The Ben Mulroney Show - This country has a debt and spending problem

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

Guests and Topics: -This country has a debt and spending problem with Guest: Tony Chapman, Host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, Founder of Chatter AI If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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He'll be back with us tomorrow and certainly lots to talk about. This is when we get into a little bit of a conversation about, you know, what does the new guy have to do to not look like the old guy? And he's now very much looking like the new guy is looking like the old guy with all the spending. Let me bring Tony Chapman, host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters, founder of this. Joining us now, hi there, it's been a very long time. Alex, how are you? I'm sending you a virtual hug. It's so nice to hear your voice. It's a nice bear hug at that. Yes. Great to hear your voice.

And I think about you often certainly, but I'd love to know how you would, uh, how do you brand Mark Carney after, um, after that kind of announcement on the weekend when he's got all this new spending of $130 billion? You know, it's interesting. It really made me realize that politics is very different than business. In business, a CEO comes

in and if they really have to turn the Titanic around, they change their team, they introduce a new vision, and they go and get capital to do so. And that's what you bring a new CEO in for change. But when it comes to politics, I was originally hoping Mark Carney would do that, bring the liberals back to the middle, the kind of Paul Martin era. But what we saw this weekend made me realize that politics is very different. There's a lot of people that have their hand

in the liberal party. There's a lot of people that are really benefited over the past decade. And I don't blame them for voting liberal because that's their livelihood and security attached to it. But what Mark Carney certainly signaled, it's gonna be not only more of the same, but much more of the same.

And I think that, and I'll end that sort of story, this rant, but just basically saying, I think the choice, if we were to simplify, it comes down to both parties want to create an economy because we need taxes. The liberals feel the best way to do it is through more government and more taxes, where the conservatives feel the best way to create an economy is less government and less taxes. And I think ultimately that's what the choice is going to come down to. And Mark Carney has certainly signaled that he's on the side of what the liberals believe in,

that if you're going to solve housing, if you're going to take people out of tents, if you're going to solve food banks, all this stuff has to come through, boring money, taxing people, and having the government decide where to invest it. And I think that's ultimately the decision that voters have got to make. I don't even think.

I think you give them far too much credit. I mean, they're using words like invest, government investing. When do governments invest, Tony? I would never let the government invest my money because they would lose it, right? Like they don't do well on the investment side. So when you see an announcement like that, I mean, there's still millions of people that are going to the polls. So to suggest that no one would stop and think like, wait, this brand sounds a lot like the

old brand. Would it give them pause? You sure would hope so. You know, listen, this is going to be if he was to win. And I don't think it's it's far from over. This would be one of the greatest comeback stories because even diehard liberal voters had given up on Justin Trudeau. And by the way, loyal liberal voters are like Coca-Cola drinkers. They are loyal. Where conservatives, I would argue, are much more open to moving their vote.

They're much softer voters. Diehard liberals are diehard liberals. But even they had said no more to Trudeau because they could look around and see what was happening in Canada. And they really started to feel the debt and affordability and inflation. They actually started personalizing their situation. Carney shows up and totally beautifully, like liberal machine, absolutely proclaimed,

coronation, beautiful. Well, hold on a second, let me step in there and ask you. The rest of the team and the advisors, all the exact same people around Trudeau, simply vanished. I mean, they're all there, but it's like- Of course they had to vanish. People just- This is a great- But it doesn't mean they're gone, right?

They're not gone. It's a great point. He had to fight this entire battle as a solo pilot. Well, that's kind of easy. Now where's the concert? Where's the concert? I'd say it's easy. Yeah.

What did the concert is do? They said, well, we have all this bench strength, but no, we're going to get Pierre to file as his fly solo. And therefore he had to play two roles. He had to constantly attack and remind us of how bad things were and also present himself as a fly solo, and therefore he had to play two roles. He had to constantly attack and remind us of how bad things were and also present himself as a states person. But here's the issue as a human being. And I've studied human beings my entire career.

You had two dogs in the room, one's a lead Husky and one's a rabid dog. You pay attention to the rabid dog and you don't feel comfortable. Why did the concertos make Pierre do both of those roles, attack dog and try to be a states person and Carney only could play one role, which is, and he plays it very well. I'm going to, I'm the calm leader. I'm going to take this agitation, this discomfort, the shifting sand you're feeling, and I'm going to make it better.

Give full credit to the liberal machine. And I, I all I've said this when he got appointed and people screamed at me. I said, now's the horse race. There's not a chance. I said, watch the liberal machine go to town. The liberal machine is very good at getting you to forget the past. But we let them, right? And we let them.

Well, it's not just we let them and the media is part of it, but the reality is you don't want, especially boomers don't want this sense of insecurity. They just want to hold onto the finish line. Here's another quote for you that's in show. They don't want it, but they're happy to let the rest of us have it, right? It's like, they don't want it, but neither do we. Well, listen, there's a great study that just came out.

Of the generations, boomers are very unwilling to pass their money onto their kids until they die where other generations are willing to help their kids. Boomers grew up, we were a very privileged group. We enjoyed the fruits of our labor. We created a lot of Canada and they're trying to hold on because they don't want somebody that might mess the boat. Here's the issue that we've got to think about.

We're giving our youth a billion dollars a week in interest payments with nothing to show for it. You show me one thing in the last 10 years you could say, we did this for you. We invested in healthcare for you. We invested in show for it. You show me one thing in the last 10 years, you could say, we did this for you. We invested in healthcare for you. We invested in education for you. We invested in getting more resources out of the ground for you.

I can't point to one thing. So I'm going to, if I'm voting, do I vote if I'm a boomer for myself and hoping to hold on until the end, or do I really start looking at my kids and grandkids and saying, if we don't start investing in them, they will have no tomorrow. And therefore, if they're not having a tomorrow, the entire Canada, as we know it, collapses. And this is where I think that the conservatives have not done a good enough job.

They've always just pointed to the problems of the liberals. This is what they did versus here's what we will do. And I think if you started to put that as a did versus do. And even in the last week, I would argue stop. With a negative attack as we all know what happened under Trudeau's watch and focus on what you're going to do to create enterprise economy taxes, what you're going to do to get people less dependent on food banks and have tents no longer to be affordable housing.

And that's the issues. And if we don't focus on that, we're going to have more deficit, more debt on the backs of our kids. And I just don't think it's sustainable. Well it's not, but it's not like that. And people haven't been warned. And so I say to low information voters, if you- Even the word warning.

Well, look- This is the thing. It's not, it's, I don't even want warning. Well, look, this is the thing. It's not it's it's I don't even want warning. I just personalize it. Drive on the street. Look around. Say, imagine that's my somebody in my family living in that tent.

And every night they got to zip up. That's your lock. Or they have if they don't go to that food bank, their family's going to start. Personalize it that way versus the fences that we use warning. We go with this good versus evil. I want people to just say, do my kids deserve a billion dollars? You might have a billion dollars. We could build two hospitals a week and 30 weeks.

We could build a pipeline, you know, at a billion dollars a week, we could, we could invest a billion dollars in one week into entrepreneurs. So, you know, I have to go down to the students states and find capital. This is what I want to have a party talk to me about versus, oh, no, we're going to take 40 billion deficit, we're going to take it to 60. We're going to build the houses for you. We haven't built subways, we haven't built any infrastructure. We took a $6 billion pipeline to turn into 30 billion, but this time it's going to be

different. And I just- Yeah, let me just jump out before we run out of time, though. But the 130 billion, I mean, if that't. Yeah. Let me, let me just jump out before we run out of time though, but the 130 billion. I mean, if that's not a big wake up call to those who are now planning to vote next week, now, you know, they've shown you who they are. This is who they are. They love to spend to your point. Okay.

So you take a big bucket of mud and you just pour it on the sidewalk on a little tiny ant and say, there's your kid's future. Ask your kids what they'd spend a billion dollars a week on in Canada instead of interest payments. And you might have a conversation where I personalize that big number. Until then, it's just a meaningless number. And by the way, conservatives better show up

with their costed out policy because if not, well, let's hope they do it. I wish they'd done it before. It should be mandatory that they have to be presented by the second week because the bottom line is, we're going to the polls uninformed, right right like these are important decisions. Christmas comes every election year promise after promise after promise. Canada's broke guys we need to grow our economy and our taxes. Is it going to be the liberals or the concerters that are the best shot at doing that?

Everything else is immature if we don't grow our base, we continue to borrow on the backs of future generations, it collapses. Well, not sure what the day after the 28th looks like. I just think either which way, whomever wins, Tony, I would put the warning, don't be cheering and don't be boasting because we're a very divided country. Listen, I just read it out on LinkedIn that I voted conservative today and you wouldn't believe I'm getting the blowback. It's probably going to cost me work, but I think it's important in this election that we let people know it's okay to put out who you're voting for and why and do it in the most responsible way versus finger pointing.

Got to go, Tony. I'm out of time, but we'll chat again. Thank you. The My Choice sales event is back at Nissan and the choice is yours. Choose our bestselling rogue, always ready for adventure. Or the rugged Pathfinder, a towing powerhouse. Or the all-new, boldly redesigned Kicks. And now during My Choice, you can choose up to $1,500 in Nissan bonus or accessory credit.

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