The Ben Mulroney Show - This week in Politics -- How is Carney's approval rating so high?

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

Guest:  Max Fawcett -  National Observer columnist Guest:  Anthony Koch, Managing Principal at AK Strategies and former National Campaign Spokesperson for Pierre Poilievre     If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Twitter: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ TikTok: ⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠ Enjoy   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Mulruni. Okay, welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show, and we are going to end this show with our superpowers, and our superpowers are the guests that join us each and every week

for this week in politics. So please welcome, yet again, Max Fawcett from the National Observer, as well as Anthony Koch, managing principal at AK Strategies and former national campaign spokesperson for Pierre Pollyoff. Guys, happy Monday. Happy Monday. Happy Monday.

All right, Max, I want to start with you because there's a story in the Globe and Mail that is a head scratcher, right? It's a story of a Méti group that has received almost a billion dollars just shy of just over $800 million of the past 10 years in federal funding. that people are now turning around and saying they are fraudulently claiming Méti identity. Now, I am not making a case one way or the other. I don't have any information. But given the moment that we are living in, given how important it is for any level of government to not only seek reconciliation, but be seen to be seeking reconciliation, I feel that.

No matter who would be in power right now, sweeping this under the rug and just pretending it didn't happen is probably what's going to happen. Yeah, it feels like this is not going to rise to the top of the government's to-do list right now. I mean, it's interesting. We've seen this in other sectors of the economy and the arts, you know, people who have claimed indigenous status and especially, I think, Métis status, have been since discovered not to have the roots that they claim.

And so, like, this is a real thing. And it does, it does deprive resources from legitimately indigenous people. But this just feels like, A, it's something for those communities to figure out amongst themselves. They have to sort this out and bring us an answer. And B, when the government is dealing with, you know, a war in the Middle East, you know, the American trade war, need to get infrastructure built, stimulate the economy, this is just going to fall to the bottom of the list. yeah unfortunately well and uh anthony uh i don't know what part of it is supposed to like the whole thing is is a comedy of errors uh but 810 million dollars over 10 years and nobody checked into the status of this group to see whether or not they were checking the right boxes uh i don't i don't know

i don't know where the blame is supposed to be is it is it the is it the trudeau liberals giving out money uh uh giving out money like it was uh like they want to be the best house on the block and they were handing out the big candy bars at Halloween. I'm not sure where the biggest egregious problem is. I don't know where to look. No, exactly. I don't think any Canadian government of any partisan stripe wants to be tasked with telling which groups are legitimate

and which are not. I would run so far away from that situation. You'd never find me for years. So I understand the complications. Like you said, When we're talking about billions of dollars with a B, you want to make sure that this stuff's not fraudulent. So I don't know what kind of mechanism can be created to create some sort of internal accountability mechanism between indigenous groups. But yeah, that's the problem with Métis identification, the Métis actually are their own nation.

The problem becomes a lot of people who are of mixed heritage in one way or another just call themselves Métis. Yeah. of my, as many of my indigenous friends of varying backgrounds have explained to me, that's not all that it takes to be Métis. It actually refers to a specific people with a specific history, not just anybody who has some form of mixed heritage. All right. Well, let's talk about the fact that the Carney government celebrated 100 days since the last election. Congratulations to him and to them. Still riding very high in the polls. I spoke with Tristan Hopper from the National Post last weekend. And he points out that if you,

you take, if you take older Canadians out of the equation, by and large, it's a fairly dead heat, but I don't see why you would take older Canadians out of the equation. They are still Canadian and still, still kicking. So still worth the same at the ballot box. But when the Toronto Star's headline, Max, is, Carney's approval rating remains high. What has he done to deserve it. I got to wonder whether that is, I mean, it feels to me like realism is setting in, like the honeymoon is probably ending, and the high expectations are now being met with questions about, all right, just tell us when you're going to do the things you said you were going to do. Yeah, I think the honeymoon officially ends when Parliament resumes sitting, you know,

Pierre Pahliav is back in there as the, you know, the leader of the opposition with a seat in the House of Commons. We'll see what percentage of the vote he gets, but that will be, I think, where the rubber meets the road. I mean, the government has done a lot of things over the course of the summer. A lot of it has been laying groundwork, you know, Bill C5, a lot of the negotiations with the Americans, all those trade deals that people were trying to dunk on Carney for are starting to look like not deals at all, but extortion racket agreements, you know, the deal with China, the Japan, excuse me, the deal with the EU is looking like it might collapse. So I'm not sure that his handling of the trade,

file is the negative that some folks want it to be, but he will have to start posting up results, you know, by the time we get back to September, or Canadians are going to start wondering, you know, where the, where's the beef on a lot of this stuff? I think they're willing to give him a lot of rope, but it's not endless. I agree. And Anthony, look, I, I just think that he, listen, nobody asked him to set the expectations as high as he did. And I, and I, I said on this show last week, there is only one group in Ottawa that has institutional knowledge of how to negotiate with Donald Trump, and that is the Liberal Party of Canada. The Conservatives have never negotiated with them. They've never been in government while there was a Trump administration.

So they have a history there. They know what to, by and large, what to expect. When you put Mark Carney at the top, who said he came into politics because he's the guy to get it done, I'm sorry, I don't feel that no deal is an acceptable answer. I'm sorry that you didn't say I'm going to get the best possible deal or no deal. You said, I'm going to get the best possible deal. Correct. And this, by the way, is why in many respects I hate the way our political system functions because it incentivizes lying to voters.

And the fact of matters out here, it's going to be unpopular with liberals when I say this. We were going to get screwed regardless of who. the Prime Minister of Canada was, whether it was Pierre Pahlia, whether it was Mark Carney, and it frustrated anybody who jumped up and down and told you in one way or another that they had the special secret sauce that was going to make this, was lying to you, or was at the very least massively exaggerating the size of the task that we have before us, Max laid it out, everybody across the world is sort of getting dinged. Canada were in a unique position in many respects where there have been a number of incidences where we've actually started with a better

negotiating position and then negotiated ourselves into a worse one right i think about like me that digital sales tax that we had so there's a couple of stuff but but on the whole i still think we're in this for the long haul i hope canada finds some success but i do agree at the macro level which is all right buddy you know we're approaching that magical four six months position all right election's over summer's coming to an end the legislature's coming back you got to start showing some wins brother because if you don't you know it's it's all great to talk a big game about the CV that you had before you were prime minister but what are you doing now that you actually have the job yeah yeah max i think what you said about laying the groundwork is absolutely fair

and i co-sign that entirely but but you're right once once we hit the once we hit the fall session of of the house of commons if we don't see these um projects of national importance these infrastructure projects if we don't see them lining up and getting fast, rapid approval the way the system is supposed to be set up for, then that's going to be a problem. Like that's that, you know, if, and if we don't have a system that has the buy-in from First Nations that has been critical to this entire thing, then people are going to be thrown up their heads and say, well, what was this all for? I agree. I mean, that was the litmus test that he set for himself. He said that, you know, we're going to move at speeds we never thought

was possible. And we have to see that. Yeah. I think that we are. actually moving at a pretty decent clip right now in terms of getting that that undergirding legislation in place doing the negotiations the major projects office is up and running they've identified uh you know i think they have their list of projects and they're going to come out with it in the next few weeks there's no point in announcing it in august uh you know when no one's really paying attention yeah correct and then and then i and then i think we will see a conversation you know then the argument shifts to why have you prioritized these projects over maybe other projects that we would have wanted. And that that's a choice that both liberals and conservatives

are going to have to defend. But I do think we're going to see some announcements when it's time to happen. All right. Well, don't go anywhere. Much more with the panel when we come back. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show and welcome back to this week in politics. We got Max Fawcett. We got Anthony Koch. We got the heavy hitters here on a Monday. Gentlemen, I say, this, I'd say 25% tongue and cheek. But in Canada, in 2025, it does seem that if you want to run a foul of the law, then the most effective way to do so would be to be a Bible thumping folk singer or certainly not taking to the streets and causing with your protest over the course of two years. There's a story in the Toronto Star that says that,

In the UK, in London, where they have been dealing with their own pro-Palestinian protests, they had a wave of arrests, over 500 of them at one protest, because of a ban of a particular group and signs showing support was enough to round those people up, back up the paddy wagon and throw them all in. Now, it seems to me in this country, we have a really tough time distinguishing between what is protected speech, what is hate speech, what are actions that the police can can move on and arrest people. And it does seem like the UK is developing a little more clarity on that front. Max, let's start with you. Sure. I think the difference here is this group is one that has been connected with like actual acts of violence. They have committed crimes.

They have attacked police officers. They have done a lot more than just exercise their right to free speech. However unpopular, it might be among some people. So I think we have to draw those lines where, you know, if there is a group that is engaged in explicitly criminal activity, then sure, the state has a reasonable case to crack down on them when they, you know, continue to violate the law. I would just like the folks who are free speech maximalists to be consistent here, right? You cannot be sort of an uncompromising free speech enthusiast when it's your speech, but when someone else is saying things you don't like, suddenly you get real quiet. That inconsistency to me does not sit very well. Well, I think I'm pretty consistent.

There's tons of speech that I disagree with. I have no problem making space for and defending the person's right to say it. But when, Anthony, when it comes time and time again with hand in hand with disruption to the basic function of our cities, I've got a problem with it. Yeah, no kidding. man, when you got people carrying Hezbollah flags in the streets, carrying Hamas flags in the streets, people calling themselves the soldiers of Muhammad Dave, the former leader of the Qasam brigades of Hamas, like we've gotten past the point. I think we all realized this probably about at the very least a year and a half ago that most of these protests weren't just about concern about what was going on with the civilian population in Gaza

and that there were far more nefarious activists that were involved in these sorts of things, actively promoting and supporting the cause of Islamist terrorists, both at home and abroad. Many people even calling for the destruction of Canada. There was even a video that I saw two days ago from the Temple University Group for Students for Justice in Palestine, where they said, it is our mission not only to destroy the state of Israel, but to destroy the United States of America. So these are the kinds of people that we're dealing with, and I agree with Max on the whole. If you're going to be a free speech maximalist, be a free speech maximumist, I'm not a free speech maximalist. I'm a I'm a Li Kuan Yew style conservative for those who who appreciate Singapore and I do believe that there is something I do believe there is something to be said about social cohesion and general broad-based happiness and peace within the multiple groups that can pose our society but no so I think there absolutely needs to be something to be done and you don't need to see much to just look a few days ago right before Shabbat on Friday there was a Hasidic Jewish man in Uttraman who had the daylight speed out of him and

on a three of his kids and had his keepa thrown into a fountain, right? And it's the kind of thing that a few years ago would have led national new, it barely so much it gets half a cough. So stuff's going on. We got to do so. But I do agree. And I do share Max's concern to some extent. We don't want to be overly zealous in our policing of speech. But at the end of the day, you know, if you're supporting Yaya Sinwar and praising, you know, dead terrorists with Hezbole of flags in the streets of Montreal or Toronto, yeah. Maybe the police should have a conversation with you. Well, Max, and where the consistency argument is one that baffles me on on this next story as well. You got this, you got this guy that I guarantee everybody on this

call disagrees with most of his positions. I'm talking about that religious singer who was coming on a small tour of Canada. And he was denied access to a crown land, which I suppose is fine. And but then when he found refuge inside a church in Montreal, that church was fined, the mayor of Toronto, the mayor of the city came out and called him every name in the book. And yet, you see what we just described happening on the streets of Canada all the time. Some are asking if this guy deserves an apology. I don't think he deserves an apology. I think he's very thankful that he got the press that he got because now people know about him that never would have heard of him. But if you want to look for inconsistency

in how we treat certain types of speech, look no further than the protests versus that one dude with a guitar. No argument. Yeah, you're bang on. And I think he should be sending Canada a gift basket for all the lovely things we've done for his career because, you know, like all these progressive politicians and people who I suppose they think they're helping or they're doing they're doing the right thing, but they are literally advancing the guy's cause that they don't like, right? If they had just let him have his concerts, not said a word, he would have come, he would have gone, he would have played to 10 people or 20 people, and that would have been the end of it. Instead, they turned him into an international celebrity, you know, among sort of Trump

supporters in that universe and, you know, made him a bigger star than he already was, and they didn't have to do that. It's the Barbara Shrysand effect. Exactly. So like progressives, like when you think you are doing something that is helping, just do a gut check on it and try to make sure you're not handing a win to the people that you don't like. And look, but just because we all agree, and we can look at it and say, don't do that. Like, it's still happened. Like, it's still, there's still a real problem. I really don't like, Anthony. I don't like anybody throwing around terms like he's hateful. He's prejudiced. He's this. He's that. But there is this, there is this deep desire and Max you'll you'll you'll forgive me if I if I say I see it

mostly on the left of calling people all sorts of names if we don't agree with them they are Nazis they are they I mean Christ a gene ad was called Naziist a Nazi Nazism so like it's it's yes we have to he he's got to thank us for making his career uh turning turning him into an international star, but we've got to get this part of our national dialogue under control or we're not going to be able to talk to each other. Anthony? Oh, for sure.

Yeah, for sure. But I think it's even more than that. I think people have realized very clearly that in this country, we're developing the makings of a two-tier justice system across many tiers of friends. I mean, I remember, right? It was like COVID was the big one. At one point, nobody was allowed to go outside for anything.

But then when the Black Lives Matter protest started, all of a sudden, large mass gatherings outside were okay and actually were positive by public health authorities, or then you've got people like Tamara Litch right now who are facing seven-year sentences. Meanwhile, you have people who, for example, there's a woman who came back to Montreal who had joined ISIS. And they said, ah, she probably learned her lesson. They gave her one day of house arrest and said, she took some courses at Siegep. She's probably fine. Or better yet, We live now even in a country where judges are allowed to consider people's immigration status when rendering judgment for sentencing.

So for those who don't know what that means, in Canada, if you get a sentence of six months or longer, you're automatically deported, provided you're not a citizen, okay? So what they do now is you've seen an explosion of sentencing of six months minus a day. So like an example, you had a few years ago in Ontario, I think it was in Guelph, you had an international student who was at a bar, took his hand and stuck it up a woman's skirt. Under normal circumstances, had he been a Canadian citizen, he would have received a sentence in the multitude of years. But the judge wrote in their decision that because such a sentence would have resulted in his deportation, that she was only going to give him six months minus a day so that he could remain

in Canada because she thought it was unfair. That's two-tier justice. We've got to fix that across the board. Well, to tie a bow on it, it's this inconsistency, right? Whether it's in application of free speech or application of justice, I just want people, I just want one system for all. But to the both of you, I say thank you. I hope you have a great week and we'll talk to you soon. They come from Survivor, they come from Big Brother.

They know what they're doing. These vets wrote the playbook, and they have all had to earn their stripes. How did you win Survivor? Manipulating people. Same thing I'm going to do here. And now, new threats will enter the game. Hungry to forge a new legacy. Once we train on, it's going to be hard to contain.

This really, truly is the most even matchup that I've seen in a long time. The Challenge, Vets and New Threats. All New Wednesday on Slice and stream on Stack TV. Thank you.