The Ben Mulroney Show - Want some examples as to why Canada isn't a serious country? Listen to this.

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Guest: Eric kam / TMU economics professor GUEST:    Toronto star publisher Jordan Bitove 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

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. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Plus, Wise won't add hidden fees to your transfer. Whether you're buying souvenirs with pesos and price, you're buying souvenirs with pesos and price. or sending euros to a loved one in Paris, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups. Be smart. Join the 15 million customers who choose Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit Wise.com. Tease and Cs apply. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. It's Thursday, October 30th. Thank you so much on behalf of everyone here at the show,

including Amy Gord and my intrepid producer, Mike. We say thank you. You are part of this show as much as they are. And every now and then I do wish that you could do it, take a listener to work day and Mike could take a day off because every now and then he gets way too passionate, way too passionate, especially on Fridays. Well, I don't know why Fridays.

Because for some reason he believes he's locked in a battle of wills with yours truly. on is it BS or is it real? An epic battle of wills. Who won last week? Me. Did you? Yes.

Oh yeah, by one. Decisively. You won by one? It was still decisive. Okay, what about the week before? I don't remember anything past. Short to remember. Okay, gotcha.

Anyway, tune in tomorrow for is it BS or is it real because he takes it with, can I show you? I don't know if we're doing this for YouTube. This is how he sits during is it BS or is it real. He literally turns around like. this, he puts his hoodie on and closes it up so that he will not give anything away because he has, he's got no poker face, like no poker face. Well, I'm good, I'm glad you to know that. So it's smart for me to do that. Anyway, let's start to show off with some good news, you know, two runs in three pitches

for the Jays to really assert dominance over the, over the juggernaut that is the Los Angeles Dodgers. I mean, I think before this. World Series started. What was it? Nine out of ten. No, ESPN did, pulled all of their so-called experts. 18 chose the Dodgers. One chose the Jays. It's really hard not to root for this team.

I mean, even if you didn't like baseball. If you had to pick one team, you didn't know anything of either team, and you just start watching baseball, I have to believe that people will gravitate to the Toronto Blue Jays because they are fun. They are, they're like the bad news bears. Scrappy. They're scrappy.

But they can also know how to hit the ball real hard, real hard. And they're great at defensive baseball as well, which is you can't win these days without being able to cover that field. So that's the good news that we're starting with this. The rest of this segment is entitled, well, I could call tons of stuff. It could be called, we should have seen this coming. We could call it, we're getting our just desserts. We're getting, you get what you paid for. Or I told you so.

Let's go and I told you so. Okay, so we all know what's going on in the drama that is the BC land claims debacle where the BC Supreme Court ruled that the Cowichin Tribe essentially had competing land claims over people who actually have owned their property for years. And the BC Conservative Party in opposition thought, let's nip this in the bud and put forth a motion. that would protect private property rights in British Columbia. And the BC government under Premier Eby killed it.

Nah, this is going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Don't you worry about it. This is not a real issue. And the NDP shot it down. And so it's going to rely on going to the courts and appealing the decision from the BC Supreme Court. I guess, to the Canadian Supreme Court. I guess that's where it's going to happen.

And we all know that the Canadian Supreme Court these days has been so level-headed. Very much so. And you've got all these people bending over backwards saying, this isn't a problem. It's a problem in BC because so much of the land in British Columbia wasn't settled by treaties. And I asked this question on our show to a real estate or land claims.

expert last week. I said, what about Ontario? What about Quebec? No, no, 80, 90, 95% of the land there. It's all settled. It's all settled law. We've got land claims that cover all that stuff. But that's not 100%. Well, that's what we heard last week. Now we find out that there's a first nation in Quebec that has filed a $5 billion Aboriginal title claim in Quebec Superior Court over 8,000 square kilometers of traditional territory in western Quebec. Say it again, $5 billion. They want to gain recognition of land rights and in a say, they want to manage water, wildlife forestry.

And they say this is all essential to reconciliation. If you want real reconciliation, you're going to hand over the deed and the title to this includes the Gatineau Park. If your guilt is so great, you have to pay up. Yeah. And so the claim targets government-managed lands only, not private property. So you don't have to worry about your house. However, where the power comes from, your ability to go to Gatno Parks and enjoy, that's not yours anymore.

And then you go back to the conversation we had last week. Well, what about all these settled claims? I thought it was all, we dealt with this years ago. No, no, no, no. This relies on pre-confederation treaties, notably the Treaty of Swagocchi from 1760, 117 years before we became a country. Which was negotiated by the British. Yeah. It was with the Royal Proclamation of 1763, recognizing Algonquin territory.

And so this is happening. If it's going to happen in Quebec, it's going to happen in Ontario. It's going to happen everywhere. And I saw someone yesterday, and we're going to try to get. get him on the show next week. An editor at New Westminster Times who said there are two competing ideologies here.

Reconciliation and decolonization. One is designed to kill the other. They cannot exist simultaneously. It's like in time travel. What happens when the same person meets himself in a, remember time cop?

What happened with Jean-Claude Van Damme? If Jean-Claude Van Damme from the past were to meet Jean-Cloid Van Dam from the future and they were to touch, they would kill each other. Especially with a big kick. That's what this is. Reconciliation is about consensus. Decolonization is the belief that everything that people like me look like is wrong and needs

to be excised and destroyed. It is about peeling away the very essence of this country that cannot exist in any meaningful way if the goal is reconciliation. You pick one or you pick the other. And right now, we are living in a world where we want to be all things to all people. All things to all people. We want to give, give, give, give. And we never want to say that, you know what?

What was built on this land by the Europeans, there's value in it. There's value in it to be proud of. And the idea that a first nation, there is, I have to say, and I say this respectfully, there is some of the arguments that the first nations are putting forth they they collapse under the weight of their own nonsense so you want us to recognize that we took the land the land that you were stewards of that you were responsible environmental stewards of and then you want to wait 260 years and then you want to be paid for all of the benefits that flow from what we did with the land and i say we because you're ascribing it to me. I'm a colonialist and therefore I'm I'm playing that role in this argument. So which is it? Did we F up the land? In which case you shouldn't, in good conscience, want to benefit from the blood money of the hydroelectric plants and the forestry and the tourism or not. And so I'm beginning to see the logic in this idea that reconciliation

and decolonization cannot exist in the same space at the same time. It's one or the other. Pick your poison. And I want to live in a world of reconciliation. But in order for that to exist, you have to recognize and honor the people who came here as settler colonialists, whatever you want to call them. New Canadians.

If you don't, then there's no argument to be, there's no discussion to be had. then there's no reconciliation to be had. You can't have both. So pick your poison, pick a lane, and let's get to work. But anything else is nonsense. This is going to get bogged down on the course. For this country to function,

for this country to function, you have to recognize the supremacy of the legislature and the supremacy of the Canadian people. And you have to recognize it. If you as First Nations are going to achieve real reconciliation, then you have to respect the people on the other side of the table. And this to me is It's a bridge too far

For somebody who wants this for everyone I want real reconciliation I don't want it with a gun to my head Or my arm tied behind my back Or a court saying Oh geez I went over Oh gosh okay Next up we're looking at a $100 billion deficit

In our next federal budget It's good news all day long What are the liberals planning to spend a whole whack of cash on We'll tell you next Next Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. So we as a nation are gearing up for our first federal budget in about a year and a half. And this, I think, is going to be quite defining for the Mark Carney liberals.

There are a lot of people who are saying there's very little daylight in terms of policy differences between the conservatives and the liberals, with the liberals sort of lifting some of the greatest hits from Pierre Polyev's platform from the last election. But this is a budget that will, I believe, show the stark contrast between how the liberals conceive of government and its role in our lives and how the conservatives would have done things. And it's anticipated that the conservatives will probably vote against this budget even without seeing it yet because it's anticipated.

that we are going to see massive deficits that I don't think any self-respecting conservative, especially elected conservative, could support. But time will tell on that. Or there are a few other things that are popping up that remind us that the ghost of Justin Trudeau and his vision of the world and his vision of Canada's government haunts us still. Ottawa has announced a $660 million project, new funding for gender equality in 2SLGBQIA plus communities partially offsetting a major 81% drop in projected funding for women and gender equality Canada over the next three years. So what does that mean? Where is this money going? $382.5 million over five years for women's equality and leadership programs, 223 million over five years for gender-based violence supports.

54-plus, 54 million plus over five years for two S-LGBQIA-plus initiatives, including Pride Event Security. Now, the Carney government aims to cut $25 billion in annual spending, but this is going to remain, 660 million. Oh, I guess it's over five years. I just want to remind everybody listening that that's 660 million. I'm sure there's value in this. I'm not making a judgment call on that. What I am making a judgment call on is that $660 million doesn't exist. That money is made up.

We ran out of money a long, long time ago, and we've been borrowing and spending on the backs of not just my kids and your kids, but our grandkids and our great-grandkids. They will be paying off this decision years from now. We'll be paying the interest on this decision tomorrow, the day after, every day. every time you pay the GST, every time you buy anything and you pay the GST, that money that you spend goes exclusively to service the debt that we have accrued in the past 11 years. That's it.

That's why you're getting in the, so the debt doesn't get any bigger. So while this, I'm sure, has advocates and proponents, and I'm sure that on a meaningful level, it's going to help somebody somewhere. It's money we do not have. And, but I'm willing to live in a world where there's value in this. I'm willing to live in a world

where this is a hand-up, not a hand-out. But there are hand-ups. And then, my friends, then there's the CBC. Oh my goodness. Every single time, it feels like every time

they're in the press, they are serving, up more evidence in the case against their very existence. And I give you their equity hiring goals. This is the news. And you are going to love this. If you haven't heard this yet, just be prepared to pick your jaw up off the ground.

Because just when you thought they could not plumb the depths of more dysfunctional DEI, this is what you get. the CBC far exceeded its equity hiring goals. Now, what do you think equity hiring goals are? Mike, what would you think a good target for gender equity would be at the CBC, probably reflective of the population of the country, right? You would think so. Okay, so if you have the population, the percentage-wise.

Yeah, so go look for me, what is the population of the country that's non-white? Can you Google that? Yes. Because that's what we're trying to do, right? We're trying to de-center ourselves from whiteness. That's the goal of the CBC and their hiring practices. Got to make sure that people like me don't take up any oxygen and it is more reflective. You can't be what you can't see.

That's what I was told years ago. That's what I supported, of course, little kids of all races should be able to see themselves reflected back on the screens that they have. So the 2021 census shows that 70% of Canadians reported being white only. Okay, so I have to assume that's gone down since then. But let's stick with that number, 70%, so 30%. So 30% of the workforce should be that. So explain to me how last year they far exceeded their equity hiring goals.

84% of new hires identifying as indigenous, racialized, or person with disabilities. Their target was 65%. The target was way high. And they said that this was as part of an effort to reflect contemporary Canada. Jesus H. You think that having a CBC made up 84% of indigenous racialized or persons with disability

is reflective of the country? I said it earlier today. It's reflective of a downtown Toronto TTC stop, like a subway stop in Toronto. Which is near the CBC headquarters. That's exactly the way because that's the world they know. Zoom out to the rest of the country. You tell me if that's what Saskatchewan looks like.

Tell me if that's what the BC interior looks like. If that's what the Atlantic provinces look like, who the hell do you think you are? Who the hell do you think you are? And let's just go back to the hiring itself. Because apparently they're having a tough time to fill in those world. God, it was really tough to find people. You think? You think it was hard?

When you swim in a pool with one inch deep, you're not going to find a lot of talent or as much as you need. Not to say that some of the people who got these jobs aren't deserving, but can you honestly tell me that by exizing the vast majority of candidates, you are swimming in a pool of the most talented people? No, you're not. And to suggest it is to lie to the face of Canadians. and that's why people don't trust media. That's why people don't trust the CBC because you lie about things like this. This is... Oh.

And then you get Travis Dan Raj who was in there and he thought, okay, this is an opportunity for him to have a show be able to talk to different people and they shut him down, which his lawyer and he are now saying, so all of these things that they say, it's performative.

Of course. And what irritates me is a couple of things. One, we all pay our taxes into the CBC, whether you're white or not. But if there's 70% of the population identifies as white, then a lot of the money you're getting is from people that you are denying employment to. And that's got to be against the law. That's got to be against the law. We've heard stories of white journalists looking for jobs, applying to the only place hiring,

the only place hiring, because everybody else is trying to do more with less, because everybody else is tightened in their belt. Not so at the CBC where they've got money coming out their ears. So they're the only ones hiring and who are they hiring? Anyone who doesn't look like me. But you know there's a lot of journalists in this country who look like me who are great at their jobs, who've been working their asses off. They deserve a shot.

And you know what? Some of them have told me. I have one friend who told me that he actually was considering putting down, checking the box bisexual, if that meant that he had a better chance at getting a job. Make that make sense. How is that inclusive, CBC? Heads should, I guarantee you they are looking at this and they are celebrating.

The CBC exceeded its equity hiring goals. Well above its 65% target. The hubris, the tone death living in a bubble, privileged nonsense that is governing this storied institution to telling Canadian stories to Canada. give me a goddamn break get off your friggin' high horse and get back to basics and if you're not going to do that shudder the goddamn thing

and start again it's offensive um that's all I have to say about that we're going to end it right there I don't think there's anything else needs to be said about that Jesus Christ up next the Bank of Canada says Canadians should accept a lower standard of living my god the hits just keep on coming

oh we ask the question how complicit is the bank in our situation welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show thank you so much for joining us yes as I said the hits just keep on coming today is a day of headlines that if they don't make you shake your head they make you bang your head against the wall asking yourself what why are we the way we are as a country what is it about what's in the water here that makes us get in our own way and almost gleefully so watching the world pass us by lap us time after time and there was a time where Canada

and the U.S., depending on whatever graph that tracked the evolution of our economy, that we were on a parallel track. If they would go up, we'd go up. If they'd go down, we'd go down every now and then we'd surpass them in GDP and whatever any number of things um median income all that stuff and then all of a sudden one day in 2015 something magical happened and whew the chasm grew and so now we're living in a world we're trying to play catch up but we like i said we shoot ourselves in the foot before the race even starts and now the bank of canada admits that Canadians are going to have to accept

lower standards of living well that's super and the question that we have for our next guest Eric, CamTMU economics professors. How complicit is the Bank of Canada for our current financial position? Eric, welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Ben. And let's be honest, every problem today in the economy is caused by the CBC.

Come on, man. I was just trying to drink some water to cleanse the palate from the rant that I just had. But that was just, I mean, it's obnoxious. It's disgusting. It's beneath a country of Canada's stature. to reduce people to what they look like

and how they identify as opposed to saying, you know what? We got a big job to do. We got the news to deliver to millions of Canadians or now that's dozens of Canadians with the CBC. But we've got a lot of money that's been entrusted to us and we've got it. The public airways are a public trust

and let's make sure it's reflective of the public and the fact that they're doing anything but that, they're trying social engineering on a media channel. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. But we're going to move on from that, Eric, and let's move on the Bank of Canada. Yeah, the Bank of Canada.

Well, first of all, let's blow up something on your show, Ben. The Bank of Canada likes to tell Canadians that they are not an arm of the government, but they are an arm and a leg of the government. So they really are one in the same. They operate together. You're supposed to think that they're two separate things, but they're not. So you ask the question, are they complicit? Yeah, they're partly complicit, but they're not solely responsible.

Let's just quickly go down a road here. the Bank of Canada grossly misjudged post-pandemic inflation they kept rates so low for so long that when it started to inflate there became huge excess demand and huge asset bubbles yeah so they panicked and then they overtightened rapidly and if people will forget 10 rate hikes in 18 months yeah that caused yeah that caused a huge liquidity crunch yeah mortgage stress and that's really what triggered this falling real wealth from any households. But let me just... Well, hold on. Before you go, let's remind Canadians of the press conference that Justin Trudeau gave

when Glenn McGregor asked him like, hey, like, you're borrowing all this money, you're spending all this money, we're going to have to pay it back at some point. And Justin Trudeau, who had admitted that he doesn't often think of monetary policy, decided in that moment he was going to school a journalist by looking at him, the most condescending, dripping with condescension said interest rates are at historic lows, Glenn. And the way he said it, like, come on, man. I mean, even I know that. And then what happened?

No, you're right. You're right. You know, you've got to calm down today, Ben. You're going to need, like, a beta blocker before this is over. But, yes, you're absolutely right. And you know what? Bless him right now. He's out roaring with Katie Perry.

So let's just let that go. But you know what happened is the Bank of Canada also from the government, due to the things that we just said, this massive overtightening, they got handed a real load of, you know what, and then they had to deal with it. So they went up way too fast. They've come down way too fast. And so what that does, combined with what you just said, which is ridiculous, terrible fiscal policy on the part of the Trudeau government, right? it just fueled the affordability crisis and thanks to the Bank of Canada, which I think its biggest error was at speed, its speed of adjustment both up and down, it amplifies the timing and the severity of the economic downturn.

Okay, so a couple of things. One, I want to go back, like, are we using the word, because are they complicit? It sounds intrinsically nefarious. So is that the right word to be using? And the second part of my question is when we say that, when you say that the Bank of Canada is an arm and a leg of the government. I take it your word. How do we fix that?

We don't. No? We don't. There's nothing to do. Ben, in industrialized countries, the central banks, it is just a facade to say

that they are separate from the government. I don't care what central bank you're talking about. They work in conjunction with the prime minister or the president or the ministries of finance or the treasury.

These things have to work together. because you can't operate monetary and fiscal policy in a vacuum. Sure. So those, but those relationships have worked well in the past. So where is the dysfunction today that has caused some of these problems? What changed that all of a sudden it was not a mutually beneficial relationship or beneficial to the Canadian people, but it ended up being this dysfunctional soup that we're dealing with?

Well, it's actually simple. does land on the lap of the former prime minister. The way that we handled the monetary system during the pandemic has probably set Canada up for a disintegration in our economic system, probably for the next 50 years. We just, now, let me just say, there was no playbook to follow, but in retrospect, which I know is 2020, the one they followed probably couldn't have been worse, and that's really what set us up for today. And look, I've got a lot of time. when I have good faith conversations with people and they express support for Justin Trudeau and what he accomplished.

I said, what did he accomplish? Please point to something. And there's a few policy issues, but they said, well, he got us through the pandemic. And I would challenge anyone to find a country that existed before the pandemic that the pandemic took down. That's a, that's a straw man. And it's a, it's a meaningless thing to say. It's how well did you get us through it? And we did not.

No, then that's the same. Right. And I hate to interrupt you, but you're right. We did a very, very poor job. But let me just also say this. You know, we talk about Bank of Canada and being complicit. Who benefits from the last 10 or so years? Because, you know, no economic policy is all good or all bad.

So let's be honest here. If you are a chartered bank, you have greatly benefited from, higher net interest margins. If you're a wealthy asset holder who had some fixed rate debt or you diversified into some higher yield investments, you've made off like a bandit. And finally, if you're what we call a government debt holder, which means, of course, you won't government bonds. You've done amazing. So it really depends, Ben, on what side of the outhouse you're standing. I would say that we are in terrible economic shape. I will never lie to the listeners or to you. But don't kid yourself. There are some people who have come through the last 10 years and come out smelling like a rose.

It just depends where you are on the socioeconomic spectrum. I got to say, man, this is, I'm just, I'm looking at, I'm looking at the rest of the stories that we're in today. We don't have any good news stories with the exception of the Blue Jays. So in the last minute that we have, can we just talk Blue Jays for a second? It's like a storm of unrelenting negative news that is too important to ignore. but too depressing to end on. So talk to me about your thoughts on the game last night and what to look forward to on Friday.

Well, I have to say that when this thing started, a lot of my friends, we always talk and gossip about sports because we live for this, and they said, what was your prediction? And don't send over a posse to get me, but I thought it was going to be the Dodgers in five, maybe even four,

because I didn't think that any team could penetrate the Dodgers starting pitching. But I have to say that, and I hate this term, you know this. But resilience really is the Toronto Blue Jays. They have found that there isn't a problem that they can't out hit and out home run their way through. And I think that's what you're seeing right now. I don't think the Dodgers had any idea what was coming. Correct.

I'm not sure most of baseball could have named you three Toronto Blue Jays before this. But if they go on to win this thing and now I think there's a very real possibility, they are going to be a model for how to build a baseball team. My friend, I'm glad we're ending on an optimistic note of all the best to you. You take care. And when we come back, we're speaking with the publisher of the Toronto Star about the lay of the land for advertising and media across this country. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show.

And if you're a listener of radio or you enjoy over there. the air television, then you, I'm sure you've seen ads by invested groups saying it's time to invest in advertising in traditional Canadian media, that a lot of that money has been going to American companies that does not serve the needs or the goods or the goals of Canadians. And to get a snapshot of where we are and what this means for the end user, for you, the listener of this show, or perhaps the reader of the Toronto Star, we're joined now by the publisher of the Toronto Star, Jordan Bitov. Jordan, welcome to the show. good morning ben i'm very thankful that this is a radio interview and not uh a podcast or video

because um i have more bags under my eyes and the lost and found department at pearson our beloved blue jays are killing me in sleep separation i'm sure like you and every canadian but wow what an amazing what an amazing moment we're going through right now it is and look I've noticed today on my show we have a lot of not so great news so let's bookend the show with something positive but the Js will end it with something positive on the Jays and let's sandwich it

with the reason that we're talking today and like I said there are commercials out there we play them on this station reminding people that's important for media to for advertisers to invest and put their ad dollars where those Canadian listeners are I'm sure the same can be said

in print across this country and right now now, the federal government, its agencies, Crown corporations, they spend over $100 million on advertising, and the majority of that money goes to meta, Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

And your contention is that needs to change. 100%. Let's start. Zuckerberg, I think, just bought another yacht at $300-something million. It's sad that we, you know,

we talk about buying Canadian and the importance of it. And I do applaud the federal government for this initiative and elbows up and whatnot. But doesn't it make sense to start at home? And the importance, and you know it, you've lived it, you breathe it, the importance of what our industry does, the media industry does for functioning democracy and writing wrongs and holding power to account. And it's never probably been more important. We see what's going on south of the border in the convenience of calling. news organizations and journalists as fake news and whatnot.

And now with what's going on with AI, we don't even know when we see a video of a plane crashing into the C& Tower, the C&Tower being on fire weather, it's real. Well, it has never been more important to support Canadian journalism and journalism as a whole. And so sadly, you raise the point. The $100 million is a very, very, very significant portion of it. And maybe less than 1% of it is going to Canadian news organizations.

Where is it all going? It's going to meta, Google, and other social media platforms that are American-owned. And we saw where our tech friends of Silicon Valley, the importance that Trump puts on them. They were all sitting front and center at the inauguration. And so he's putting all of his faith into that. But I guess my question, because I'm trying to figure out, like, what's the solution, right? And legislating companies to, listen, the government could just decide to buy Canadian. They've decided this, Mark Carney has made buy Canadian a big part of his brand.

So that's a fairly straightforward fix as far as I can see. But when it comes to individual companies deciding where to park their ad dollars, you know, we don't have a Canadian social media empire here. We don't have a Canadian analog to meta or to Google or to Twitter. And so it's hard for me to say, okay, well, if they want to put their money in social media, we as a country don't have an alternative, an option for them. So what's the answer there? Correct. So I don't, what I'm not suggesting is that 100% of the federal government spend go to Canadian publishers. What I am saying is a very reasonable amount, 25% of it would go a long way to helping Canadian publishers. Let's, let's look at the facts around. First of all, ifs those came out with a poll recently, and Daryl Brecker who runs at said he's rarely seen numbers that have come with so strong, where 83% of Canadians say that the federal government should be supporting Canadian media organization.

To your point on it, what we have seen, and when I took over five years ago, Touristar, and like most news organizations, they were questioning whether lights would be on the next day. Well, we have invested and reinvested. We relaunched our interim program. We paired journalists, dozens of them. And what we have seen is remarkable success on every front. What does that tell me and what should that tell all of us that people are willing to pay? Advertisers are willing to advertise with it.

And unfortunately, what happened was we put all, this industry was operating from a very old playbook and we put all our eggs in the basket that these tech companies were going to be the savior and help all this stuff. Well, what did they do? They took, they stole basically our intellectual. actual price and they used it and they sold it. So, Jordan, listen, I want to make sure I don't run out of time and I want to make sure I'm very clear, because there are listeners who are probably screaming at the radio right now saying what we do not need is more money flowing from taxpayers to media companies.

You are not suggesting direct subsidies from the government. Never. That's not what you're suggesting. You're suggesting the ad dollars that they have. I've never suggested that and I think it would be irresponsible to provide tax dollars to media companies

they have to be functioning and what I have seen through Torstar is that you can build a successful model you're not going to get back to the millions of millions that they were before but you can get back to something that people will pay and support we touch Ben we touch 11 we touch

a quarter of Canada through our publications it's quite remarkable what we do And yet there's no acknowledgement of that. So I just say, you know, the final thing I'll just say on this is what's really an amazing fact. On election night, CBC, they funded all, you know, billion dollar empire. We were number two. They were well over 25 or so million active users.

We were at 23 million. Our publications were at 23 million. So what does that tell you? It tells you that people, we've adapted our model, people are tuning into us and that we are very relevant. But it's not convenient to tell that story because of all the other reasons of the fake news and that fact that you're going up against these behemists that are worth hundreds of billions of dollars that can change the narrative and our lobbying in Ottawa and everywhere day in and day out. And so we already have, if I'm not mistaken, there's already a playbook here. The Ontario government is already between OLG, Mexico. Metro Links, LCBO.

I mean, they've got a lot of agencies that spend a lot of money advertising. They've mandated to spend 25% on Ontario publishers. 88% of Canadians support this. So you're not asking the feds or other company or provincial governments to reinvent the wheel here.

Just look to a province like Ontario and do it that way. And if they're worried about where the votes are, the votes are there. 88% of Canadians support it. Listen, I applaud. Premier Ford and the government of Ontario because they have the courage to do something. And listen, we don't always see, as you know, the Toronto Star eye-to-eye with Premier Ford.

Wait a hold on. Is this breaking news on the Ben-Mull already show that the Toronto Star does the eye-to-eye with Ford? We're making that. But listen, he had the courage. And I really do applaud him to put all that behind him and do what is right for journalism and for Ontario. And the 25% has been, you can ask anyone in our industry in Ontario, it has been an amazingly, we're able to hire more journalists, it's given more support. Hey, Jordan, Jordan, real quick, I'm up against a clock. Is there anywhere that you need people to go? Is there anywhere that you need listeners to go to support this idea?

Yes. I think they need to talk. They need to send notes to their MPs. They need to get the message out there that if you're going to support Canada and and put this forward, you need to, it doesn't, it isn't reserved for U.S. tech companies or whatever else. It should go into media and supporting media. Your dad was an exceptional prime minister, Jean, Kretchen, was these guys would have done the right thing.

And they would have supported Canadian, owned and operated media. All right thing to do. Jordan Bitov, the Toronto Star publisher, thanks. I need a one word to answer. J's in six or Jays in seven? days and six baby all the way I love Gossman tomorrow and it's going to be electric

All right we got to go Thanks so much my friend Appreciate it secrets from his past in a language he no longer understands, but a lost cassette will reveal the ugly truth. From Curious Cast and Blanchard House comes a cross-continental Odyssey to recover a stolen past. This is Stop Rewind, The Lost Boy, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.