The Ben Mulroney Show - Was that Colonel Sanders a real Colonel at the World Series? We know where to find a real one.

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

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Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Happy Monday, everybody. It's October 27th. Love doing the Ben Mulroney show from Chorus Key here in Toronto, and I love doing it with our entire team, and that includes our intrepid producer, Mike Drolle. I like to say that we are two men who share one brain. Good morning.

Yes, good morning to you. Our technical producer, Dave Spargala. Welcome, my friend. Good morning. How are you feeling 1-1 in this World Series? I feel good. Honestly, if you would have told me that we would have got a split here, I'd be like, you're crazy. And what a split, too.

Like, if we're going to lose one, like, let's win the one that we did the way we did. Agreed. And we'll dig into that later. Yes, and our video producer, Amy Siegel, we'll be joining us shortly. But as always, we can't do this show without any of the members of the team here. Otherwise, it's just Ben Mulroney. It's not even the Ben Mulroney show. It's just Ben Mulroney.

And nobody. And I mean, nobody wants that. So last week, we spilled a lot of, we used a lot of, we used a, a lot of our time asking ourselves, what was the first game going to be like? What was the, what were the national anthems going to be like? I got chills with the Canadian national anthem on day one. On game one, amazing. Absolutely amazing with that choir and the flag. Note perfect. Fantastic. They couldn't have done it better. It was really amazing just to how the flag transformed from the American flag to the Canadian flag with people. Brilliant. And look, but I don't know if they could do

better, but they certainly lived up to it in game two with Toronto-born Alessi-Cara. So you go from this huge thing. I don't know if you've ever met Alessi-Cara. She's like three apples high. She's got a voice, like she can belt it out, but she's a tiny little thing. So you go from that big, big orchestrated thing to Alessi-Cara. Let's listen to a little bit of Alessi-Cara doing justice to the Canadian National Anthem. God for thee.

God keep on in glorious and free. Oh, Canada, we stand on God for thee. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Congratulations to Ulessi. Congratulations to the Jays. So it's 1-1.

Jays are off to, Jays are in Los Angeles right now. And I think a lot of us are very, very proud Cetogast. All the, all of us, we'll get into that in a minute. But it would take a lot. It'd take a lot to ruin this moment for... It would. Yeah, it would take a lot to ruin this moment for fans.

And Donald Trump is doing his best to ruin it for fans. But this, what I'm about to read to you, will have no impact, no bearing on any baseball fans' enthusiasm for this game. Be them J's fans or Dodger fans. Donald Trump, you know, there's a tradition. When a team in any sort of sport, college basketball, college football, the NFL, the NHL, MLB, the WNBA, they all get invited to the White House. It's like a standard thing that happens.

Not so this year. Donald Trump is anything but standard, and here's what he told his followers on true social. In all caps, no matter who wins, I will refuse to invite either baseball team to my ballroom as they are both run by highly inept officials from California and Ontario, Canada. I don't host losers. We are actively investigating MLB. This World Series is rigged, probably by the Dems and the Mafia. That's obviously the Dems.

Well. But you're throwing the Mafia in there now. Yeah, of course. It's the Maple Mafia, right? Oh, the Maple Mafia, not just like the New York Mafia. Well, it's got to be the Maple Mafia. Well, the New York Mafia was involved with the NBA betting scheme. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is this is unhinged and it's delightful. It's delightful. But so many great anthems, as we said, the anthem, the home run. Addison Barger's like coming off the bench for a, pinch hit grand slam and again i've said this before i'm going to say it again for me the greatest gift uh of this this moment in time is it ignited something in my sons that i have been trying to ignite for years which is a an appreciation to sit with me and watch baseball and it seems like something has caught hold of them in a way that i know no other experience would have i've tried

to take them in the games has it they haven't able to wrap their head around baseball they're getting it. They're asking questions. They're remembering things. They're reading up on their own now. It's awesome. It's a gift as a dad. I did not know I was due, and I'm just so appreciative.

So appreciative. But I love the stories that come along with it. Like Barger, even if you're not a sports fan, you'll find this humorous. The guy hit a Grand Slam. Okay, great. It was a pinch, first pinch hit, Graham'slan in baseball history, but he pinched for, he was brought in for another player, a guy named Davis Schneider.

After the game we learned, Barger slept on Davis Schneider's pullout couch. Yes, why? The night before. Because he had family in town. Now, let's just talk about, let's just talk about what that means. So, Addison Barger has family in town to see him in the World Series, no doubt. And rather than anybody in his family say, hey, Addison, you probably need a good night's sleep. We'll sleep on the couch.

He slept on a friend's couch. He went couch surfing. Now, what would have happened if he had, I don't know, slept wrong on this pullout couch? It's a Seinfeld episode. If he was related to George Costanza, he'd hurt his back and Costanza would have been responsible for blowing it up.

But we had Cito Gaston throwing out the first pitch. We asked who was going to be. We're so glad that that happened. And the fact that he threw the first pitch to current manager John Schneider. John Snyder said he felt chills He appreciated the importance of the moment I think Cedogaston deserves far more credit

than he's ever gotten for back-to-back World Series as the first black manager to ever do that I'm so glad to see him back for that and let's talk about the people behind the plate right? Because people were fixated about this online Well of course we talked about Navbadia last week and sure enough he showed up at the game

with his Raptors jersey He's the Raptors super fake Yeah. But the one person I wanted to focus on was Colonel Sanders. In game two, Colonel Sanders was behind home plate. A guy dressed up like the colonel, right? And when you first saw it, did you, back, what's the deal? Is that guy just dressed up? No, that actually looks like. It looks exactly like him. Looks exactly like him. Now, here's the thing about Colonel Sanders. He's not a real colonel. He's not a military colonel. In Kentucky, the award of being a colonel is awarded by the state

to people who have done great things for the state. And not for nothing. It's important that I tell you that back in the day when my sister, I believe, was either in law school or had just gotten out of law school, I think it was probably after that. Yes, her friend was the Attorney General of Kentucky. And she didn't have any money

to buy Christmas presents for her brothers. So rather than spend any money, she got the Attorney General of Kentucky to award me and my brothers the honorific of being Kentucky colonels. I am a Kentucky colonel in the same way that Colonel Sanders is a Kentucky colonel. Meaning if KFC wants

it wants to put another colonel in that seat besides Colonel Sanders, you can do that with me and it won't cost you anything. I'll be happy. I'll sit there. I'll eat KFC the whole game. I'll have zingers or dingers or flingers

or whatever you call them all day long. I'm just putting it out there. And you would be a legitimate colonel. I am. You're probably more legitimate than the guy who was acting as... Yeah, well, here's a quick. Do you think that the actor... No, he wasn't a colonel.

...portraying Colonel Sanders was in fact a colonel? No. I am a genuine colonel. As a matter of fact, there is a paddock at the Kentucky Derby reserved for colonels. If I wanted to, I could get in that paddock. Have I gone? No. Do I want to?

Maybe. And here's a little piece of trivia. for you before we throw a break for 15 years from 1965 until his death in 1980 the man the world knew as colonel sanders lived a modest life at 1337 melton drive in the lakeview area of mississauga the colonel sanders lived in mississauga from 1965 until 9080 enjoy that little piece of information ticket with you all day and share it all right when we come back. Could Mayor Chow's grip on the city be loosening? Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. We are not immune to getting things wrong on this show.

And when we do, we like to correct them as quickly as humanly possible. And it's very nice to know that great friend of the show, Brad Smith, who's too pretty for his own good, also on top of what is real and what is, what is BS, what is, and what is real, uh, turns out the, um, true social that we talked about off the top of the show, but Donald Trump, uh, accusing, uh, accusing, uh, the world series, the fix being in. Uh, apparently it's faked. Apparently that was faked. So we fully retract without reservation and we humbly apologize, uh, to our listeners. Uh, however, something that is true. And this was brought to me care of my boss, Mike Ben Dixon. Colonel Sanders gave money to a hospital in Mississauga.

And this is the real part. That's real, too, but it's known as the Colonel Sanders chicken wing. Apparently, that's a true story. Thank you, Mike Ben Dixon. So, all right, let's dig into some real numbers as well. The drama that is the upcoming election, municipal election, just under a year from now, that a lot of us view as exceptionally consequential, hoping that as many people turn out as possible to vote.

is shaping up to be a three-way race. According to a new poll just released this morning by one persuasion, surveying 805 Toronto residents. The key findings are that in a head-to-head between Bradford and Olivia Chow, Bradford leads 40 to 32. 40 to 32 Bradford to Olivia Chow. In a hypothetical between John Tori and Olivia Chow, Tori leads 44 to 31.

If it's a head-to-head between the top two center-right candidates and the only person and the current sitting mayor, it's a blowout either way. Chow loses. In a three-way race, John Tori 36, Olivia Chow 33, Bradford, 29, more or less a statistical tie at this point. Now, this is interesting because the last poll we saw was, like, end of August, I believe, beginning of September. and it showed a very different setup, right? Yeah, I mean, it shows it shows that both John Torrey and Brad Bradford have very, are very strong one-on-one, shows that Bradford has come a long way since the last election where I think he brought in, I want to say 3% of the vote, and that might be generous.

That might be generous. I mean, I think it might have been even less than that. And so, yeah, it's... The last one showed that if there was any... any more than one person from the center, center right running, Chow ran away with him. Yeah. And we were talking about this. We'll keep talking about this poll. But over the weekend, I was watching a number of videos, more or less, most of them were from

Integrity T.O. Daniel Tate and his group Integrity T.O. Where he has been in attendance at community meetings where city councilors meet with their residents. And Chris Moyes had a meeting over, I want to say over the weekend. It might have been on Friday. Osma Malik did one as well. And the visible, palpable anger of these residents as they try to dialogue with their city councilor is unlike anything I have seen, period. I've never seen this at the city level. I've never seen pushback, the likes of which I'm seeing at these community meetings. And the anger, I have to wonder whether it will crystallize into some sort of movement on the ground and a decision by those people to actually take the steps required, to take the anger

and translate it into change. I don't know. It's a wait and see sort of situation. But these numbers tend to lead me to believe that that movement is afoot. Okay, so let's talk voter sentiment for a minute. 70% of Torontoians say the city is on the wrong track. Now, that doesn't surprise me at all. Topkins, yeah. But the real reasons are. Crime, affordability, homelessness, and congestion.

And on all of those fronts, especially crime and homelessness and congestion, those go, those, those, those break according to left and right, easy, very easy. Well, you were talking about the Chris Moyes Town Hall. Oh. The Osama Malik town hall, similar to things? At one point at the Chris Moyes town hall, one of the residents got up and opened up the windows. They had put these blackouts on the windows. And he got up and opened the windows.

And outside those windows was a tent city of homeless encampment. And when you see that as he's standing there, Chris Moyes is standing there talking about what he's proud of and the hard work he's done. And yes, we have challenges. but we've got, oh, my favorite was, we've got great stuff in this. There's a lot to be proud of in this neighborhood. We've got the St. Lawrence Market and dot, dot, dot, other stuff, right? And then I don't know about a lot of people, but if I had to pick between no St. Lawrence Market and no encampments or encampments and St. Lawrence Market, I'm getting rid of all of it. And I'm starting from scratch.

Well, he's famous for also saying in these meetings, he goes, I follow the science. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which is, and then people are fighting back on that now. and they're saying, well, you're doing harm reduction for some people, but not the others. There's no harm reduction for the community. Yeah, the harm to the community has gone through the roof. So how much harm reduction is it? And these are real questions asked by real Torontoans to a real city councilor who just obfuscates and hedges and pivots.

And every now and then accuses someone who's just being a racist in order to shut down the conversation. I do not think that's going to work anymore. Here's another number that should concern Olivia Chow. One third of Chow's 2023 supporters, so the people who voted for her, now want a new mayor. So a lot of the negativity is beginning to stick to the mayor, where earlier in the summertime, a lot of people were angry, but weren't necessarily ascribing the problems of the city to the mayor and giving her responsibility. So the pollster who put this all together was Hamish Marshall. And he said, this is a change election scenario.

The rising dissatisfaction signals a danger for incumbents like Chow. And then you also have to ask yourself the question. Will Chau be able to push back and say, I'm not the incumbent? I haven't even had a full term. I've been here three years. I was brought in to fix a problem. The incumbent is John Torrey, who was mayor for how long? 12 years?

Something like that. So I'm not saying that'll stick. but she could make the argument. I didn't even have a full term and you're judging me on the problems of this city that predate my administration. If she's able to do that,

if they eat each other, does that open up a lane for Bradford to sweep in? I have no idea. And Bradford's early entry and Gross suggests he is a credible challenger. I do think he has done a lot of work. A lot of work to go from

obscure city counselor with a name that is charming, Brad Bradford, to somebody that a lot of members of the press asked themselves, okay, we heard from the mayor. Now let's go to the political counterpoint who is Brad Bradford. He has assumed the de facto position

of leader of the opposition, if you will. At least that's my sense. John Torrey was mayor for eight years. Yeah, so the overall takeaways are that Mayor Chow's popularity is slipping, growing public frustration. The 2026 race is shaping up to be a tight three-way contest defined by voters' desire for new leadership,

focused on affordability, safety, and city services. And that's a big one, right? The city services. So we've said on the show many a time, especially since that last poll, saying that for the right to win, for the center-center right to be able to beat Chow, they would have to say, decide,

okay, we're going to all drop out and leave one person, one person who has the best chance to win to be able to give them a chance to win. Do you think this poll here actually hurts that idea? Because if a few people think they have a legitimate shot to win and it's statistically close enough, it could basically backfire. Yeah, honestly, man, this is a surprising poll that showed like there's a lot of room for multiple people on the right to grow. I still don't like it I'm not going to like it

unless one person is up against another one person And I wonder if Chow sees this poll and says I have work to do And she's going to start cleaning up the city And start doing the things that a lot of people Have been asking her to do for the last Yeah, maybe

But to me that's again It's like Where were you when we asked you to do it before You want you're doing it because you want to get reelected And what's going to happen once you do get reelected? Are you just going to keep doing the things are you going to go back to your old ways? Anyway, let's open up the phone lines

because this is interesting, isn't it? Do you see the centrists working together? How do you think the next election is going to play out based on the numbers that we just laid out for you? Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulrudey show. When you support Movember, you're not just fundraising.

You're showing up for the men you love, your dad, your brother, your partner, your friends. It isn't just a men's issue. It's a human one. That's why Movember exists to change the face of men's health. From mental health and suicide prevention to prostate and testicular cancer research and early detection, Movember is tackling the biggest health issues facing men today. Join the movement and donate now at Movember.com. In the 70s, four young women were found dead.

For nearly 50 years, their cases went cold. I'm Nancy Hixed, a senior crime reporter for global news. In the season finale of Crime Beat, I share how investigators uncovered shocking evidence of a serial killer. And hear exclusive interviews with the killer's family. Listen to the full season of Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon music by asking Alexa to play the podcast, Crime Beat. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right, before the break, we drop some knowledge on you about a new poll suggesting that there is a three-way race emerging for the 2026 Toronto Municipal Election, suggesting that Bradford, John Torrey, and Olivia Chow are in a statistical tie were they to go head to head to head? There's also additional information that suggests that were Brad Bradford to go one-on-one against Olivia Chow, he smokes her 40 to 30 to 30.

If John Tori were to jump into the race and go up against our current mayor, he smokes her 44 to 31. And like I said, three-way race statistical tie. So what does that mean moving forward? Does that suggest that the center-center right is mobilizing and expanding its base? Are more people going to show up to the polls? Or does that lull the center-center right into a false sense of security and say, oh, there's plenty of room for plenty of contenders on the right? And that'll just get us right back to where we were three years ago.

Want to hear from you at 416-8-60-6400 or 1-3-8-2-25 talk. Let us know your thoughts on the lay of the land as this municipal election starts crystallizing and becoming more and more of a reality. Stavro, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. I just hope John Torrey comes to his senses and that doesn't run. He handed his child because of his shenanigans the first time. He may hand his chow again.

because he wants to prove something that he's a comeback kid or whatever. Listen, buddy, your mid-70s, leave Bradford, let him run. Let's get some young blood in there to see if he could make a change. You've had your chance, you know, just step aside because your arrogance and your ego will just not allow you to just sort of like, you'll love to hear yourself speak. Give a younger guy a chance for God's sake. I guarantee you we'll only run Chow so that you don't split the vote. So we better make sure on the right-leaning side

We do the same thing So what do you think though Stavroen and I think that's a fair criticism Of someone who has been our mayor in the past And you know I'm not taking anything away from him And were he to be the only person On the on the center-center right

That would be one thing But what do you think of the idea That some have floated that I've actually thought Was a pretty good idea That because it's such a long campaign that maybe the first few months of that campaign should allow, you know, just throw anybody in there. Let as many people test the waters,

see how much popular support they can get, but with a commitment from everybody on the center, center right, that at a certain date, if you don't have a certain amount of support, whoever's not in first place, gets out and supports that one person. I think that's a great idea. And if we had done that four years ago with Saunders and Fury and forget the other lady's name,

we would have won probably because one individual of those three I mentioned would have beaten Chow. Anabilo, yeah. Anabilo, yeah. If they had agreed to that, they probably would have won. Chow wouldn't have been there. But yeah, I think that's a great idea. Put all the ideas out there maybe take from certain candidates' ideas and incorporate them

your own. But definitely drop out within the last month or two if you see you're not, you know, gaining any traction. Hey, Stavro, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Let's welcome Donald from Tobacco. Welcome, sir. You hit the nail right there.

Everything in the last election, we were voting. My family and everybody I know was voting strategically. We thought it was going to be Mark Saunders and Anthony Fury and then Anadalu, and we all voted for Anabail, but there was too many choices on the right. Yeah. The first past the post election when there's so many people, they've got to look at that new election system. I don't know if we go like the three top people and then you get elected by

if you have the most preferences of first, second and third. and just first past the post when there's so many people to vote for screws up when there's only one person on the left. Well, and thank you very much, Donald. I appreciate it. I'll tell you it will be interesting. The impact of the New York City election

on the voters of this city. Meaning right now, you've got two guys going up against Zoran Mamdani. Now, I don't even know that in a head-to-head, I don't know if Andrew Cuomo could actually beat Zoran-Mam-Dani at this point. Zora and Mom-Dani being the socialist Democrat running against the you know the previous democratic power in that city

Andrew Cuomo or in that state rather he was the governor but but watching what happens with the with the center center right splitting the vote and allowing for a guy like Zoran Mamdani to take over maybe what we as a city need to do is watch what's happening there and ask ourselves what can we do to avoid that because I don't know if this city can take four more years of a left-leaning mayor with a left-leaning city council. I just don't know that we've got it in us. I don't know what happens, but we've now seen three years of circling the drain, and I really don't want us to go down it.

Tim, welcome to this show. How you doing, Ben? I'm great. Thank you. Happy Monday to you. It was you as well. I'd like to try to get my head wrapped around John Forreys wanting to run after he resigned after his inappropriate behavior.

He's the one who acknowledged that what he did was wrong. He resigned. So the fact that he's now running, I'm confused. Like if he thinks that he's acceptable for the office again, why did he resign in the first place? Well, and I think that will be part of the messaging

if he does indeed pull the trigger and says, I want to run. He's going to have to, he's going to have to explain to voters why he wants to run, why he wants to run, why he wants to now, what has changed. I think he's probably going to have to do a pretty big sit-down interview with somebody

and explain why he left in the first place. Because a lot of people said you legally don't have to resign. You don't have to resign. This is something that you can get past. And so I think the people are probably owed, before anybody jumps on his bandwagon, I think a lot of people are going to have some questions that I think he probably knows he needs to answer. Well, again, that's the thing.

answer it properly the last time. So the thing is, like, to me, he's already betrayed the public trust, and he doesn't deserve to sit in the chair again, right? That's what happens when you resign is you resign from public life. That's it. You've made a bad decision.

You resign, fine. We accepted that, and that's it. You go. You can go ahead and speak on the station that I won't mention, and that should be it. Yeah. You don't get to deserve to sit and manage the city again because you've broken the public trust.

Well, I mean, listen, I've got a lot of time for John Torre. He has been, you know, full disclosure. He's been a great friend to me. He has given me some great advice over the years. He's a, he was very close with my dad and my family. He's a, to me, an honorable man. He made a mistake. And I'm not, and he paid for it by resigning.

And if he wants people's trust again, he's going to have to earn it. So I actually don't see anything wrong with that. I don't look at that and see it as a problem. Thank you for your call, Tim. I really appreciate it. No, listen, I've got a lot of time for John Torrey. And were he to be, were he to be the candidate up against Olivia Chow? I think the city would be better for it.

I personally don't believe that the city needs John Torrey from five years ago or six years or seven years ago or eight years ago. I think we need a, I think John Tori needs to assume the strong mayor powers that he didn't necessarily want. And I think he needs to be more of a wrecking ball than a, with regards to his opponents at City Hall. That's, I think one thing that has been laid bare is just how insidious ideology is at City Hall as it results as when we're talking about city staff as well as city counselors. And I think you need to be a street fighter in the next administration. That's what we need as our mayor.

And if John Torrey can be that guy, then I think that he can be very, very successful. I think Bradford brings so much to the table as well. A lot of different things than our former mayor. Both would be formidable candidates. And we'll just have to see how it shakes out. Steve, welcome to the show. I think it'll be our last word here. Why is that not clicking?

Steve, you there? I just wanted to add on to the last guy's call. just to say that during COVID John Tori was telling everybody to stay home while he was out having an affair. It's not even a matter of the affair was the lying to everybody in the city about us not to see family, don't go for Christmas, but yeah, we're supposed to trust him again. It's just, it's wild to me to think that.

Well, and thank you for the call. And look, I don't know that I would say, I haven't thought long and hard enough about that, but he will have. have an uphill climb. You know, it's one thing to be the former mayor on the radio. It's another thing to be the former mayor trying to regain the voters' trust. I think he could be equal to the task. Time will tell. But it's certainly going to be interesting given these new polling numbers. Hey, thank you all for your calls. Up next, we're going to take a, we've got someone

coming in who has, I think, a job most of us would love to have pampering pets. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Muller on the show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And I guess our appreciation, our admiration for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Knows no bounds, we were last week with Small Business Week, but we are extending it well into this week. And very happy to be talking with two entrepreneurs, the owners of Fur Bar, Noah and Rachel Aikentel. Welcome to both of you. Thank you so much for being here.

First of all, they say never work with animal. Like if you're, if you have control over your career, don't work with animals or family. And you work with animals and brother and sister. I thought babies were on that list, too. Oh, there's babies too. Yeah, throw babies in there too. Yeah. How is it building a business as a family?

We've always been involved in family businesses, and we're proud to say that they're all Canadian businesses, and it's been our entire careers. We've got, we're very lucky that we had our parents and each other to lean on. And Furbar is just our latest and greatest project. But, okay, when push comes to shove, if one person wants to go left and the other wants to go right, who decides which way to turn? Rachel? Truly, we have a really, really nice relationship. We've always worked together.

All business is family business. We rarely have a time where we don't want to see each other's vision come to life. You didn't answer the question, Rachel. It's me. It's me. There we go. Okay, so look, here's what I found interesting in the lead up to this conversation. is, you know, fur bar is, it's a wonderful pet grooming place.

It's a spa for your dogs, and that's wonderful. And there are a lot of those options in Toronto, and I'm sure you bring your own flair to it. We'll talk about it in a moment. But it's what we were talking about during the break about, you know, this, the work that you do with rescue dogs and not just in the GTA, but dogs all over the world. Talk to me about what that work means and what it entails. Entails. Oh, see what I did.

Oh, nice. The pandemic really made things very strange. as we know. And what happened more than anything was when everybody was home, the demand for a puppy or a cat really went through the roof. So that started the whole process of dogs being imported from other countries, rescued from other countries. And of course, there's a list of rules and regulations. You can't just bring a dog in from another country without having them go through the rehabilitation stage. So we very much

worked with a number of different agencies to bring the dogs up to the standards where they could be rehabilitated and properly adopted. Okay, talk to me about that because I'm aware of the quarantining that is required, where they got to stay

as I say, is they got to be quarantined away from people for 60 days or something like that? I think that's been reduced now, actually. But what's the rehabilitation phase? Well, making sure they're healthy. All their shots. Certainly, you know, they have to look good to get adopted. And so that's where we come in. We made sure they're clean, healthy. Oh, so you get to when they're fresh out of the quarantine and then you make them all pretty? Or where do they come? The ones that come through you, where are they

coming from? What other countries do they come? We've had dogs from Egypt from all over Africa. Now it's South America, a lot of dogs from South America. Just depending on what's happening in the world, unfortunately, the animals seem to get the worst case. of what's happening in places that are in transition. So when you first started February, I started with one location, you've got three now. How long did you start? So it was five years ago,

which puts us right in the middle of the pandemic, right at the start. And I got a call from my sister and business partner, and she said, I can't get my dog groomed anywhere with at least a six-week notice. So we've got to get into this business. So things happened really fast.

after that. We met the perfect partner, a managing partner, who is the brains behind the grooming part of things. We know business, but we didn't know anything about the intricacies of grooming dogs or cats. And cats happen to be a huge part of our business. I was very surprised at that. Yeah. And so now you're in three locations. Have you been as impressed as I'm whenever I see the numbers about the lengths to which and the money people are willing to spend on taking care of their pets. Well, we don't think it's too much, but yes, yes. People are crazy about their dogs,

and I understand you're a proud dog owner, too. Pandemic puppy, she's going to be six this year, and she was, she was, she's an angel. She's an angel. She gave us at a time where there was not a lot of happiness in our life. She brought it, she just, she gave it to us in a way that we absolutely needed. And will there be any limit on what you'll spend on your, little angel. Well, let me tell you, she goes to a doctor more than I do. I can promise you that.

She goes to the vet more. She's, she goes to get her, she gets groomed more often. She, she has more self-care than I have by a country mile. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Okay, Ben, get to the doctor. Yeah. So what, talk to me about, you know, we talk about small business and I think it's always important when we have small business owners to get some insights from them because my contention is there are a lot of headwinds that are facing you, even in a world and an industry where people are spending a lot of money. I can't imagine that things are easy for an entrepreneur in Canada these days. No question. Our biggest challenge is probably staffing. Because we are extremely particular and very selective about who we

hire to make sure our quality is at the utmost level. We haven't expanded our location count beyond three as fast as we would like to because of the challenge of getting the right staff, qualified staff, to do what we do. And what do you attribute that to? I get that you're picky, but everybody as you build a business should be picky. So where is the sticking point? I think that the hiring process is still a little funny out there. In what way?

From what I'm hearing from all of my friends in business that having people that want to work, period, again, that pandemic thing changed the world forever. And we are very much a hands-on business. We haven't benefited tremendously yet from AI. There's no robots to do what we do yet. So we really rely on hands-on, obviously, and very skilled hands-on. And I think that we're just coming out of,

I hope we're coming out of an era where people are available for this type of work. Now, would you hire through an international hiring program? I would. Yeah, yeah, nothing. Yeah, if it's done properly and if the people are there, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, you know, everything has to be completely within the rules and regs, But absolutely we would, yes. We have actually in the past.

And we've also brought in some beautiful talent from overseas, some people from Mexico to do grooming seminars in our facilities. That's fun. Because our staff is very much committed to learning, improving their skills, perfecting their skills so we can be the best in the business and take our time and groom every dog and cat exactly the way the owners want them to be groomed. So we can do over 100 different types of grooming stuff.

and we never stop the learning and the growing for our team. I've gone to a lot of pet stores and I've seen the different types of food that are available now and the toys and the snacks and the treats and the more and more products are available. Do you have to go to a convention to like learn about what the latest, greatest things are for dogs and cats? How do you stay on top of that stuff? This is a multi-billion dollar industry and there are no shortage of amazing worldwide conventions that you can attend

and it's pretty crazy. Everything is available from designer clothes to... That's too much for me. My dog hates, hates clothes. I put her in a, we put it in a slicker if it's too wet outside and she just wants to die. She'll stand there like a statue and not move. Mine does too, but today she's wearing her Blue Jays pajamas.

She asked for it. She specifically asked for it. Do you put little booties on your dog? when they go outside? I would to make the cleanup easier, but she doesn't like that. She doesn't know how, like she doesn't know how to walk in them. It's hysterically funny. So ideally, in an ideal world, where do you see fur bar going? It would be great to have a number, enough locations that it's good enough, a strong enough business for our succession. And I'll let Rachel talk about our succession plan. Yes, please. I have, I have a son who is in his third year of

university. He understands that all business is family business. He learns from me. His uncle and his grandfather are his forever mentors. He spent the last two summers working with us and learning the business, making very, very good suggestions. So I won't say right now that my dog is my favorite child because I'm certain that he's just seen from his dorm room at school. But he is, the business is with him in mind. It's really blended what we know together as a family and what we love. Well, thank you to the both of you for coming on really quickly. If people want to find Furbar online, where did they go? Well, firbar.com. You can visit our website. We are three locations in the greater Toronto area. So thank you very much. It's been a thrill to be on

your show. Thank you so much. Furbar.com. We appreciate it up. I run to the chaos, and Survivor is chaos. Wednesdays on Global. As a mother of a four-year-old, this is vacation. Canada's number one reality show is back. This is when Survivor turns into a horror movie. It's trial by Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. Go!

Survivor feels like a culmination of my entire life. Everything has led to this moment. Who will have what it takes? Survivor, New Season Wednesdays on Global. on Stack TV.