The Ben Mulroney Show - Third Hour of the Ben Mulroney Show on Monday April 14th

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Always appreciate your ears and your time, whether you find us as a podcast on a streaming app or on the radio. I don't care where you are. I'm just glad you're with us on this Monday right here on the Ben Mulroney Show. It's a busy weekend in Canadian politics. Already over the course of today, you've heard me talk about what I think is the most significant endorsement of Pierre Poliev and the Conservatives thus far, when 30 Canadian titans of industry, of business, of investment, of mining, of banking, all came together to say we believe that the path forward for a successful Canada lies with the Conservative Party. Now, you may disagree, but that is my humble opinion. I also took issue with yet another example of liberal hypocrisy, saying one thing to one cultural community on one day and something completely different on the next, and all embodied by Adam Vancouverden, formerly of the Olympics since what 2015

of the liberal party, wishing Jews a happy Passover and then going into a mosque and talking about the genocide in Gaza, which is not happening, and the silence of the, of Mark Carney on that subject. I would like some clarity on that, but I haven't gotten that. We've been talking about the stop the steal buttons,

the misinformation by the liberals, trying to unfairly and possibly in an illegal fashion, linking the Tories to Donald J. Trump and American style politics. Now to be fair, Mark Carney has condemned that behavior. He got in front of a microphone earlier and said that. But now I want to talk about something else that popped up on social media. There was an alleged document being circulated in Canadian federal penitentiaries to prisoners, alerting them to the danger that would be posed to them, the convicted

criminals by a tough on crime Pierre Poliev government. And this to me is very Canada. And to talk about this is the person that highlighted it on my Twitter feed, Ron Chisner, Conservative Party candidate for and met for member of parliament in Oakville East and a former police officer. Ron, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, Ben. Thanks for having me. Okay, so I want to be careful. I haven't confirmed that this thing is real. So I'm gonna let you explain it. Yeah, so look, I, again, as you mentioned,

I've been a police officer for 20 years. In about 2017, 2018, I started to really advocate for all first responders, including correction officers, dispatchers, security officers in the country, and victims of crime, because I've seen how the country changed after the liberals took charge and their introduction of the catch and release policy in 2019. As a result of that, I've grown a massive network in the first responder community and with victim groups throughout the country that have utilized me as a conduit to pass confidential information because

there's a fear of repercussion and they also feel like they don't have the reach or the impact. Now they know the position I'm in, so I repeatedly get direct messages. And I do my due diligence of ensuring that the information that provided to me is credible and is sourceable. And then in turn, I put it out there publicly, except I vet the information to ensure that the person who provided it to me won't face any personal repercussions. So what's your conclusion on this document? Listen, that document, it's very alarming, but it's not surprising, sadly. I could tell you locally in even my own writing

when I'm out there campaigning, I've been the victim of disinformation from what I can source back to liberal party members in competition. Additionally, we've seen the pattern of behavior from the liberal party, you know, even with the buttons that you just mentioned. Thankfully, and just by a fate of universe, we had an ethical reporter who overheard a

conversation and fulfilled their duty and application to report on what was a substantial issue. So they have a pattern in history of trying to interfere and disturb things. And I think at this point here, it almost reeks of desperation to secure some sort of voting base. Well, yeah, this again, this again, it kind of is in line with the entire soft on crime approach and putting repeat violent criminals before innocent Canadians. One of the things that's out to me is, you know, how hard it is to be put in a jail right

now in Canada. Yeah, it's pretty hard. And the fact that they're now soliciting or allegedly soliciting this information into that voting base to say, listen, guys, we're here for you. It's disgusting. But yeah, a couple of things. If this is in fact a real document, and for the record, I don't believe that I should have

to give the benefit of the doubt to the liberals on this. They've proven that they're willing to do some pretty shady things. And so I'm gonna take this as real until somebody on that side tells me it's not. Right at the top of it says, a conservative Pierre Poliev policy will ensure all inmates will live in the most severe conditions allowed by law and ensure justice is served to all

victims of crime. It goes on to talk about the crime reform proposal, three strike law, life sentences for serious offenses, less resources and funding for all federal prisons, the services available through the online portal, how to access them and why you may want to register. In other words, they're trying to, you're right. It's it's the Supreme Court has ruled that people in federal penitentiaries have the right to vote. And it does seem like the liberals if this is real, are asking criminals to vote in their own self interest for a party that will be less tough on crime. Yeah, listen, you know, even today, Pierre Pauliev,

you know, announced that we're gonna be reintroducing the Protecting Canadians by ending sentence discounts for multiple murderers act. Now in 2022, the Supreme Court voted it down because in their opinion, it was too hard on mass murderers. And you know, I've heard the feedback on this and people say, you know, they have their opinions and they're saying, oh, the courts will never administer this.

But the courts decide. Yeah. Yeah. Look, and public experience has changed. That's why the courts need to change with it. You know, they cite this term, it's a legal term. It says, you know, does this put the administration of justice into disrepute and raise public lack of confidence within the court systems?

Look at how much the country has changed in the last six years. Yeah. Public sentiment, public experience, public victimization has changed. And you know, we have to repeal these things by using whatever clauses available to us to bring safety back to Canadians. But now we're seeing this very clear divide. Who is it that the liberals are protecting? And who is it that the conservatives want to protect? Ron, I'd love to get a little clarity because the fact that that this document appears on a government of Canada with the government of Canada header at the top might make some of our listeners wonder why is that allowed to happen? Shouldn't that have come from the Liberal Party?

Explain that to us. Yeah, listen, when you are representing the government, okay, like for example, if you go to your constituency office, there should be no political paraphernalia there because they represent you on behalf of the government of Canada. Now they have their own individual offices, which is different. But anytime there's an official documentation from the sitting government that specifically outlines and refers to an oppositional political party, that should be a flag. They can't do that. Yeah. And I've heard some criticism on the document where people say, oh, there's all these different ink marks from these blottings. Look, this is the prison system. Imagine going to your workplace and you pull out a piece of paper from the, you know, the shredding document and you print on it because there's a lack of resources. Sometimes you have overlays of inking. Right now the most concerning part of that is that was

provided by a reliable source. That information says the Government of Canada at the top of it and then it refers the oppositional political government. I mean this is, this is so concerning on so many different levels, and thank you for pointing that out. So Ron, what are you going to do with this? I know you posted it to make it go as far and wide as possible, but what are the next steps that you are gonna take?

Listen, continue to educate the Canadian public at really who's looking after you. I could tell you why crime is such a large issue, because it's impacting everybody across the country. My rioting in particular has major issues with home invasions, auto thefts, car jackings, and recently we had a murder on our downtown strip. Today I received another message from somebody working in a correctional facility that also corroborates this information from their personal experience. I think the biggest thing here to do is to continue to push a common sense government, educate Canadians, and only now, and it's, I have to bring it up because it made me so upset to see

this. You know, just last week we have Mark Carney and the Liberal leadership, the same MPs and cabinet ministers that supported all of these self-doubt crime policies in writing, on video, in audio, like it's there, they supported it. Now automatically they're reversing and saying we're going to go tough on crime. Where were you the last six years? They didn't even talk about this on the English debates. And why that's so upsetting to me is because of these victims of crime. It's the reason I got into politics.

Nobody speaks for these victims. And these liberals, they flip-flop their messaging because they're desperate to vote. But to me, somebody's going to have to ask them. If you are currying favor, if you're trying to get inmates to vote for you, what does that say about your message on crime?

How tough can you be on crime if the people perpetrating the crime feel that you have their best interests at heart? Ben, you bring up a great point, and this is again in line with the previous messaging. You just brought up before this interview that they have some MP saying messaging in one writing and they provide a second message in another writing. Sometimes it's the same person. There's a total lack of integrity there. And that's again, another issue. There's a lack of a backbone to say, what do you stand for as an individual? Ron, we're going to, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much. I wish you the best and thanks for joining us on the Ben Mulroney show. Thanks, Ben. Thanks for the support.

Welcome back to the show. And I want to hear from you, our listeners right now. I want to talk buttons and I want to talk prisoners and I want to ask you about the state of play of the federal election. So many of those buttons were found at the Canadian Conservative CONFAB, the Canada Free and what is it, TRF, I don't know, whatever it was a strong and free networking event. And the Liberal Party was found to have been lying about connections between Donald Trump and Pierre Poliev by way of these buttons. Mark Carney has come out and has condemned it. We still don't know who these people were.

We don't know who paid for them. We don't know how they got in. We don't know anything. But we do know he did in that moment, Mark Carney did the right thing and condemn that. I mean, he did the bare minimum, to be honest, but let's hear from you. And let's start with Mike in Hamilton. Welcome, Mike. Hey, Mike. Hey, Ben. How are you? I'm well. I'm well. So what do you make of of the buttons? What do you make of what we just talked about in the previous segment with regard to possibly the liberals trying to garner votes in prisons? So I don't know too much about the buttons but that's I mean even this nonsense that Trump is our biggest threat like come on these

problems that we have were here long before Trump got in the office but I'm just I want to tell all your listeners like we got to put our stripes aside this time and do what's best for our country. I know you've echoed this point multiple times about Karen Poliev has been saying the same thing for the last decade basically. Yeah. Mark Carney has books on basically shutting down the economy for the green energy but he's finally starting to realize that when people are starving to death they don't give a crap about the environment. But everyone just has to put their stripes aside. I used to be a liberal. Liberals aren't liberals anymore these days.

They're far left socialists. In fact, Pierre Pauliab is probably what a liberal was about 30 years ago. So it's gone. The bar has slid in so far, and probably the only conservative that's actually running is Max Bernier. He's probably an actual conservative. But I just want everyone like these people that are like generational. My dad was a liberal. I vote liberal. You got to put your stripes aside and actually look and also see what the policies are. It's so insane that people are voting based on like, like, Pierre-Paul Léavé is rude and he's mean. Yes, would you rather have a slightly rude guy that's going to do good things for your neighborhood? Yeah, I'd rather somebody, I'd rather somebody be rude and make Canada rich than somebody be sweet and have a beer with and want to give a hug to who makes us poor. Mike, thank

you so much for the call. I'm going to turn around and steal from you too. Yeah, thank you, man. Take care. Who do we have next? Steven, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Steven, you there? Yeah. How are you doing, Ben? I'm well, thank you. Good. Okay. I just, I agree with Mike. I voted liberal 40 years. This will be the first time I vote conservative. My bigger beef is right now, to be honest, you and a few others on this station are not going down the middle. You're not being

neutral. You're not seeing both sides of it. There's warts on both sides. You need to address both. Yeah, listen. It's kind of making me a little ill. Well, Stephen, look, my job is to tell you my opinion. That is literally my job description. The job of the news is to give you the news. So if you wanna hear the news, I would say go to the CBC, but you're gonna get a pretty slanted view of the news there too.

And go get it from all sorts of sources. Get it from the Post, get it from the Star, get it from your local newspapers, get it from the radio. But you're not gonna get the news from me. That's not my job. And my job is to tell you how I see it. I have told you, I telegraph it clearly. I tell you, Pierre Poliev has earned my vote.

The conservatives have not always earned my vote, and I voted differently in the past. In this election, he has earned my vote. And what I have seen from him is consistency, a vision that aligns with me. And what I've seen from the liberals, at least over the weekend, is dirty tricks, hypocrisy, speaking out of both sides of their mouth, and trying to curry favor with prisoners, aligns with me and what I've seen from the liberals at least over the weekend is dirty tricks

Hypocrisy speaking out both sides of their mouth and trying to curry favor with prisoners all while claiming to be tough on crime That's my opinion and you're more than welcome to disagree with me All right, that's fair. I'm glad you all know that that seems pretty simple. Thank you Yeah Unfortunately, it just seems like some of these issues you definitely Unfortunately, it just seems like some of these issues, you definitely, you go from opinion to stating facts that aren't true. No, well, my opinions are rooted in fact. So I'll give you the facts, which then lead to my opinion. But Stephen, I want to thank you for calling and you're always welcome to call, challenge

my opinion. And by the way, if you come up with a better argument than mine, I am absolutely prepared and humble enough to say you beat me, your opinion beat me, and I've changed my mind. Well, it's not a game, but thank you for that. No, no, not a game. That's how we discuss things. We get in the arena, we challenge each other, and may the best argument win. All right. I just appreciate if you stop making things black and white, because I think there's good and bad points for both sides. But I'm not hearing that from in particular you. So that's all. Well, thank you very much, Steven. You take care. Have a great week. Let's welcome Jesse to the show. Jesse, thanks for calling in. Hey, Ben. Let's do that. Let me make it real binary. Forget about the platforms. Forget about

French. Forget about red. Forget about blue blue i've been a recruiter for almost thirty years i'd probably interviewed over a thousand executives and i'm an expert in interpreting cycle metric test which polls competencies and traits okay that's one thing that everyone's spoken about is the way that carney speaks to the media and a particular it seems to be a trend the way he speaks to female media now that's not frustration that's not all i'm i'm flustered that is his rates coming out

and he is a condescending individual if that's what he's willing to do publicly then what do you think he's doing it the scenes? And, you know, after I would have voted for Trudeau over Kearney, just based on that competency alone. Yeah, well, yeah, well, Jesse, Justin, it wasn't necessarily condescending to the press, although he was every now and then, but so is I think everybody. But, but my biggest problem with Justin Trudeau is he never, ever answered a question, ever. Whatever question was posed to him, he wouldn't answer it.

He would just pivot to a talking point. It was the most frustrating thing as somebody who believes he's an engaged citizen. But Jesse, you know, I could, if I wanted to, I could make a case for you that the politician in Canada who is most like Donald Trump is Mark Carney. Neither of them had any political experience. They're both wealthy beyond our wildest dreams.

They both think they're the smartest guy in the room. Their party routinely demeans and besmirches the reputation of anyone, calls anybody who isn't on their side a traitor. I mean, these are, and has a dubious relationship with the truth, will misspeak every now and then. You'll hear him say one thing one day and something completely different the next,

and talks down to strong women. Like, I could make that argument. I, and part of it, by the way, is tongue in cheek, but that's, the point is, like, I'd be very careful if I were them about talking about Trump-style politics, because it looks like they're the ones importing it into our country. Jesse, I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to run because I want to take a few more calls. Let's go to Chris. Chris, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hey, Ben. So I work on a bunch of different job sites. And it's a conversation that comes up with a ton of different people. And even people that have never voted before. I've just been talking to who are going to go up this time. The biggest thing is there's in 20 days, Mark Carney has been in office, there's more scandals and more things that are just outrageous that have come up about him than Pierre Poliez has in 20 years

that he's been in politics. And the long term, if people sit down, actually go and watch the long form formats of the interviews that pure polyeth does. It's, it's amazing. So he didn't run last time for Prime Minister, because of his daughter with autism. So it's one of those where it's incredible to see a family man, somebody who's down to earth, and if people actually got to listen to it, he sits down for over an hour and a half. Yeah, I have, I don't think Mark Carney could sit down for five

minutes. Well, I think I think he did an interview with Nard war a couple of days ago. I'm pretty sure he did a Nard war interview. And if you can explain that one to me, the audience is very, is very in a bubble. Yeah, I would say. Well, listen, I appreciate the call. And you're right, that interview he did where he discussed his his daughter, who has a learning challenges and is nonverbal.

It was one of the most human things I've seen from a politician in a very long time. I urge anybody to go online. I've got time for one more call. I wanna welcome George to the show. George, welcome. Hey, how are you doing? I'm good, you got about 30 seconds, my friend.

30 seconds, okay, straight forward. Same as your other caller, I interview people for job positions. One thing I watch is body language. And the body language of Mark Carney is he's always looking for his next lie instead of truth. Another thing that I'd like to discuss is the fact that he is,

you ever hear the story of the scorpion and the frog? Yeah. Yeah, you know. You think he's a scorpion? Why does the scorpion think the frog? Yeah. Yeah, you know, like the scorpion. Why does the scorpion sing the frog? Yeah. Because it's in his nature. It's in his nature.

And that's why Carney lies. Well. Because it's in his nature. I'm gonna be a little bit, I wanna thank you for the call and for the candor. I'm gonna be a little kinder. I don't wanna say he outright lies. I'm sure there's an explanation. He's more than welcome to come on this show and explain away some of his positions.

Yes, indeed. You're listening to the Ben Mulroney show, and we want to have a little fun today before the end of the show by talking about important matters that should matter to each and every one of us through a financial lens with two people who know more about this sort of thing than I. But I'm always looking for advice for people who are more responsible than I because what the heck do I know about being responsible with my own finances? I got no money these days anyway. Thank you, Justin. And so we brought together two financial titans in the ring

and we're gonna duke out some of the most pressing, important questions, fundamental questions that we as family people have each and every day. And so in this corner, we have Dr. Eric Kam, economics professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Welcome to the show, doctor. Benedict, the honor is all mine. And in this corner, Moshe Lander,

who teaches the economics of pro sports at Concordia University. Moshe, welcome to the show. Moshe there? Oh, he's not there yet. Well, when he is. So when he is, we will begin the conversation with him. But in the meantime, first of all, Eric, how's not there yet. Well, when when he is. So when he is, we will begin the conversation with him. But in the meantime, first of all, Eric, how's your daughter?

She's doing well. Thank you, Ben, for asking. She's home now. She's not out of the woods yet because she still has to have the surgery to remove her appendix. But we're in a little bit of a hold and drain pattern. But anything more than that, you'll hear people turning the radio station. So we'll just leave it at, she is improving slowly by day. I'm glad to hear it. And in this corner, we've got Moshe Lander who teaches economics

and pro sports at Congordia University. Moshe, welcome to the show. Oh, but I teach so much more than the economics of professional sports. But yes, that is my national reputation as Canada's preeminent sports economist. Otherwise, I'd be here just listing your bonafides over for the entire duration. All right, let's begin.

Should kids be paid for chores or given a weekly allowance? Moshe, you go first. No. No, should they be paid for chores? Well, okay, if I'm going to pay them for chores, but a weekly allowance for just being cute kids? Absolutely not. You need to pay your way around here. So it's a cost benefit analysis to me. If I'm going to have you, this isn't just an act of kindness. This is you better contribute something. I'll go do the job bit. You go do the laundry bit, clean up the dog poop, make your bed, set the table, do the dishes. Dr. Eric Kam, if it takes a village to raise a child, doesn't it also take the village

to sort of keep that house afloat? Everyone has to do their part. I hate to disagree with Canada's preeminent sports economist, but I think that's insane. I mean, how are we ever going to learn the value of a dollar if you don't at least start them off with a dollar? You can't make a 12-year-old go to work and nobody likes unpaid labour. So no, I like the idea of giving them a small allowance. It makes them accountable to do the things they have to do. And it means that if they go out and they want to spend their allowance, they still have to justify where the money's going and when it's gone, it's gone. Moshe?

I don't know why he chose 12 years old. I think he didn't just adopt kids. He had kids when they were younger. I'd start paying kids at three and four years old and teach them the value of dollar earlier. And the way that a dollar has value is by the amount of sweat on your brows. So listen kid, I'm not asking you to do my taxes. I'm just asking you to do this within your three-year-old capacity. I want you to take this dish over to the table and not smash it, please.

Yeah, listen, I think teaching them very early on that they are part of the solution in the house, and there's a lot that goes into keeping that, like I said, keeping the house afloat, and if they can contribute to it and not be a net drag. Asking a kid to make their bed every day is significant and if there's value in it, I mean doesn't it depend on the parent though? If I as a parent see value in my child making their bed, that's my choice versus another parent who may think that that is the bare minimum and there should be no financial reward for it. Eric?

Yeah, well listen, what doesn't depend on parenting, and it's just a matter of how do you want to instill the right values into your children. But a quick story, you know, when my daughter was in high school, she was told she had to do voluntary, mandatory, voluntary 40 hours of work. And where I come from mandatory voluntary, voluntary. So I got a problem with unpaid labor in general, give your kids a bit of money, see how they handle it. And if they're not responsible, then you can take it away.

Moshe, should parents help pay for post-secondary education? No. No? No, pay yourself. You know, that's why we have a system of loans put in place. You can go borrow the money and learn the value of having to pay back a loan and having a financial responsibility. And when did I become your banker here to provide you with this stuff? Very, very cold, Moshe, very cold. It's Monday and I'm in Montreal. I'm feeling out here right now. But yeah, listen, you can always pay it back over

50 years of your working life. It's not like you're gonna get to retire at 65 these days. So 50 years to borrow 50 grand, 70 grand, 100 grand. You build up a credit score, if nothing else, and you have the easy ability to earn it back, especially if you learn something at university, and that might actually incentivize you to show up for class and do your homework and actually try and learn the material rather than shortcut your way to an A.

Eric, if I'm working as hard as I can to provide for my kids and make sure that they have their set up for success in the future, and if I, as a parent, decide that that future begins post-secondary studies, what's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that. I think lawyers must be intimidated working with two names like you and me. Where I come from, you help your children, you chose to have them, you help them.

The post-secondary education is important to you. I think the least you can do is get them started. I mean, I've heard parents say, I will pay for their undergraduate degree and the rest is theirs. And I think that might make good sense. But I mean, what is he running the Bank of Canada and he wants to extend the amortization period

from 25 to 30 years? These are your children. They're not people getting a mortgage but they wanna go to school. I think the least we could do is help them out. It's a benefit to them, them at the benefit of society and we don't have to be a till of the hunt yeah motion counterpoint

well i get the depend then on what you're learning at university if you're going to go out there and do something like a psychology degree or something that absolutely not you want to do economics then okay fine i think you'll both agree on that the party should be subsidizing you with an economics degree, right? But let's go find a benefactor. You know, what's his face? Bill Gates guy.

He's not leaving any money to his kids. He's saying, look, I earned it through my hard work. When did I become the person who's going to hand over billions and billions of dollars to you? So if that's good enough for Bill Gates, then for those of us who don't have that many zeros on this side of the decimal point, then I think we're perfectly reasonable to say, hey, that's the money that I earned for myself. You go earn yours by getting a good degree that's going to pay you well. So you can pay that out in a couple of years. And hold it a second. Hold, hold it. So are you going to charge them for food when they go to the fridge?

You got a little bucket thing. You want to take a carrot, leave a quarter in the can? Well, hold on, hold on. You're getting ahead of us because that's our next question. And I'm going to I'm going to put this to you, Eric. The question is, should adult children still living at home be charged rent? It's very hard these days for a young person to make ends meet, to be able to pay for their own rent,

let alone a down payment on a house. So do we charge our adult children who are, in a lot of cases, forced to live at home, do we charge them rent? So this is a really hard question, because of course you don't want to incentivize your kid living in your basement, sitting in their drawer, playing video games.

But one thing I've told both of my children since the day they were born is that this is their house and they can always come home to it. Because I think it's really important in today's society that kids at least know they have a safe space. So it is a personal choice, but I could never recharge my children rent. This is their house as much as it is mine.

Moshe? Well, I think you know where I'm gonna come up. Yeah, that's why I want to hear it. So listen, again, if Eric is in favor of teaching them the value of a dollar, then the way that you learn the value of a dollar is that you realize there's no such thing as a free lunch, pun intended. You got to pay for what you're doing here. Now, do I have to pay or charge you the market rate? Do I have to put a little swipe card on the fridge so that it dings you every time you want to open it? Maybe not, but listen, in a Canadian household about 50% of food goes in the garbage and then often that's

the reason because kids say, hey, when you're out of the grocery store, can you get me the following hundred things? And then they change their mind as fast as I change my underwear and then they decide I don't want it anymore. Well, who's going to pay the cost of that? I'm just supposed to go buy groceries and stuff like that for you? No, how about you contribute here as well? And then again, you learn a little bit of responsibility, which is that if you want to have a nice bed, if you want to have a phone in your room, if you want to have a phone in your room, hello to mine, you want to have a cell phone, those are the things that you have to pay for and I can give you maybe a little bit of a subsidy on that because we'll see that filial love is payment to some extent but

no there's got to be some cash up front here. Moshe Lander, Dr. Eric Kam, thank you both for joining us. It was a hell of a fight and I call it a draw. Coming up if you listen to this show regularly you know I'm fascinated by space stories. And that's next on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show. One of my favorite characters in television ever is George Costanza,

because he liked to pretend he was an architect. In other words, he didn't do the hard work to become an architect. He just wanted everybody to think he was an architect. I feel the same way about my love of Mars. I have no desire to do the research into becoming a Mars expert, but I've seen Total Recall and I've seen The Martian and I've read a bunch of books. And that's about all I think I need to know.

I mean, we all remember that moment in the original Total Recall, not the garbage one that was shot in Toronto a few years ago with Colin Farrell. That's two Colin Farrell references in the show today. Yeah, it's very weird. But we remember when Quaid decided to press the button and unleash the alien technology to terraform Earth. And then he was thrust into the unwelcoming, yeah, remember the unwelcoming Martian atmosphere with his eyes bugging out. He's about to die. And over the course of a minute,

it goes from the Mars that we know to an Earth-like atmosphere, thereby saving Quaid's life. We all remember that. And we know how inhospitable Mars is. If you've seen the Martian, you know that unless you have potatoes and human waste, you can't eat. And anyway, you put that all together. Anytime I see a story on Mars and terraforming Mars, I want to drill down.

And there's a story about how we could raise temperatures on Mars quickly. And to discuss this, somebody who is actually an expert, we're joined by Dr. Jesse Rogersen, astrophysicist and assistant professor at York University and author of the upcoming book Daydreaming in the Solar System, Surfing Saturn's Rings, Golfing on the Moon and Other Adventures in Space Exploration, which we will talk about in just a few minutes. Doctor, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks for having me, Art Vandelay. Art Vandelay, exactly, the Penske file. All right, so Jesse, talk to me about this. I mean, like I said, in the movies, it happens very quickly. How long would it take if we brought all of our technology to bear on terraforming Mars? How long before people could walk and skip and jump and eat and live? Oh my gosh. Well, okay. I mean, that's a big question. Picturing like another earth on the Martian surface,

like you're probably looking at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. But any piece of the puzzle, you know, there's there's some big chunks of this that you need to figure out. Like, for example, you need to figure out soil. And that's a big, huge question mark that the Martian tried to tackle. But the biggest problem is the atmosphere. It's both too cold. And it's too thin, right? So if you're going to make Mars more like Earth, you got to thicken the atmosphere and they kind of go hand in hand, hopefully warm it up at the same time. So that's that's sort of the story here. And this one is like, how do we warm this up? And there's always been lots of different ways that people proposed. How do you warm or thicken the atmosphere of Mars? There's some crazy ones. There's some really interesting ones like say smashing comets into Mars. That'd be a really interesting way of doing it. But that would take a lot of technological advancement like redirecting a comet. That is not an easy thing to do.

So this paper was saying, well, what if we just artificially thicken the atmosphere with nanoparticles go there and like release stuff into the atmosphere made of relatively easy to find material basically materials that you can find there okay at mars and just continually release them into into the atmosphere what would they be made of what would these nanoparticles be made of so they could be a variety of different things there's actually a lot of different um stories that a lot of different people have looked into this. So you're looking at some of the rocks and dust that you have and sort of compacting them down into little particles the size of a couple of millimeters. So it's like basically the materials of the rocks. This is like silicates and other things like that. And then if you make them the right shape and the right size,

when they're floating around in the atmosphere, then they act like a blanket. And it is so to speak, they act like a blanket, they they hold the infrared light in much like carbon dioxide holds the infrared light, okay, your honor. And if you can do this with an if you keep the one of the keys to this is you have to keep releasing that keep creating the nanoparticles and putting them in continuously. If you do it for 10 years, apparently, according to their study, you can raise the temperature of Mars by about 35 Kelvin by about 35 degrees Celsius. Well, that's just not that's a pretty big deal. But that's a large amount.

Okay, but talk to me about the scope of work that would have to be done in order to release them in the right places at the right ratio, and keep that going for 10 years, I have to assume you'd have to build factories all over the planet. Yeah, you would be doing so that's, that's, I don't think they get into the details on this in this study. They basically say, you know, it, we do some sort of in situ resource use, this is a famous, the ISRU idea where you, you set up manufacturing plants in various places, but they wouldn't be big, they'd be like the size of Landers and small rovers and stuff like that. That, you know, maybe the size of like what you

would picture a human habitat, to be like a small human habitat, and you do a number of them across the surface, building things, building and pumping these out and sort of dispersing them into the atmosphere. So you know, it's not a small amount of effort, but it would be, it would be less technologically demanding apparently than going and redirecting a comet into the right place and also less dangerous because if you're, if you go out to like Kuiper belt, if you go out to Pluto and find a comet at that distance and try and hit Mars with it, like if you go out to like, Kuiper belt, if you go out to Pluto and find a comet at that distance and try and hit Mars with it, like if you miss, yeah, you could hit Earth with it. And also you don't know what's coming with that comet. Like there's a lot of unknowns versus taking what's already on on the

Mars surface and putting it and making airborne. Exactly. And then that means you're doing it much safer. You're doing it with relatively less technology. You can do it quickly. 10 years is not a long period of time. And then once you get to the 10 year mark, apparently, according to their study, it would be warm enough and on the planet for to start melting the ice caps. Yeah. And then you start a runaway greenhouse effect, you get the carbon dioxide and the water vapor going into the atmosphere starts thickening up and you can start heading down that road. And then it's time to visit. Then it's time to visit. Okay, Jesse, before we end this, I wanna talk about this book because the title is Captivating and Curiosity Inducing. Daming, Dreaming in the Solar System,

Surfing Saturn's Rings, Golfing on the Moon and Other Adventures in Space Exploration. Tell me what it's all about. Well, Dr. John Moores and I, two professors at York University, we were just sitting around having coffee and we were like, it would be so much better if science fiction really actually showed you what these places would be like and really, really should explain the science. So we created this book. It's got 15 chapters, 15 different locations in the solar system. And it's

not just telling you about the places. We actually tell it like dictate a story to you. You read a story about some person. Actually the person is you. We wrote it in the second person and you are exploring a place. Like for example, on Mars, we have two chapters on Mars. One is called cloud watching on Mars.

So you're sitting, you're leaning back and you're watching the clouds form and watching on Mars. So you're leaning back and you're watching the clouds form and disappear on Mars. And then the other one is repelling into the Valles Marineris, into the large canyon on Mars, and learning about the different layers. And so you have this whole story that you get enveloped in, that you feel a part of,

because it's you as the main character, you learn a bit about the planet, and then we take a step back and tell you why we told the story the way we did. So why would you fall at a certain rate on Mars, or why were there certain layers there, and why is there ice in this place? Why do clouds form the way they do,

all based on actual science from actual rovers and robots throughout our solar system? If you could visit one of those places yourself, just one, which one would you go to? Okay, so the most, for me, the most engaging one, we wrote two chapters on a place called Titan. It's a moon around Saturn. And that is one of the most unique places

in our solar system. It has liquid oceans and lakes of methane and ethane. It's got a huge, thick atmosphere. There's possible so we we in we daydreamed what it would be like to go sailing in a sailboat on a lake of methane. That's amazing. That's amazing. Very interesting place. And I would definitely don't want to go see how accurately we did that. So when can people pick up the book? So you can get it now. It's on Amazon. It's on Indigo. You know, wherever books are sold,

you can probably find it. And it comes with the last thing I want to say about it is we partnered with an artist. So we have a an art and artist for who for each chapter did a watercolor representing sort of like a what the chapter was all about the story. And it's just vivid and, and it sort of takes you into the world, but it also keeps you a step back. So it lets you interpret yourself. It's a wonderful art by Michelle Parsons from Toronto. Wonderful. Oh well, we're going to have to leave it there,

but thank you so much, my friend. Want to transform your space and your Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving you the chance I'm going to leave it there, but thank you so much, my friend. Watch and win for your chance to win big. Amazing! The small details are the difference between winning and losing. Watch and win with Renovation Resort on Home Network.