The Ben Mulroney Show - This week in socialism... plus other wild and wacky crap going on

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

  GUEST : David Borys / Hostile History  Guest:  Adam Zivo / national post columnist 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 Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Welcome, everybody. Westjet says it is in what they're calling recovery phase day one after they reached a tentative deal with their flight attendants who were on strike. The complaint that they had was valid.

Air Canada faced a similar battle that they resolved, that flight attendants want to eliminate the system where they were only paid for what they called block hours when the plane was in motion. But what about all of that work that happens before the plane move? So it feels like they've resolved that, but it goes to show one day of disruption leads to days, if not weeks of cleaning up after that disruption.

So if your flight has been canceled or, if you are stuck in limbo or in transit, we feel for you. We know how difficult that can be, but glad that that problem got resolved as quickly as it did because it could have been far, far worse than it was. We really, look, there's government jobs. In this economy, it is really hard to get a high-paying job.

Anything over, I mean, if you get a job paying you 100K, you are breathing a sigh of relief that a lot of problems are no longer problems. And getting a government job is, we know these days, that they're asking all sorts of questions that they typically didn't ask you before. They didn't use to ask or care what your gender or your cultural background was.

I know that they weren't allowed to asking a woman if they were pregnant, right? But now, of course, they ask all those questions because identity is paramount to everything. Identity determines whether or not you can do a job, right? Well, now the BC government has crossed just another line of folly. And this is, just let me tell you, it's... Wait a second.

I just want to suggest, say something. When I showed you this, did you think it was real? Do you think it was April Fool's? I don't know what I thought. I thought it's 2026. I just put it in the bucket of 2026 crazy. I'm still having a hard time believing this is real. Okay, so here's the job.

It's BC's provincial health services authority. And they are hiring for a, listen to this, a director of business planning with a salary of $170,000 a year. All right. Business planning. That's what it's for. So I just told you before that.

Of course they're going to ask you all those racial and cultural and sexual questions, obviously. But now they have added an ideological purity test to the job requirement. And this is courtesy of, who posted this? Caroline Elliott. Caroline Elliott posted this. To be eligible for this job, and we're not making this up,

to be eligible for this job, you must, oh my God, I hope you are sitting down, pledge your allegiance to undoing the harms of settler colonialism in the colonial health care structure. You must demonstrate your unwavering dedication to DEI. You must show your personal learning, unlearning journey in relation to indigenous. specific racism and dismantling systems of oppression. That's a mouthful. This is a leftist government very comfortable in its government. They don't think anything's coming to dislodge them with nonsense like this.

But they should because they're in trouble, right? I don't know how many times I have to say it. when leftists do things like this, you create the circumstances for the evolution of your counterpoint. So if you are going to behave like insane people, you are going to create insanity on the right. I don't want that. I'm warning against it, but that's what's going to happen.

And then you're going to say, how can they be so far right? it's because you swung the pendulum so far left. It's inevitable. Swing to the far right is going to happen. I'm sorry, what does demonstrating your unwavering dedication to DEI have to do with business planning? Well, in health care. I don't know.

I mean, I can't think of anything, but I'm sure it does. No. But I can't think of anything. When I do think it's something, I'll let you know. When you are a government untethered from the needs and wants of, you know, you're in, you your, of the people you are supposed to serve, you come up with nonsense like this. When you are a government that has no idea how to balance the books, you put stuff like this in front of people. Hold on. It says that you must be dedicated to dismantling systems of

oppression. This seems like a system of oppression. So let's dismantle that. Oh, look at that. Look at you playing 3D chess. Hey, man. Think about it. Right. I mean, how oppressive is this? This, this, this, this, This, this, this was created by a band of idiots. A band of idiots. Whoever supports this should be walking around the world in a helmet. Because, oh, oh, my, Betcom me pi. I don't know what else to say. Betcombe me pi.

You are a friggin moron. Whoever wrote this. And everybody on your team who checked the box saying, yeah, post that. You're a moron too. You're a moron too. And the more I hear from this government, it's populated by morons. The morons who are going to drive the province into the ocean.

Good luck to you, BC. I mean, I'm here for you. I'm here for you. But you got to take some sanity. I feel like I've taken crazy pills. I feel like I've taken crazy pills. I told you you wouldn't believe it. I mean, it's just, it's sort of, it's an unbelievable poster.

This is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. I called you a moron. I think I would say stupidest. too harsh, but yeah, it's a level of stupidity, government stupidity, the likes of which I don't often see. Well, we do see all those positions for the various universities where

you have to be, you know, but these people were elected. B.P. But these people were elected to represent the people of B.C. So they'll represent you that they'll, so again, you'll take a B.C. taxpayers money. But when that B.C.

taxpayer wants to apply for this job, even if they check every box in terms of what makes the employment. But if you don't demonstrate your unwavering dedication to DEI and undoing the harms of settler colonialism, you need not apply. You, you're a hoor. You're a ghoul of a human being. I don't even know what the colonial health care structure is.

No one does. It's meaningless. It's a grift. These are people who have created problems that only they can solve. And they get paid to do it. You're going to pay someone $170,000 a year to do everything but be director of business planning because you want them to get paid

to propagate your nonsense view of the world. And it's a pyramid scheme that is being funded by you and me and the people of British Columbia. But you're not alone. No, you're not. No, you're not. Time for this week in socialism.

Ah, yes, the socialist in chief, the New York City mayor, Mom, Donnie, he's doing a victory lap because he's, He's getting his five, his subsidized grocery stores. And a lot of people are wondering, well, what do you do when people find out that the groceries are so cheap? People come from far and wide to buy them. Well, his team had a solution for that. So our RFP makes very clear that this is a program for New Yorkers to be able to put food on the table.

We are looking to make sure that we target New Yorkers, whether it be at sort of a library card-esque, and also we manage who's buying and that is focused on everyday New Yorkers. Ah, we gotcha. We gotcha. So, yes, it's just the key point there. We got to you, silly little socialist. You gotta be there.

We didn't think we'd notice, but you're saying, you're saying that people need to show ID to buy their groceries, but you don't want them to show ID to vote. Ah, so I see how it works. And the MAGA crowd did not let go. They were a dog with a bone. They were on top of this like a fat kid on cake.

Hold on. They didn't say that though. No, no, they didn't because then... No. Then the mayor's office, when they realized the hypocrisy of their nonsense, the mayor's office told Forbes that anyone can shop at their stores, regardless of residency or income without presenting an ID. And they were referring to a loyalty card.

But that's not what you said. No, it doesn't seem like that's what they said, is it? No, no, no, no. See, you got caught. You got caught. You somebody just made... Just asked you for... a consequence of your action,

and you realize you were hypocrites because you live in a fantasy land. You live in a fantasy land. It doesn't take much to poke holes, and people realize that you leak like a sieve. Yeah, that was, I think, maybe, you got caught. You got, yeah, that's an oopsie.

You got caught with your, uh, anyway. This is, it's never, it's never not fun, highlighting how moronic these people are. Oh, darn it. Oh, darn it. All right. We're going to take a break when we come back. Uh, another culture.

War, and this one's coming from the WNBA. Hi, I'm Jane Koston, former writer and podcaster for places like the New York Times, The Atlantic and National Review. And now I'm here to hang out with you. Five days a week. On what a day, Crooked's Daily News podcast. That's right. Now who's respected on both sides?

Okay, yeah, it's not me. It's probably still just Dolly Parton. Moving on. These days, it's hard to separate what matters from all the noise, especially when the noise somehow also feels like it's made out of knives? That's why every weekday, the team and I scour the headlines to bring you the stories that matter most to the way you live in just 20 minutes. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Look, we don't want to talk about this stuff. Frankly, I really loved the story of the WNBA gaining popularity. All right. And I'm sure it's due to a number of reasons, not the least of which was Caitlin Clark. And I always found it a little odd and adorable that they were marginalizing their biggest star for equity reasons, I suppose, whatever. It was an oddity of that league. But the culture war of transgender athletes has engulfed the WNBA.

And not only does nobody seem to know how to get out of it, but it seems like they just want to, they just want to marinate in it. There's more and more people wading into this and creating battle lines. the battle lines should be according to your team versus another team. So let's start out with Cheryl Reeve. She's WNBA coach who wore a trans kids belong shirt. And she wore that to troll Sophie Cunningham. Sophie Cunningham you'll remember is the player,

the tall, statuesque blonde one who did the pointing meme. And she came out staunchly in favor. of biological girls playing with biological girls and changing in front of biological girls. And she did so without a trace of hate and without a trace of belligerence or defensiveness. And of course, you say that, those last number of words you just said are the things that nobody hears. They refuse to. So long, if you do not say exactly what a certain group of activists want you to say, then that means what they say it means.

And they'll only hear the thing they want to hear. Well, yeah, because you're denying that trans people exist. You didn't say that, though. It doesn't matter. She's denying that they exist, and she is making the world less safe for those people, and somebody probably ultimately died already because of what Sophie Cunningham said. And so she wore this shirt, as Cheryl Reeve did. and she's so she's taking that position against Sophie Cunningham,

but she gets upset whenever men take coaching jobs from women. When two years ago, we lost seven WMBA coaches, right? They got fired because all of a sudden this money, you know, became more, the WMBA blew up valuations of franchises, right? In comes the NBA folks again, who had cast us aside for many years. In they come again, right? Now they want their franchises back and that sort of thing. It's more important again.

And then we have more men. I mean, the hypocrisy is self-evident. But it gets even worse. Later on in that clip, she refers to how she wants a task force to look at why black women are not being given the opportunities to coach that others are given. So why doesn't she give up her job, though? Well, no, that's not where my head went. My head went and I said, okay, so we've created a silo around black women. But generally speaking, in your mind, trans women are women.

So it's a spectrum. But for black women, it's a silo. You see, it's this selective, it's a selective cherry picking of what you believe is truth. That means nothing you say is true. It's always a moving target. It's always fluid. It depends entirely on the situation that you are trying to take advantage of. But one thing is consistent.

There is always a victim. There's always a victim that needs to be protected against someone else. Sophie Cunningham is victimizing people with her words. The male coaches are victimizing you. And generally speaking, all the coaches are victimizing black women. I can't keep up with the victimization of it all. And remember, this is a lead. that where we should be talking about how more and more people want to go there.

I will also point out that poll after poll after poll shows that the majority, sometimes it's 65%, it can go as high as 85% of Americans have a problem with trans women in biological women spaces, including sports. I don't know how you build the most successful league you can by alienating those people. like by simply cutting them off and saying you're a transphobe and you are making the world unsafe for trans women and you are racist and all this stuff, I don't understand how you build the most successful league you can.

Let's continue. It's just there's this onslaught of people who are just, there's so many people who are against Sophie Cunningham on this. Yeah. And they're piling on. But the number that I just told you about dictates that Sophie Cunningham's going to win because she has more people on her side who just want this not to be a conversation.

They just want to accept her for what she said and not have her defend herself for things she did not say. Here's another coach, a coach of the Valkyries, Natalie Nakase, talking about trans athletes. It's like for me sports is about belonging. It's about inclusivity. it's about allowing everyone to be their authentic self. You know, I'm big on that just because I have been criticized for my height, for my ethnicity. I've been in those, you shouldn't belong here many times.

And for me, I don't want that space, especially Golden State, to ever feel like that. So I'm all about women, little girls deserving to play, and that includes trans women. Okay, so you want everybody to be their authentic self, except for Sophie Cunningham, who in that moment was her authentic self. And that doesn't work. So again, this stuff doesn't hold up to even the simplest level of scrutiny. You want everyone to be included. You want everyone to be their authentic self. Sophie Cunningham was her authentic self.

You're excluding her. Doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. Here's some authenticity for you, by the way. In Paris, in 2024, The gold medal for women's 100-meter race was Julian Alfred of St. Lucia at 10.72 seconds. A time of 10.72 seconds represents a great high school varsity time for a boy.

For a woman, it gets you the Olympic gold. And this is not about trans women invading sport. It's not about them taking over entirely. But if one girl, if one girl, Title IX was created for this, We want our girls to succeed. If one girl is denied access, then we have failed that girl. And this isn't to denigrate women athletes who are amazing to say that, oh, 10.72 seconds is the gold medal, but it wouldn't even rank in the top 500 for boys in the U.S. for any given year.

You go, okay, well, no, that's not knocking down. You're acknowledging that we are different. Yes. That's why we have different sports. That's what we don't compete against each other. Speaking of sort of trying to push these people to acknowledge the fallacy of their illogical worldview, Clay Travis is a big voice in sports in the United States. And he has publicly offered up to $10 million to arrange a broadcasted game between the

reigning WNBA champions, Las Vegas Aces, and a top-ranked high school boys state title team. However, the WNBA and its franchises have never accepted or acknowledged these promotional challenges. He wants, he's trying to point out the innate physical advantage that comes from being a boy playing against girls. Well, they did have the women's national soccer team, which has won the World Cup a couple of times, play a bunch against a bunch of high school boys. Yeah. And they lost. And they got trounce. And they got trounced. And again, all you have to do is ask yourself, why aren't we having this conversation the other way? Why aren't we having this conversation about trans men trying to compete in men, biological men's spaces.

Because it doesn't, because it's a one-way thing. It's simple as that. And you can take puberty blockers if you want, that doesn't change the reality of that dynamic. And this is not me punching down. And this is not me denying the existence or even standing in favor of the hard-fought rights of trans people. But playing a sport, I do not believe is a right.

It is a privilege. I don't get to play the sports I want to play. And I've said before, we don't get everything we want in life. And at some point you have to just accept, I got a lot. And I just don't get to get that. We'll have a conversation about creating something that works for everybody. It's exhausting pointing out the hypocrisy. It's exhausting pointing out the folly of this fake reality.

But so long as people keep throwing it out there, We're going to keep knocking out of the park, I guess. All right, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, our good friend David Boris, the host of hostile history. We're going to continue talking about the Crusades. We're also going to talk broadly about how history has portrayed the Crusades in film. A great chat with a great guy coming up next. Let's welcome to the show, our good friend David Boris.

He's the host of the podcast, Hostile History. David, welcome. How you doing? Good, buddy. How you doing? I'm good. So that Crusades episode went well? Oh, it went fantastic.

Yes, it was absolutely opening a lot of doors, a lot of people. learning new things as we want from this podcast in general. What were some of the questions that came out of that the fans brought to your attention? Well, I think, I think two of the things, we kind of talked about it a little bit in our chat previously was one, I think a lot of people were just surprised at how much military cooperation went on between Muslim and Christian forces. People truly, some people, to be honest, some people still don't believe it. They said that can't be true, but it is true. We know that for the fact the research doesn't work. And secondly, I think they were just intrigued about the cultural cooperation, which I think if there's one thing I thought maybe in our takeaway from our last conversation is that, you know, these aren't too intractable cultures.

It's not that they can't get along and find places to sort of meet halfway through. And I think those were some of the big takeaways that people were like pleasantly surprised to hear. Well, listen, I don't want to editorial as we get overly political. But up until a few years ago, it was demonstrable that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the, that the. Muslim faith could absolutely be a net benefit to the Canadian multicultural mosaic. And it still is. It's that it's that vein of radical jihadi violence that I think everyone takes issue with. And I don't conflate the two. I think activists try to conflate the activists on both sides, either try to conflate the two or they try to suggest that people

like me are conflating the two. And I've never done that in my life. If I have, I apologize, but I suspect I haven't. And yeah, but we've got proof in decades of great Muslim Canadians helping build this country. Yeah, and I think that's the big thing. And I don't, I don't mind getting political with these. I think it's important to talk about this because the simple fact is these stories from our history from global and human history, they can help us understand the world we live in today. And let's be honest, immigration is a hot topic. We know this. I mean, look what's going on in Spain, Morocco right now. Look at the discussions in this country right now. And very real conversations need to be happening about this. How do we do this in a controlled and a meaningful

in a safe way? But at the same time, we can't let the language of we're always fighting each other. We were always at war. We never got along. We can't let that language infiltrate real discussions. Yeah. And as I always say, I will never defend myself against things I didn't say. And unfortunately, we're living in a time where people will infer what they want and then try to get you to defend yourself against things you never said. But let's bring Hollywood into this conversation. Because there is no force, in my opinion, that is more influential over informing people's views, however misguided they may be, over what they think is history than Hollywood. And the cruiseries. Crusades have been portrayed, I think, in the way that you have pushed back on in your podcast. They've been portrayed in that wrong way, that it was exclusively a long protracted military campaign pitting two cultures and two religions against one another. Yeah, and it's interesting. I think that is the common conception, a misconception of the crusades that Hollywood has put forth. I mean, we could spend every week, every time.

we get together in chat, we could spend for the rest of the years talking about Hollywood's misinterpretation of historical issues. I mean, look at the furor over the Odyssey, and I understand that's not real history. That's a legend and a myth. But nonetheless, this stuff really triggers people. But you're absolutely right. You know, one of the interesting things that we're talking about this week is the presentation of Baldwin the Force. And if you remember the movie Kingdom of Heaven, Baldwin the Fourth had a silver mask on. He was the Leopard King, played by Edward Norton, interestingly enough. And actually this week, we dive a bit deeper into who that king was versus how he might have been traded in Kingdom of Heaven. Because the simple fact is, the history is so much more

interesting often than what is portrayed on the big screen. So what are a few of the things that Hollywood got wrong in their portrayal of Baldwin the 4th? And what's the, what's the historical truth? Well, the first fact is Baldwin is often seen to be, if anything, a weak and sort of passive king. You know, they sort of tap into this idea that he has leprosy. needs. He somehow can't control his kingdom, his kingdom's falling apart beneath them. That is far from the truth. You wouldn't believe this, but this guy becomes king at 13, and by 16 years old, suffering from leprosy, which you know in the Middle Ages was a, you know, very significant disease, one that often ostracized you from the community you're in. You know, he's sent to a leopard colony, things

like that. Here he is at 16 years old, believe it or not, and he leaves an army against Saladin, the great Islamic military tactician and strategist, and he defeats Saladin on the battlefield. This kid is unbelievable. Now, the movie has no portrayal of him like this. Edward Norton does a pretty good job, but the fact of the matter is none of that strength, none of that ability to lead at that age is ever shown in the movie. I mean, truth is stranger than fiction. Yeah.

How did they portray him in the movie? Well, he was kind of very passive, very philosophical. He had the silver mask on in that movie, which was actually not true. there's no evidence he ever wore a mask at all. He was sort of seen to be physically weak when in fact, even while suffering from leprosy, he actually led to the armies. He was on horseback. So he wasn't leading from the rear?

No, not at all. He was absolutely from the front. He was leading in sort of your classic medieval lord kind of was supposed to, was meant to. I mean, obviously he had issues, but he like learned how to fight with his left to hand because his right arm didn't work anymore. And this guy is an incredible story. And granted, the movie that we were talking about was not really about him per se. But none of that gets captured in the movie.

And that's where Hollywood kind of misses these opportunities. Tell me what the next episode of hostile history is going to tackle. Oh, buddy, you won't believe it. We're talking about we're tackling Star Wars. Believe it or not, we're going to be looking at the way that Star Wars reflects warfare throughout modern history. How what? Star Wars reflects warfare throughout. Modern History.

Okay, just promise me one thing. If you're going to do Star Wars, at some point, you've got to do Star Trek. You got it. Absolutely. It's on the list. That's a very good point. Are you a Star Trek guy or Star Wars? Well, I like both, but I think I'm more emotionally invested in Star Trek.

Okay. Well, that's great. I'll look forward to that. Because Star Wars is, Star Wars is like, is fantasy. It's a, it's a, you don't have dragons, but you might as well have dragons. It's like, it's a game of Thrones, but it's like closer to that world than science fiction per se. True. That's very true.

That's a good point. I mean, now we're going to get attacked by Star Wars people and Star Trek people just by having this brief conversation about it. Well, one cannot hold a candle in terms of box office, but I think in terms of social resonance, I think Star Trek has always tried to be more reflective of the world we're living in, as opposed to being a fantasy outlet and escapism that Star Wars is. I like them both. I need them both, but I do recognize the difference between them. Hey, David, if people want to find the show, how can they? Oh man. Every Wednesday we got new episodes coming out.

So this Wednesday you're going to get a whole dose of King Baldwin, the Leopard King. And then next week, hopefully you'll be able to have a great chat. And people will get Star Wars next week as well. Wednesday morning, it comes out. All right. Thank you very much, my friend. We appreciate it. Thanks, buddy.

Take care. All right, when we come back, I don't know how many times this is going to happen. We've been told and assured by CBC itself that any time they put something out there, you can trust it. Well, they put out an investigation that our next guest says misleads the public on a very serious issue. A few months ago, something truly perplexing happened. The editor-in-chief of CBC News, Brody Fenland, posted on social media about how because of the CBC's

fact-checking and verification standards, viewers will, quote, never ever have to worry about what is real and what is fake if it comes from the CBC. I found this to just be such an odd thing for them to post. I think it was in reaction to the news coming out about that fake TV show, that gotcha, want to be journalism, not funny comedy show that CBC was helping to bankroll. And I think CBC News wanted to say, we are not them. CBC and CBC News are two different things. But if you're a news organization and you have to tell people you can trust everything we say,

then I think you have an image problem and you also have a trust gap that you have to get over. But just because someone says something doesn't make it true and they had an investigation about safe consumption sites, they would probably say safe injection sites or whatever,

that our next guest has poked so many holes in that it just doesn't hold any water. Please welcome to the show. National Post columnist Adam Zivo. Adam, welcome. Thanks for having me. Okay, so yeah, I thought it was when I read your piece, I thought, it feels like I've read this before, something like this before. And sure enough, they do this a lot to CBC.

They push an agenda that these consumption sites are safer than they probably were. But you don't just go with feeling. You go with investigation. Yeah. So the CBC has consistently acted as a propaganda arm for the harm reduction movement and present. presented skewed data and often data that is presented out of context to try to make this claim. So in early July, they published an investigative story that claimed that in the first five months of 2026, compared to the first five months of 2025, overdose calls increased by 52% in Ottawa,

115% in Toronto, basically 200% in Hamilton, and 20% in Thunder Bay. And although the CBC cautioned that the data doesn't show what's behind the increases. Their editorial angle was clear. About 80% of the report was dedicated to discussing supervised consumption sites, and they quoted five harm reduction advocates who argued to varying degrees that closing these sites fuels, overdose calls, and deaths. No competing voices were included at all. They had five on one side and none on the other. None on the others. So their bias was quite clear. This is what they call impartial reporting at the CBC, you know, you stuff your report with pro-harm reduction advocates and you completely

marginalize any addiction experts who disagree with you. So the problem here isn't just in the editorial slant. It's also in how they misrepresented the data. So what I want to first of all emphasize is that all throughout Ontario and including in these cities, fatal overdoses have not been increasing and in some cases have been decreasing. For example, in Thunder Bay, they've decreased by about 31%. In Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton, they've stayed stagnant, right? And so if the harm reduction activists are arguing again and again and again that closing these sites will lead people to die, then it's really relevant that our data shows that this is not the case. And yet, the CBC basically just included all of these activists making these claims and ignored

contradictory data that shows that their predictions and their fear mongering just wasn't true. Now, let's talk about, you know, overdose calls to paramedics. So you know what? In Ottawa, if you look at the data, so basically I gather the data from 2021 all the way until as like end of 2025, early 2026, depending on how much data was available. So in Ottawa, we, like Ontario closed its first wave of supervised. consumption sites in March of 2025, right? So in September of that year, there was a spike in overdose calls in Ottawa, and then it

went back down. And that spike basically disappeared. And it went back to the levels, more or less of what was what we had before the closure of these sites. Yeah. So that data is inconsistent with the CBC's narrative that closing these sites leads to a prolonged increase in overdose-related harms. Yeah.

Then there could be so many different reasons why. it spiked and it's certainly to rush to the conclusion that it must be Doug Ford's fault is um I'm not a journalist but even I even I know instinctively you don't have to be a journalist to know if that

that there's lots of reasons why something could happen and if you are a journalist then you've developed the skills and tools over the year years to go ask those questions and find those answers Yep. And if you look at the way that the spike occurs, it doesn't seem consistent with this idea that closing the sites once again led to a prolonged increase in overdose-related harms.

It seems like there was something that happened in September that led to an increase in overdose-related harms and then it disappeared, right? Yeah. And, you know, even assuming that this is connected with the closure of the sites, which is, you know, not an assumption we can easily grant, then that spike in harms is very short-lived. in in thunder bay i looked at the quarterly public health data for overdose related calls and there was no noticeable increase the data there was was pretty consistent so the narrative that there is some sort of you know increase in overdoses in thunder bay is just not true contrary to what the cbc was insinuating in toronto we have seen an increase in overdose related calls since the spring of 2025

That being said, the current volume of calls is consistent with what was normal in 20203 and 24. Right. Because in your article, you say they sort of pegged the lowest possible number as the baseline. Well, essentially, when you look at the data over the past five years, in early 2025, there was an unusually low rate of overdose deaths and overdose-related calls, right? And so the harm reductionist used that as their baseline, and they ignored the fact that for years beforehand, while supervised consumption sites were operating freely, overdose calls were very high. And so, for example, some harm reduction activists will say in Toronto, overdose-related calls were decreasing for six months, and they've since increased. but before they were decreasing for six months,

they were stagnants at relatively high rates. And now we are out of those high rates that we were at before. And when you look at the past five years, the fluctuations that we've seen are fairly consistent. So the recent increase in overdose-related calls is not something that's out of the normal when you look at multi-year data. So the CBC looking at multi-year data.

So I only have about a minute and a half left. I'd love to know you obviously brought this to the attention of the CBC. and I'll remind everybody listening right now that they are the ones. The editor-in-chief said, we never, ever have to worry about what is real and what is fake if it comes from the CBC. So they are the ones who held themselves to that standard.

You present them with this information and what do they say to you? Well, so two things. When I asked them why they only included harm reduction advocates and no opponents, they didn't actually answer that question. And they just reiterated the credentials of the harm reduction advocates.

So they just sidesteped that that question. entirely. And when I asked them, for example, why they didn't include the fact that fatal overdose data shows that there isn't a spike in deaths, they said that that was outside of the scope of the investigation, which is journalistic malpractice. You can't pad your investigation with quotes from harm reduction activists saying that closing these sites will lead to a surge in deaths and then pretend that contradictory data somehow isn't in the scope of your article. It's ridiculous. That's almost like a legal argument. That's not a, that's not a, that's not a news argument.

You can't bring up that argument because it's not in the scope of the defense that you're presenting. I understand that in the case of a case before a court because they have that those are the rules that are set up. But in journalism, you kind of go where the story takes you. Yeah. And look, they included at the very end in one little sentence, like the provincial government saying that overdose deaths had decreased by 41%. So they included that.

at the very end, buried in one tiny sentence, and that's it. So it's clear that they didn't actually want to meaningfully address the fact that deaths have not been increasing. Well, Adam Zivo, always appreciate you being the watcher, watching the watchers, I guess. Thank you very much, my friend. Really appreciate it. Keep up the hard work. Oh, thank you.