The Ben Mulroney Show - Was a couple planted to try and link Conservatives to Donald Trump?

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Was a couple planted to try and link Conservatives to Donald Trump? with Guest: Paul Micucci, President of the Meadowvale Business Association 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

Great to have you here, Alex Pearson in for Mr. Ben Mulrooney. And what's the one question I think, when I look at this campaign that we have been asking since day one, and it's, do you believe the polls? Right, it has been a constant narrative running through the campaign because you see the Pauliev rallies, which are drawing thousands of people, which is almost unheard of for a conservative, versus the polling numbers, which has Mark Carney, you know, at one point, way out in the lead. And so that is starting to close up a lot. But people have been questioning, you know, what they're seeing on the ground versus what

the polling is, has been telling us. And then, of course, all of a sudden, a sign shows up at one of the Brampton rallies for Mr. Poliev and it questions, you know, do you believe the polls? And this, of course, sent tongues wagging with a lot of media saying, well, gee, what do we have a Trump style campaign going on? What's going on? You know, we had these buttons showing up at campaigns and so it started becoming conversation of, oh, is the pure Poliev camp, you know, starting to put it out

there that we'll get this Trumpian language that the vote was, you know, rigged, that the election was, you know, rigged, that the election was stolen, which is why last week in the campaign you actually heard the media asking Pierre Poliev, you know, will you accept the results of the election, to which he said, well, yes. But how did it all come to be? Because it did send a lot of, like it just sent the world into kind of a who are these people?

Who is putting buttons into conferences that the conservatives are at and who is going to these rallies asking the questions about the polls? Well, we found one of them and you know they too were going to these rallies and thought well hey we're not sure what's going on with the polls so we'll go and ask that question but let me get the man I guess at the center of this, Paul Micucci, into this conversation, president of the Meadowvale Business Association. Paul, you've become pretty popular over the last 24 hours.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Alex. And, you know, thank you. Happy Thursday. You know, and we're doing this not on behalf of the association. We're doing this ourselves, my wife and I, and you know we spent weeks you know listening to these outlandish narratives from pollsters on TV and elsewhere, you know telling us about polls they had done and who knows who answered them, we don't know what

exactly the questions were and we don't even know what the poll sizes were for the most part but yet we're getting all these narratives and we said to ourselves, you know what? We need to focus people back on the issues and basically the policies of the candidates. And that's what really matters. And regardless of who you vote for, right, it's important to actually focus on those because the narratives sometimes, you know, they can sometimes, they can have their biases, they can be off and they're a snapshot. Anyone who knows polls and knows, has been around polls, knows those are the pretty broad

snapshot in time of what's going on in the marketplace. Okay, so let me just step in because I want to ask you a couple of things. And so your goal, I guess, with making this banner that questioned, you know, don't believe the polls, because it did create a whole bunch of conversation. Was it done just for you and your wife? Was it done on behalf of the Poliev camp? Because that's what people were asking. Was it done on behalf of Doug Ford, who, you know, his campaign manager, Corey, tonight started meddling in questioning about the strategy used. Yeah, yeah, no, it was bizarre. So what did social experiment?

This was just my wife and I sitting at home and we said, this is kind of crazy, right? Because we're listening to all 16 hours a day to all these different narratives of what these polls mean. And there's no way these polls can be deciphered this way. So consistently and oddly, with all of the ground information that you were talking about as far as number of people going to rallies. So we said, you know what, we hadn't been to any rallies.

So we haven't been federally active in years. I know it's myself, I haven't done anything or been active on the federal side of politics for over 20 years. And I said, you know what, let's go out to a rally and let's ask the question, you know, do you believe the polls? And what a response we got. You know, within the first 24 hours, we threw up an Instagram site and we had 150,000 views and then within four days we're up around almost a million impressions on that site.

So, which was pretty crazy. And then to your point, they started asking the narratives. They started creating the narratives out of the site, which is interesting because now they're creating those narratives you just referred to about, you know, is this the right-wing group? Is this a group by the conservatives? Is this a group from the liberals? And you know, it started to go around and we're like, wow, so if our sign created that many narratives, imagine the number of narratives that come from the polling. Well, because once it became known that Buttongate had been, you know, an operative, you know,

run by the liberals, everyone wanted to say, okay, what are the liberals involved in doing other stuff? Were these people with the banner linked to it? And so people start looking into it, and then they take your picture, and then they start seeing, well, you've shown up with Doug Ford at events. Now, are you a politically active person? How did you get to be, I guess, with pictures with Ford? Oh, so on the provincial side, you know, we support the conservatives, of course. But, you know, are we politically active? I wouldn't say we're politically active.

You know, we vote. This is the first time federally we've really been active. I wouldn't say we're politically active, you know, we vote. This is the first time federally we've really been active, but yeah, no, I, you know, there's no, how do I say it, you know, we've never even met Corey and quite frankly, you know, we don't have a one-on-one relationship with the premier, so, you know, no discussions ever took place about what we were doing. And quite frankly, we don't have a one-on-one relationship with the premier. So no discussions ever took place about what we were doing. Any concern though that in wanting to question the polls and raise it, don't just follow the narrative, any concern that you might have hurt the Poliev campaign?

No, no, I don't think so. I think, listen, we have a democratic process. It's important, regardless of who you vote for, that you vote for the person and the people that you actually believe in their policies. That's what we believe, right? We don't think that any polls or such things as that should change the narrative and cause people to vote. It should be people doing their homework and reading the written policies of the party. And that, you know, it became kind of polarizing on come tariffs on things that probably weren't

the right direction to be going. And I think we need to go back and get back to the policies of each party, have them write them down. Let's make sure, you know, we see their written documents of budgets and policies, and then that we make our decisions based on that. In other words, don't be influenced just by the numbers you see on the screen. Go out and figure it out for yourself. I guess the question then becomes, if you could do it again, woulda, coulda, shoulda, how would you have done it differently or would you?

No, I don't think I'd do it any different. I think it's, you know, honestly, I think it turned out to be a great social experiment of the number of narratives that can, think about it, Alex, this is one time. Like this is one question on a sign, and the number of narratives that came out of that sign are absolutely mind-boggling and the number of impressions.

So does that not, that kind of leads you to, in my mind, that kind of, there's a lot of curious people out there who are really looking for some direction and looking for conversation. So I think what we got out of it is we got a lot of conversation about people kind of looking for answers and I think they also at the end of it when we kind of you know we on your show we actually talked to Joe yesterday you know we're saying to people you know okay it's not what you thought it was so go do your homework look at the policies of each of the parties and make your decision and I think that was a good thing because now coming to the end of it, people like, wow, you know, I followed a narrative. Maybe I went down a false narrative.

Well, there you go. Yeah. Well, maybe we just have a conversation. Well, look, people want to be heard. And maybe at least we're doing that. I want to thank you so much for your time, Paul. Appreciate it. Thank you, Alex. and have a great Thursday. You as well, Paul Mechucci. So now the mystery is solved. Now you know who put the sign up. You know, believe the polls.

Do you believe the polls? And he's saying, you know, look outside those numbers and figure it out. Watch and read the policy, know what they're talking about. Don't just follow the polls, because if you actually follow the polls now, it gets a dog fight in the 905, and the polls are tightening.

Great to have you here. I am Alex Pearson, and I am in for Mr. Ben Mulroney. Hope you're having a terrific day. Got a couple of things that we should go through, some of the things and the takeaways of what we heard, who said what, and Mark Carney. Is he, Justin Trudeau, some of the things and the takeaways of what we heard, who said what. And Mark Carney, is he Justin Trudeau? One of the things you do not want to do and say in a debate is, well, in any time, you don't really want to raise the person of he who shall not be named, right?

And he who shall not be named was named during the debate. And you know, Mr. Carney was asked, are you anything like Justin Trudeau? And did you think he was a good prime minister? And I'll play you the question and the answer because sometimes when you put a really basic question to a politician, sometimes people will say, well, what a dumb question, but sometimes it does get the most interesting results.

And here is Mr. Keenbeck's over at Juno News asking Mark Carney, was Mr. Trudeau a good prime minister? Justin Trudeau and the previous administration made a number of contributions to this country. I suspect since I have 10 minutes, I think, right, for the responses, I'm not going to enumerate them all. I'll make one point which I think is relevant on the way looking forward, which is, as I said the other night in an interview, we share the way looking forward, which is, as I said the other night in an interview, we share the same values in terms of solidarity, taking care of one each one another, the emphasis on reconciliation, emphasis on equality of all Canadians, and

building a better country for everyone else. The difference, one of the differences, there are many, but one of the differences between the two of us goes to the question I was just asked, which is I put much more emphasis on the economy, on growing the economy. In fact, in this circumstance that we're in, given the scale of the crisis and what needs to be done, I would say a relentless focus on growing the economy to work for all Canadians. Okay, so that's his answer. Are you like Justin Trudeau?

No, because I do care about monetary issues. We can give that to Carney, okay? He was a Bank of Canada governor. He was a Bank of England governor, okay? So yes, he does in fact, unlike the last Prime Minister, he does focus on monetary issues. But here's why Keenbecks was asking the question, because he wanted to find out how are you different

from Justin Trudeau given, you know, you're surrounded by all the same people. Take a listen. Just to follow up, if I may, your entire campaign does seem to be predicated on putting you in the front and hiding the people that stood in lockstep with Justin Trudeau for the last 10 years.

You're kind of hoping that Canadians won't connect the dots that the people standing behind you in your caucus walked in lockstep with them. Regardless of what you say right now, Stephen Gaubeau made the carbon taxes life work. The man that moved Paul Bernardo from a maximum security prison is now your chief of staff. I'm wondering how you reconcile this and how you can trust their judgment when they thought those ideas were good ideas. I'd say a couple of things to that rather odd question. First is that the candidates in this election for the Liberal Party, I mean, you go and

see when I make an announcement. I don't think I've seen you at any of them. No you haven't because we tried to get that guy arrested. Mark Carney. So why did I think that was an interesting question? First of all, it was asked by the independent media, which the mainstream media had a really big problem with. They didn't feel that several independent journalists should have been given so much time to ask questions.

And again, they line up and the debate commission picks who asks questions. And so, you know, camebacks wanted to know how can you say you're different when you are basically the same party, whether it's your advisors, whether it's your MPs, whether it's your chief of staff? And again, that's relevant. Right? It doesn't get talked about. I know we're supposed to talk about only Trump things, but I do think it's important to point out and have the guy that's applying for the job have

to explain, well, if you're so different, you know, why do you have everybody around you who was so ideologically, you know, married to everything the last guy said? It's important. You're telling us you're going to build pipelines when six weeks ago you were saying that our oil and gas should be landlocked by 80 percent. Details, right? We need media to ask those questions and they're not not frankly. I thought Pierre poliev had a good message He was certainly asked about this and I know it's the goal to demonize him as being anti-immigrant

but certainly when you're talking about housing and affordability and Immigration which is severely broken You have to give an answer and this is his message and this is you know, he gets attacked for his position But this is his basic message as to what he's expecting for people who want to call Canada home. He had a tradition in this country before this government where you could come from places and the conflict ridden places in the world and you would leave the fight behind. You might have a debate about the politics of that place

when you sat down in a coffee shop in Montreal or Toronto but it never overflowed into street violence. We need to get back to that. You should know we welcome people this country sure bring your culture bring your traditions bring your family but do not bring foreign conflicts onto our streets. We want, we're going to have peaceful streets again, and we're going to be united. We should put, all of us should consider ourselves Canadian first and put foreign divisions behind us. How is that controversial?

That's what we all want. I would think a lot of new Canadians would also want that, and I know a lot of Canadians who moved here from other countries Yeah, they want that that's pretty universal Anyone offended by that are probably those who want to continue carrying out the nefarious or bad behavior, right? Paulie have on this issue, you know, he's been questioned What will you you know do as far as dealing with immigration and he's like I'll fix it Because we do have to fix it We have half a million people in this country who should not be here

because the last government the liberal government the Trudeau government the Carney government whatever they let too many people and they've admitted this mistake they think they can fix it I don't think they should be given that chance it's a big fix and you can't just kind of like let the people who jumped into the country kind of just disappear and blend in. It's got to be solved or our problems don't go away. And to the point of the protests and the hatefests

and all the stuff we see all over this country, whether it's in Vancouver, in Toronto or Montreal, they're very real things. And he was pretty blunt about it. If you're here on a visitor's visa, if you're here on a foreign student's visa, if you're here trying to get into this country and you're out spouting off hate,

targeting certain groups like Jews and that, you're gone. That should not be a controversial. We want people who come in to value our country and value other people and can live side by side and leave their issues at home. That shouldn't be controversial. That's how we work. That is how you make diversity our strength.

So I thought it was an interesting answer because it was just very clear. Things that are not being talked about, and again, if we're talking about Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, and again, we're told that this whole election the ballot box question we've been told it's all about Trump and the threat to Canada what I would love to know and again should be asked is why is no one addressing the other threat of China we talk about China where we don't talk about China is what they're doing what China is doing to our farmers in the West. Like no one talks about this. I've talked about it a bit, I know Ben's brought it up, but this is not something that's

being talked about. Someone should be asking Mr. Carney, have you picked up the phone to call China to find out when the hell they're going to stop, you know, terrifying our canola farmers? Because that call hasn't been made. And since everyone only wants to talk about Donald Trump, then you've got a bunch of farmers in our West who have been paying illudicrous amounts of money and being punished because of this war between China and Canada.

China's very pissed off at us because we're tariffing EVs, their EVs. They seem to think that they should be able to send all their EV cars into our country and sell them and out-compete us on something that we just spent $50 billion in subsidies to say we're setting up shop, right? We don't want Chinese-made EV cars if we're trying to set up a market for that product. Is that why Mark Carney's not calling

and saying anything to China? Because it's not we our farmers have lost over a hundred million dollars. Like this is not a small loss, and yet it's not being talked about in the election. So I'm trying to square if Donald Trump is such an issue with his tariffs on this country, etc. Why isn't anyone raising the issue of what China is doing to our farmers in the West? It's not a small thing and they are being completely, completely ignored. So we'll keep championing and talking about it, but it is a question that really should

be asked. Can't deal with Donald Trump, certainly not going to deal with China. at homenetwork.ca slash watch and win for your chance to win big. Amazing! The small details are the difference between winning and losing. Watch and win with Renovation Resort on Home Network.