential neighborhoods. My problem with that is I don't feel that there has been enough consultation. So I'm standing up for the democratic process here. Not enough consultation with the people in the neighborhoods who will be affected by this change in the dynamic in the neighborhood. Enabling drug use versus treatment. I think we should be really prioritizing treatment over just punting the ball and creating a permissible system,

a permissive system where drug use is allowed and it's... But that's a real controversial issue because people who are on the left who really believe in enabling drug users with drug kits and needles and crack pipes, which we've had here on the show and we've shown how easy it is and how the city just gives them out, they don't, if you don't side with them, then you are considered an extremist. You're an extremist. I'm an extremist because I think public drug use is a, a bad idea. And people should get treatment as opposed to staying on drugs.

Immigration is another one that we talk about. We do not talk about immigration being a bad thing. We talk about the immigration policies of the past 10 years being a bad thing. And I mentioned this before. There is a certain type of person in this country. If you do not believe in their policy, then you do not believe that the underlying problem that they seek to Solve is a problem. So if I don't support a liberal policy on X, then I don't believe that X is a problem. And that's not true. I just don't support the policy.

The economy, we have demonstrable proof that the economy has been on a downward spiral since 2015. To say that somehow makes me a far-right extremist. And there's several other issues that we won't get into. to right now. So I think it's pretty easy to understand when you do this, when you call someone a fascist, when you call someone a Nazi, when you call someone Antifa without any proof, what you do is you delegitimize them. They are not someone worth talking to. Who in their right mind would engage in conversation with a Nazi? It's a way to slander people and to, yeah, absolutely to delegitimize them. So then their point doesn't matter anymore. And look, if you,

If I say I'm a centrist, I know I'm a centrist. I have a coherent identity. Some people say that a fence sitter. No, no, I, I'm a best practices guy. I'm a right-leaning centrist. And I don't have a problem giving credit to a good idea that comes from elsewhere. Like if it comes from the left, if it's a good idea, I will support it. But let's take our test.

This is the test I want to get to. Okay. We're going to list a few things for you here. Now, I want to start with the right, because it's about this show. Here is what we think is a definition of what someone on the far right, an extremist, would support. Okay? Restricting immigration to European or white immigrants. I do not support that. Ending multiculturalism, I do not support that.

I do believe in assimilation to a certain extent. Well, you need to. Because you're going to another country. You should respect their laws, et cetera, et cetera. Deny systemic racism, roll back LGBTQ plus or indigenous rights. Well, I don't deny systemic racism, but I do think that it has been abused. I think the notion of it has been abused to seek redress where there's no redress needed. And rolling back LGBT, no, absolutely I wouldn't do that.

Strong law and order? I support that. Authoritarian government? Absolutely not. Do I oppose charter rights in favor of traditional values? No, but I do think the charter has been abused. Privatizing health care, education, and pensions? No.

eliminate income taxes or push extreme free market policies no expand oil gas and coal indefinitely it's the indefinitely part no leave the u.N nato or trade deals no align with global far right movements no there isn't a single aspect of that that i subscribe to and yet there are lazy people who try to delegitimize what i think are legitimate points as part of a public discourse And I'm not trying to score any points to win. I'm trying to keep a conversation going. That's all I care about. And so that's what, that's, that's, that's where we are, man.

That's, that's, that. The question I think is, is why do you think people go to the length they do to be able to label people? Is it laziness? Oh, yeah. Is it, I mean, it's intellectual laziness. It absolutely is. And because once you, once you get used to that crutch, you can't walk without it.

And calling, yelling at somebody. Calling them a fascist is I see it all the time and the people screaming it don't know what it even means. So we want to talk to you in the next segment. Do you use these labels? Are you somebody who routinely throws out these slurs because that's what they are? Really think about it. Have you been mislabeled? We want to hear from you.

Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. This is the Ben Mulroney show, and I am your host of the self-described, fascist, Nazi, nepo baby, entertainment host, Ben Mulroney. That's, I mean, if you, listen, if you want to try to, if you want to try to cut our legs out from under us so that we don't have any value, that those are the things you say about me. None of them, well, the only thing that was true was the entertainment host, I suppose. And if you use NEPO baby to describe me, then you don't know what NEPO baby means. If you can't get the definition right of the insult, then you are, you're too dumb to debate. All right, let's, so I want to hear from you.

Are you somebody who uses these terms? Do you throw them around casually? Have they been ascribed to you? That's the topic of this segment, 4168-60-6400 or 1-3-8-225 talk. We're going to start with Anthony. Anthony, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, how are you doing, Ben Mulroney show? I'm well, thanks.

Listen, as a minority, my dad, both parents are a liberal. We grew up liberals coming from the Caribbean. Now, what I understand is, if you want to call me so much, I don't think you're a fascist, racist, or anything. Now, it's hard to make your viewpoint because you're on the radio. Now, what I think is, we are allowing everybody to bring their views, their religious, their religion, the political, the political, strike, everything from, outside, wherever they come from, and bring it into here and change the dynamics. So what's happening is whenever you oppose those views, you're called other names. And that's the problem.

We are not set the standards. And a lot of it has to do the government. So anything you do, let me as a black person, call me a fascist. Because I've seen some views. I really totally agree with a lot of your views what you're saying. And I'm a minority. And, yeah. And like you, I think the, let me see if I, I,

understand your point. Like when when certain cultures come here and they they don't like I would never ask somebody to assimilate completely and give up their culture, right? That's right. But find a way to reverse engineer a version of that for Canada. And when when somebody points out that that is not happening, they are called a fascist. In fact, what they're trying to do is stand up for this this mosaic that has worked for so long for so many of us and look like yeah and i i take the point i thank you for i thank you for the call i thank you for the support my friend and i hope you keep listening um yeah it's uh because sometimes all you have to do if you wanted to challenge people you could just you could ask them that quest that follow up and uh the whole system

falls apart a little bit under the weight of its own BS um well let's say let's let's I'm so glad this guy's calling it. Kevin Vaughn, great friend of the show, great friend of this radio station and chorus. Kevin, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, Ben. Yeah, what's up? Well, just like Anthony, I'm a minority.

And, you know, Kevin Vaughn. So, Vaughn being a last name that is of Vietnamese heritage, it actually should be Wong, because my parents are part of the Chinese diaspora. So it was a surprise to me when people who disagreed with my, view started calling me a white supremacist. Yeah. Oh, no, because you've internalized white supremacy. There's an answer for everything.

If you are standing up for a position that I might have, it's not that we have found common cause for what is right, or what we view is right, it's that you've internalized white supremacy and therefore you need to be reeducated. Oh, naturally. I can tell you there's a

story of me. I was in D.C. with Richie Torres, who's a Hispanic, black, Latino, sorry, congressman, and we were both chatting about what we've been called because we've been ardent supporters of our Jewish communities in Canada and US, respectively. And we have both been called white supremacists. And it gets especially visceral and vitriolic because for the people calling us this, we look like them. And so then we're called race traitors. And every other kind of nasty thing that they can come up with.

And Kevin, you bring up a good point, this desire to have a monoculture. Like, we want everybody to think the same way. And if they don't think, if you derogate from that orthodoxy, then you are a heretic, you are a, and then you're all these other words as well. When in point of fact, the only way this country works, the only thing that separates us from those other countries out there is our willingness and our excitement. to have public debate. This doesn't happen in China.

It doesn't happen in Russia. It doesn't happen in Venezuela. It doesn't happen in those places. It happens here. And that's what makes this place special, or at least it used to. That's right. And otherwise,

why else did they want to come here? Why would you come to Canada, leave wherever you left, and then want to import the very same challenges that led to you leaving in the first place? Well, my parents were welcome to this country after waiting their turn, two years in a refugee camp. I know it's a novel concept now.

And they decided to park the baggage of the Vietnam War at the border. Yeah. They had every right to litigate it. I mean, the communists stole everything from my parents, took all of their land, their assets, their businesses. But they're like, this, I'm going to start new again. Yeah. And fortunately, I was born and raised in this country, being taught my history and remembering my roots.

but acknowledging the incredible home that Canada is and the duty that I have to help to preserve and defend this country that became a beacon or refuge for them and so many others. Yeah, well, listen, thank you very much, my friend. I really appreciate you adding your voice to this. All the best. I hope to see you soon. You too. Take care.

Yeah, Kevin brings up a good point. Like this is, this is, and I've said this before, as it relates to the protests on the streets of the big cities across this country. The fact that we've allowed that to happen, follow that to its logical conclusion. We've got so many cultures colliding across Canada. If we allow one culture to say

our grievance from our homeland is such that we can stop traffic, that we can intimidate, that we can scare, that we can do all of these things, then we have to allow every other culture to import their grievance from their home and do the same thing.

and every city in this country would grind to a halt. I suspect that we allow one to happen because the focal point of their issue is the only Jewish state on the planet. But that's just, that's my two cents. Let's go to Stephen. Stephen, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you? I hope you having a great morning. I am.

I was just talking about stereotypes. It's like it was just saying to the caller there or the screener. It's like myself. My parents are from Sicily. not Italy, Sicily, right? There is a distinction. And, you know, the worst thing is, hey, are you part of the mob? No, we're not part of the mob.

I don't even know anything to do with the mob. I'm saying, but there is that labeling, or they say, do you know this person? Do you know that person that belongs to this? I don't know how I know them. So it's not good to put a label on a person. Just doesn't make any sense. Well, listen, I take, listen, the Irish are drunks, the Serbs are terrorists, the Italians are mobsters. These are

these are stereotypes that have endured for far too long. But I don't think that's what we're talking about, Stephen. I think we're talking about, you know, a view that you have. You can be anybody. You can be black. You can be white. You can be Italian. You can be whatever you are. You say one thing. You say, hey, I think

my taxes are too high. Ah, right-wing extremist. What do you mean? You don't want to pay your fair share? That's that's a little different than the baggage of a cultural stereotype. But I think the parallel is that we default to those lazy assumptions.

I just think in the case of what we're talking about today, those lazy assumptions are being weaponized. But thanks for the call, Stephen. And Eugene, welcome. Oh, hi, Ben. How are you? I'm good. I'm going to give you about 30 seconds.

Okay. I just want to know, it was impossible to support, well, not support, but, you know, be sympathetic towards what's happening to Palestinians, but also not be labeled anti-Semitic or, or, you know, a terrorist-supporting person. Because I sort of feel both. Well, you know what? That's a really good question.

I think absolutely it's possible. But when I reference what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the very belligerent crowds that are shouting sometimes terrible things about the Jews. But if I were to meet you and we were to have a conversation and I were to hear what you were saying, absolutely. If we had a conversation about it, of course that would be the conclusion that I would draw. But unfortunately, there are a lot of people that don't want to talk

because the second you say that you're on the other side, as we say in French, you are a colonialist, genocidal, apartheid-loven, racist, and you want to kill babies. That's how that is. Anyway, thank you very much for the call. That was an excellent question. I really appreciate it. With a Subaru, a vehicle that's built to last come standard. Heated front seats, standard. High ground clearance, standard. Eyesight driver assists to help spot the scooter delivery guy texting, merging, and eating all at once.

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