The Ben Mulroney Show - Was Ben's social media faux pas inexcusable? And online harms act in Ottawa.

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

GUEST: Sara Austin  – Children First Canada/ CEO and founder GUEST:  Josephine Maharaj  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

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only till February 4th. Shop in store or at metro.ca. Did you know that Staples Professional can tailor a custom program to make running your business easy? With a Staples Professional account, you get one vendor, one delivery, and one invoice for all your must-haves, from tech to cleaning supplies, and dedicated support from Staples experts who guide you on everything from product selection and ordering to payment. Join today at staplesprofessional.com.com and get expert solutions tailored to your business. That was easy. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Happy Tuesday to you.

is a very big day for former Prime Minister Stephen Harper as well as his family. I want to jump right into this because I know of which I speak. Today is the day that they are unveiling his official portrait in a long collection that represents all of our previous prime ministers. We've had 24 prime ministers in our history. And I think he was 22, number 22. And I remember in 2002 when my father's portrait was unveiled. And it was a really, it was a really special day. He picked, I guess you get to pick the artist that you want.

And my dad selected Igor Babilov. And it's a beautiful portrait. And my mom had the foresight to have him actually do three versions of it. So one hangs in the House of Commons. The other one is in the Brian Mulrooney Institute of Government at St. of X. and the third one's in our house. And each one is just slightly different.

But it's up to the prime minister and their family to determine how they want the member of their family to be remembered in the halls of power. And Stephen Harper selected Phil Richards. And his last big piece was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second for the Diamond Jubilee. He's got a very photorealistic style, which I was looking at some of the other portraits.

He did Bob Ray. He's done a whole bunch of people, speakers, lieutenant governors, provincial premiers. There's a photo realism to it, which for me feels like Stephen Harper's style. So on behalf of myself to his whole family, I know what it means,

I know how special it is, and I wish them all the very best on this very special occasion. They're not always when they do these pictures, these portraits, photorealistic. No, no, they don't have to be. They don't have to be. It's whatever you want it to be.

I think Pierre Trudeau selected something that was a little more artistic, which goes with his personality. And it's really up to the family to decide how they want to do it. And I say good on them. It's a wonderful array of art representing our leaders. But I want to move on to something else in this segment. I want to move on to a mistake that I made on Twitter. Yesterday I posted information, reposted, this breaking news that Hillary Clinton was going to be the keynote speaker at the liberal convention.

And I posited whether this was going to make Mark Carney's job easier or harder. And you could read sarcasm into it because it was sarcastic. I found out this morning from Sharon Carr, a friend of mine, that it was wrong and the PMO wanted to correct me. And I said, I will correct it. And I had a moment as I was going to look at it. What do I do? Do I delete it? And then I remembered what happened in September, 2023. When in the Canadian House of Commons, a man stood for recognition as a Ukrainian-Canadian

veteran and we found out he was a Nazi. And this was a big, big mistake, big mistake. I mean, is it as big as me getting, the guest list wrong at a party, that's for you to decide. But then the House leader, Karina Gold, stood up and wanted unanimous consent to have this entire event stricken from the Hansard, from the record. And the Conservatives said, no, you got to own this mistake. We have to remember this.

So I was thinking about that. I was thinking about that before I deleted it. I said, no, I want this to be part of the record. I want to be part of my record. So I remember it. So I can be better. And that's not good enough for some of you online. I correct.

I tried to make things right. I didn't do the right thing right, according to you. In fact, a journalist got in touch with me and said, the right thing to do is to delete it. And people were coming at me that this was not the journalistic thing to do. Before we uphold journalism on the pantheon, like right below God on Twitter, I'll remind you that I have seen some of the most. boorish behavior on Twitter coming from journalists.

Because it is not a vehicle for journalism. It is a vehicle for information sharing and trying to do so as responsibly as possible. I believe that I behaved in a responsible manner. And because it's not a vehicle specifically for journalists, I will point you to what happened two years ago on Twitter when our Minister of Foreign Affairs, I believe, no, yeah, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Melanie Jolie, saw a headline that Israel had bombed a hospital. And she jumped on that like a fat kid on cake. Bombing a hospital is an unthinkable act and there is no doubt that doing so is absolutely illegal.

So all of you clutching your pearls that I got the guest list wrong at a party, this woman committed a blood libel. She was a member of a sitting government with power. and she committed a blood libel, which probably led to rising anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic acts across this country. That was never corrected, and it's still on her feed. So if you're going to do me, please, by all means, reach out to the minister. Because the amount of you who are so offended that I would deign to hold myself to account on Twitter

and I didn't do things the way you wanted. I see what's going on here. I see what's going on. We are living in a time where it's one rule for me, one rule for thee. And we have a party in power

that seems to be able to get away with things that on a scale, that if I were to do something on a far little smaller scale, that's it. That's it. It was, it was, I mean, I thought I held myself to account properly. I, as a former journalist, I can say that you went above and beyond.

Most people would just say, delete it. Yeah. And, and forget about it and put it out there. But the fact remains, those posts are all over the internet. Yeah. About her, about Hillary Clinton being part of this convention. You got a problem with me. You have a problem with Twitter. Yeah. Take it up with Elon.

But you're also, but those posts exist far removed from your post. So people will see them. But if they went to your post and they say, and they see that actually, I reposted this in error. And it was an error. It was not right. And you're owning up to the mistake. That to me is above and beyond what most other people would do. Oh, God.

But I loved it. So I reminded people the Melanesia Lee Post. And someone said, oh, what aboutism? No, no. It's orders of magnitude, dude. It's orders of magnitude. If you can't see that I corrected myself as soon as you. I found out I made a mistake about a guestless error,

but our minister of foreign affairs can wrongly say that a democratic ally of ours was essentially killed a bunch of people in a hospital and performed unthinkable illegal acts on Twitter, but that's okay, that's where we got a problem. That's where the disconnect is. That's why, I'm telling you, like, I'm watching the honeymoon of Mark Carney right now. And I'm saying, if this is, if this is the playing field,

he's never going to lose, ever. He's never, but I honestly, I looked at that. I remembered the, the hunkah. I think his name was hunker. He was invite the House of Commons. And I thought, I'm glad the Tories stood up and said, no, no, we're not deleting that. That is our shame in the House of Commons and we have to own it.

That was me doing that. on this incredibly momentous, serious issue of suggesting that Hillary Clinton would come to their convention. Oh my goodness. Oh, I do hope lawyers get involved because that's a bridge too far. Shame on me. I've brought shame to my family. Get over yourselves. Quit clutching your pearls. Sack up and get over yourselves. It's freaking nuts. And it's not an unreasonable thing to suggest that she may show up. Because I mean it's, she has in the past. To quote it to quote Stephen Colbert when he was funny, it had the patina of truthiness. It did.

It absolutely did. It felt like truth. And I got it wrong. And I said as much and it's there for you to see. I didn't erase it. But God forbid, God forbid. You just tell me how I should behave. I'll do that for you in the future.

Do better, Ben. Oh, that's why I said. I want to do better. Do better. better. Yeah. Yeah. This is the Ben Mulroney show and I want to thank you so much for joining us and for helping us build this show on all the platforms where you can find us, on all the podcast platforms, on the Iheart radio app, on the good old fashion radio machine on YouTube, on Instagram,

on TikTok and on X. We want to be everywhere you are. And so thank you very much for joining us in all of those places. Wowza is back at Food Basics. Get 24 double rolls of cashmere bathroom tissue, six double rolls of sponge towels Ultra, or a 12 pack of Scotty spatial tissue for just 998 each. Shop in store and online until February 4th. Food Basics, always more for less.

Amazing days is on now at your local Metro. Save big on amazing items, like Dempster's 100% whole grain bread for only 277 each, and selected varieties of crispy cookies or crackers just 222 each. Only till February 4th. Shop in store or at Metro. One of the things that I've found that I love the most about Twitter these days is the content that I get from committee meetings on Parliament Hill because you get insight into the stories that shape policy. And today was a very an important day for the safety of our children online.

and the CEO and founder of a group called Children First Canada, as well as a young woman named Josephine Maharaj, 17, went to committee, and they are calling on Parliament to stop studying online harms and finally pass a strong child-centered online safety act. So to hear more about their testimony as well as what they want to see from the House of Commons and what sort of legislation they want to pass, I'm joined by Sarah Austin of Children First Canada and Josephine Maharaj. To the both of you, I say welcome.

Thanks so much, Ben. This is great to be with you. Josephine, I'd love to start with you as a 17-year-old who, it can be intimidating to go. I mean, I used to go as the prime minister's son and I was intimidated. So what was it like for you and what stories did you share with them? So I'll start off what it was like. It was honestly very intimidating. at first, like you said.

I was very, very nervous that I would mess up, but I had a lot of support from Sarah and the wonderful people at Parliament and my parents for helping me be confident in when I speak and just getting set up. So it wasn't as scary as it seemed in the end. And I got to share my own personal experience growing up as part of the generation

that has never lived without the internet or cell phones. We grew up alongside the iPhones and the I guess introduction of social media being a part of our daily life into something that's recreational. So I really shared my own personal perspective on that and my thoughts as a young person, as a student, as someone going into the adult world and the university. So that's what I got to share. Wow. Well, Sarah, as intimidating and as scary as speaking before committee can be not necessarily as scary as some kids' experiences online today with sexual exploitation,

extortion, cyber bullying, I mean, you name it. And I'm just, I'm scratching the surface here. It can be a very seedy place even for the most cynical among us.

But for our kids, it shouldn't be that. It shouldn't be that way, Ben. I mean, we're parents, and we're raising kids in this digital age. Our kids are being exposed to online harms since the moment they've been born, whatever device they have.

A phone, a tablet, laptops, you name it. Even family, vehicles now are equipped with chatbots. And so our kids can't escape the digital world. And there was nobody better to testify about this than, you know, Josephine and 12-year-old Zachary, who was with us

because they know what it is like to be a kid today. They cannot avoid this. You know, I don't sometimes talk about, well, kids just need to get offline. They can't get offline. You know, kids are spending an average of five hours a day online. Joining us today in testimony was also Carol Todd. Carol lost her daughter, Amanda at the age of

15. You know, she's made headlines. Yes, of course. Oh, she was Oh, God love her. God love her. What a tragic story. Absolutely. You know, Carol spent over a decade of her life telling Amanda's story, educating parents, demanding better from our legislators, and yet nothing has happened.

And so that's really what came out loud and clear in today's testimony was, you know, we're done with the studies. We don't need more evidence. We have mountains of evidence, as Jonathan Hayd has said. What we need is moral and political leadership for our government to don't do what we need to them to do and to table legislation and get. it passed. And so did you take the extra step to say, we want you, we want something. And by the way, in case you're still humming and hawing or on the fence, here's what the legislation should look like.

We did. You know, we spelled it out for them in clear and uncertain terms. We need, you know, we know governments like Australia and France and other jurisdictions are moving head with things like social media age restrictions or bans as they sometimes get called. But we need our government to do better than that. Kids aren't just living in social media. They're exposed to all kinds of online harms and all kinds of devices. And we need robust legislation. We need to look at best examples, you know, from Europe in particular. And so what we've proposed in new legislation is, first, a duty of care. We need tech companies to be, have clear and enforceable obligations to platforms to prevent foreseeable harms. We know what they're going to do,

and so we need them to take the, make protection the default. We want independent oversight. You know, we can't just trust them to do the right thing. We spent two decades expecting them to do best. We know that they're not going to. They profit off of harming children. So we need independent oversight. And we need youth protections by design, age-appropriate design, limits on addictive features, meaningful defaults for kids and for parents to be able to navigate. These are just some of the important elements that we need about a robust online safety act for kids. Josephine, I'd like to go back to you.

As comfortable as you are, can you share sort of the story that you think probably, resonated the most with the committee members? I definitely think it was Mrs. Todd's story of how her daughter lost her life because of this lack of regulation with social media and how people who want to harm other people, children can do so much damage in so little time. And I just want to applaud Mrs. Todd for how eloquent she was and speaking about what must have been just the most heartbreaking experience in her life. I think hearing the human side of this issue really resonated with the committee members.

Josephine, what about, you know, your friend group? You know, I've watched, I watched my kids suffer through isolation during COVID. Those key years where socialization and learning the social skills of how to interact with people in person, that went out the window. They missed out on that. What's, you know, what are the failings that, that? that you feel are visible to you in your friend group? Within my own friend group, in community at school,

I definitely see higher rates of anxiety, people being very anxious and self-conscious about what goes on the internet. And not only about what they post, but about who they are as a person. Because social media, for lack of better word, effectively acts as like a magic mirror. You know, it highlights our insecurities,

what we're self-conscious about while setting the bar for what we have to be, what we have to attain as people to an impossible level. And people are exposed to this from as soon as they go online, you know, 13, 14, 15, 16. And we are growing up with this expectation of what we must be instead of letting ourselves make mistakes along the way. So there's this intense pressure and anxiety that a lot of people my age, even in my own friend group experience.

Well, listen, if you were as half as eloquent in committee as you have been on this show, your parents should be very proud of you. Sarah, what was the reception that you got from the committee members? I'm walking away with equal parts, hope, and frustration. You know, one member of parliament, you're reflected, you know, as a parent and as a grandparent and as a member of parliament who has sat through countless studies and testimonies. and years and years of discussion and debate on this. And he spoke quite eloquently about his frustration that after all of these years, nothing has changed. And I share his frustration.

I'm frustrated. I think you're frustrated. Josephine's frustrated. We have all had enough of the excuses. You know, the time for partisan bickering over who's done is best is over. We need every member of parliament to work together. And I really got to sense by the end of the committee hearing that that message came through loud and clear.

And so, you know, I look to the committee, chairs to Lisa Hefner to Rachel Thomas and the Martin Shampoo. You know, these are political leaders from all walks of life, from all stripes, who need to work together to put our children first to get this bill done. It's not a silver bullet. It's not going to solve all of our problems. And it's going to take a while. It's going to, these are entrenched powers that are not going to change willingly.

And if they are going to change, it's going to take time. But Sarah Austin of Children First Canada, Josephine Maharaj, to the both of you. I thank you for the work that you did today. and I thank you for the hard work that I know comes next. Our intel chain is compromised. New on Showcase. You were hacked. You're telling me it's real.

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