The Ben Mulroney Show - Throuples granted legal rights in Quebec... Have we lost our minds?

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Throuples granted legal rights in Quebec... Have we lost our minds? 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

Riders, ready, set, go! Riding a bike in the Ride to Conquer cancer is like being part of humanity's greatest. The money you raise, the time you spend, the energy that you give is helping people live. It's giving people hope and that's just so beautiful. Care of the fire for cancer research. Join the ride at ridet and restaurants as well as on gas EV charging daily transit streaming services digital gaming and more all the time Get the RBC Ion Plus Visa three times the points conditions apply visit RBC.com slash ion cards We've got to talk about Donald Trump

He was the focus of the election campaign and now he is the focus of Mark Carney. And to his credit, Mark Carney prosecuted this campaign successfully on the contention that Donald Trump and his tariffs and his desire to reimagine the entire global trading system represents the greatest threat that Canada has had in a lifetime and true to his word he is treating it as such. You may not believe him but the fact is he's moving with lightning speed to get in front of Donald Trump and make a deal. They spoke on the phone yesterday of Donald Trump had some very nice things to say about Mark Carney, but in typical Donald Trump fashion, he had to spend a little bit of time on

asking, amusing between the two, Mark Carney and Pierre Poliev, who hated him the most. I think we're going to have a great relationship. He called me up yesterday, he said, let's make a hated him the most. liberal, he's a pretty liberal guy. But no, I spoke to him yesterday, he couldn't have been nicer, and I congratulated him. You know, it was a very mixed signal because it's almost even, which makes it very complicated for the country. It's a pretty tight race, but he's a very nice gentleman, and he's going to come to the White House very shortly. Exactly. So we can expect the first bilateral Canada-U.S. meeting to happen in Washington in short order and this will hopefully begin the process that needs to happen anyway. Let's start it now. Let's renegotiate the NAFTA deal that Donald Trump himself renegotiated and let's not forget when he renegotiated he said it was the greatest trade deal in the history of the world.

A few short years later, not so much. Meanwhile, Pierre Poliev has some calls of his own that he is making, but for completely different reasons after losing his seat and losing the election, he is trying to shore up support within his caucus to get as many people behind him so that he can stay on as leader. It's an automatic leadership

review that happens in the Conservative Party after a loss, happens every time, but he has to make sure that he has the support of his caucus in order to plead his case. I guess that's how it works. And so he's been calling after making it clear he wants to stick around. He has been on the phone with caucus members and party supporters ever since the election lost trying to make sure his position is as strong as possible going into that leadership review. He wants to chart a path forward. He has been in politics for, oh, I guess 20 years. And he, I think, really believes that, with the next kick at the can, if he learns from the mistakes of this campaign,

he can finally do what he has wanted to do for so very long. But as we talked about a little bit earlier in the show, there are people on the outside of the federal conservative party, but still part of the federal conservative party, but still part of the conservative movement. People like Tim Huston, the premier of Nova Scotia, and Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, who have, I mean,

they're essentially coming for the guy. They're essentially coming for him. So it's not going to be a cakewalk for him. There are people out there who want him gone, and he needs to make sure that he has everybody that he can standing behind him. One of those people is Andrew Scheer, the former leader of the Conservative Party who has been a phenomenal member of the Pierre Poliev team. Here's what he said about the work that has yet to be done? Clearly, we need to think about a few things about how we fell short and why we fell short. No one's here denying that.

And my message to those eight million plus, or around eight million, I haven't done a recent check, but about eight million people who voted conservative hoping for that change, my message is, we get that there is disappointment, we get that we need to figure something else out to win next time. We're not taking that for granted.

No one's saying here that we don't have some work to do to figure that out, but there's an incredible base of support that only Pierre Polyev could have done for our party, and he's the only person that can continue that and finish the job. Will he run in a by-election? I mean, I know the government will call the by-election, but is it someone gonna step aside in a so-election? I mean, I know the government will call the by-election, but is it someone going to step aside in like a so-called safe seat? Like has that decision been

made? Look, these are early days. It's two days after the election. You know, it's something that that will be addressing going forward. But I can tell you that Pierre is staying on. He's fighting. He's going to work with our caucus. He's going to work with our loyal volunteers and our activists He's going to work with our caucus. He's going to work with our loyal volunteers and our activists to keep the momentum going. It's entirely possible that through this process of being tested by the Conservative Party itself, Pierre Poliev could come out the other side even stronger

within the party than he was to start. It's entirely possible. But in order for that to happen, he's got to answer some really tough questions. And he's got to answer them in the most honest raw way possible. A lot of the failure of this campaign rests at his feet, either because of decisions he made or because of decisions his team made and he's going to have to own those and learn from those things in order, if he gets the

chance to come out the other side. And if he does, I suspect he'll come out a better leader. Yves-Francois Blanchet, the leader of the Bloc Québécois, is still the leader of that party because there's never a chance that those guys are ever going to win the election. So he doesn't have to fear a leadership race every time he doesn't win the election. But let's remember, if there's one silver lining that came from the Donald Trump tariff threat, it's there was a consensus that was built finally for the first time across our country, both on reducing interprovincial trade barriers and creating energy corridors

across the country, from coast to coast to coast. There were places in this country where people did not want to build pipelines and one of those places was Quebec. I say was because at the last poll I saw said that 60 percent of Quebecers were in favor of having pipelines running through Quebec. Now, that's what the polls say, that's what the people say, but Yves-Francois Blanchet claims differently. He says there is no future for oil and gas in Quebec, and he says he knows better than anybody else because no party understands Quebec like the Bloc Québécois. There's nobody but us that will bring in that parliament what is different in Quebec economy.

Aluminum and clean energy and lumber wood and aerospace and all of that. Nobody spoke of it. We have and we will keep doing that and we will have to remain the barrier not to be crossed protecting French language and security of the state in Quebec and a different model and immigration which has to be successful and the fact that there's no future for oil and gas, at least in Quebec and probably everywhere. And this has to be said and protected. Yeah, when I hear stuff like that, I think to myself, I kind of want the Liberals to find a few people who are not in the Liberal Party to join

the Liberal Party so that they can have their majority and hopefully do what Mark Carney said is put the steps in place for Canada to become an energy superpower. I don't believe he is a full-throated endorser of pipelines, but in the face of the Bleu Québécois claiming that there is no path for pipelines in Canada, maybe we need a majority government to keep them out of that debate. We'll have to see. It's the devil, you know, right? And finally, we have a few seconds left before we go to break. The best news that came out of this election campaign at all was the fact that a group of 362 candidates from across most parties,

not the conservatives, who signed on to the Vote Palestine platform pledge. Of the 362 candidates, only 25 were elected. Now, this platform was ludicrous. It wanted to recognize the country of Palestine without any preconditions, without ever putting the screws to Hamas. It wanted to fund UNRWA despite the fact that it has been proven to be a part of the terrorist activities of October 7th. So 93% failure rate, that makes me happy. You will be forgiven if you don't know what a throuple is. I think I first time ever heard of a throuple it was on a TV

show I saw on Netflix about three years ago but apparently it's a thing. Apparently three people forming a relationship, having a family, building a building a family, having a kid, that's a thing. And it's now a legal thing, at least in the province of Quebec. A recent court ruling in that province has granted quote unquote, multi-parental families in the province the same legal rights as any other unit. A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled on Friday that limiting the affiliation of children to one or two parents is unconstitutional. So essentially, if you are a family unit with more than two people, you have the same rights now in Quebec as you would if it were a husband and a wife, or a husband and a husband, or

a wife and a wife. In other words, as the lawyer said, the parental project needs to be in place prior to the child's creation. It's not about step parents or potential realities as this lawyer says. It's really about three people sitting together and saying, quote, we should have a child together. No one should be treated differently because of their family status. Now I've never met a throuple.

I've never met people in a throuple. I do not know how big of a of a thing this is, but it feels to me that this country is moving in a direction faster than maybe people, most people either want or are capable of keeping up with. If I'm wrong, give me a call. I want you to give us a call here at the Ben Mulroney Show. It feels like we keep legislating for a fraction of a percentage of the population. And I'd love to know what you think. I mean, when trans rights, and I'm not taking a position on trans rights,

I'm simply using it as an example. When trans rights popped up on everybody's radar, at least on my radar, it felt to me like it went lightning fast. It went from something we never talked about to something that was omnipresent in a heartbeat. And I just, I don't remember having a conversation or being educated or learning about it. All of a sudden I was just told this is settled science, settled law, and here we are. This feels to me like it's similar.

I don't remember having a conversation about throuples. I don't remember meeting any throuples. But apparently it's such a big deal that now they are granted the same legal rights as a father and a mother, or a mother and a mother, or a father and a father. This to me, it seems, I mean, it seems a little odd. And I'd love to hear from you. Give us a call here at the show. Are we are are we moving

too fast for you? I don't know that we're moving too fast for me. I'm just noticing it's going very fast. Andrew, welcome to the show. What do you think? Oh, Andrew, welcome to the show. Oh, there you go. Hi, Ben. Hey. So I was saying to your screener, this is kind of like legislating or legalizing adultery. That's a slippery slope. Yeah, I like I just, to me, it's we need, how, how big of an issue is this? Honestly, how many people are, are in throuples? Is it six? Is it twelve? I don't know the number, do you?

I, yeah, I don't know. I saw this at Hot Docs. I saw a documentary about two couples that decided to swap partners. I think ABBA did that back in the day. Yeah. And so is this now the thing that you can do? Does it matter how many people you're with? Yeah. What if five people want to get together and say we're a family and we're gonna raise one kid Yeah, this is going beyond reality TV Well, thank you very much for the call and let's welcome Jeff into the conversation Jeff Am I just an old stick in the mud?

I'm older than you and I don't think you're old stick in the mud But I just think it's just a new made-up word or term. This is just polygamy and it's just polygamy by a different name. Thruple is just another word. It's like the kids have all these words they make up to talk about different issues and they make up words. Thruple is just a made-up word for a polygamous relationship because that's all it is. It's multiple adults deciding to be in a relationship.

Jeff, you're right. I can't imagine, I have to believe that at some point somebody is going to go before the court and say, well, we're not a thruple. We're four people who have decided to have a kid together. And if you've granted that, those legal rights to three, you have to give them to four. I just, I don't, I don't know where it ends. But this was the argument when we were legalizing same sex marriage. I can remember Andrew Shear got up in the house

and talked about the five-legged dog because he said you can't call a tail a foot. You know what I mean? It's the same thing. Well, no, I don't know that it's the same thing. I mean, a number is a number. A couple is a couple. We haven't seen the decline that conservatives were crowing about during the debate with same-sex marriage because people are going to marry the animals. The people are going to marry. It hasn't happened and it's not going to happen.

This is just polygamy, that's what it is. And if you want to, that's legalized polygamy. Then you don't have to make up troubles and frouples and frouge-a-poules and nothing. That's legalized polygamy. If you want to live with six women, you want to live with six women. One guy and six women and all of a sudden you have all the legal rights that go with and all of a sudden you have all the legal rights that go with being a couple. I can't find anything. Your logic is sound, sir. Thank you very much for the call.

Thank you. Yeah, listen, this to me is not the same debate as same-sex marriage because a couple is a couple. Like two people is two people. It doesn't matter. The gender is irrelevant to the number. When all of a sudden you start messing with the number, well then the number. When all of a sudden you start messing with the number,

well then then the number becomes fluid. Dave, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Ben, fantastic speaking with you. Thank you. What happens, of course this never happens in the real world, what happens when one of the couples ain't happy? Oh, I want a divorce. Then what happens? Where's our laws for that? Well, we have divorce laws, don't we. Oh, I want a divorce. Then what happens? Where's our laws for that? Well, we have divorce laws, don't we? Yeah, but when one doesn't want to, the other one does or wants to stay in. Yeah, because technically you'll still have a couple and the third person is out. So it's not the dissolution of the marriage. It's a dissolution of the, I don't know what it is, of the throuple.

I think you're right, Dave. We're gonna have to, yeah, because they're gonna have to figure that out. If two people are engaged in a marriage and they decide they wanna get divorced, marriage over, right? Dissolution of marriage. If three people are in something

that is legally recognized as the same as a marriage and one person leaves, you still have a marriage. So it's not a divorce. What is it? I have no idea. You see, like this is, this is what I'm saying. We haven't had a conversation about this. The courts just came in and said, this is the thing now.

And I'm, if I don't watch myself, somebody is going to call me anti-throuple, or I guess a throuple-phobic, you know, like that. Someone's going to throw that at me just because I'm asking some simple questions because I've never been part of this conversation. I didn't even know we were having this conversation as a country or a province. Amanda, welcome to the show. Am I, like, am I too slow to wrap my head around this? I think so.

I think so. I think you're over-complicating it. I think people are over-complicating it in general. I think the last caller who talked about polygamy is probably kind of getting around the edges of this. But essentially, we've already given legal rights to grandparents and stuff like that. If a child has multiple adults in their life that are responsible for them, it makes sense that those

adults should have legal rights to that child. Yeah, okay. I see your point. I see your point. I just, if it's three people, it could also be five. It could be seven. It could be 12, right? Yeah, potentially. But you are talking about a very small percentage of the population. I don't know what the actual numbers are

of polyamory and polygamy, but it's probably low percentile, similar to trans kind of a thing. But you still have to have that legal framework to deal with these exceptions. Amanda, thank you very much for being the last word in this conversation. Want to transform your space and your Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving you the chance to love your home with $15,000.

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