The Ben Mulroney Show - We're not Los Angeles yet, but it might be coming

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Guests and Topics: -We're not Los Angeles yet, but it might be coming with Guest: Terry Glavin, Journalist and Author 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

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Snacks, delivered. Fresh fruit, delivered. Grocery delivery on repeat for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at pcexpress.ca. So this weekend, as a matter of fact tomorrow, is the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. And to celebrate that, Donald Trump is hosting a military parade.

It just so happens, he also falls on his birthday. And this is something that he has wanted since his very first term. And he wants a show of strength, and he wants to honor the military. He wants it for a ton of reasons. It'll make him feel good and on his birthday. Yeah, it's a very Donald Trump thing to do. But in response to that, there is obviously anything he does requires a protest by somebody

about something. And there are protests that are planned for tomorrow called the no kings protest. This is in the estimation of the protesters, an example of a president behaving like a king. And here is Donald Trump responding to a question by the press about the no kings protests that will counter his military parade tomorrow. No Kings protests planned across the country on Saturday as well. What are

your thoughts on those? What are they going? No King? No Kings. I don't feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get stuff approved. The king would say I'm not gonna get this. I think a king would have never had the California mandate to even be talking to him. He wouldn't have to call up Mike Johnson and Thune and say, fellas, you got to pull this off and after years we get it done. No, no, we're not a king. We're not a king at all. I mean, yeah, he's right on that.

But like the explain the executive orders and explain taking the tariff power away from Congress to me, Mr. President. Here is Gavin Newsom, the California governor who has been at odds with Donald Trump since the riots started erupting in Los Angeles and burnt massive parts of that city down to the ground because of the ICE deportations. Here's what Gavin Newsom had to say about this military parade. It's a vulgar display. It's the kind of thing you see.

Kim Jong Un, you see it. Putin you see with dictators around the world that are weak and just want to demonstrate strength, weakness, masquerading as strength to fit the dear leader on his birthday. What an embarrassment. Honestly, it's, it's about as small as it gets. How weak, how weak do you have to be to come in near the military to fit you on your birthday in a vulgar display of weakness. Look, a lot of things can be true at the same time. You can absolutely look at this parade as a vulgar display of weakness if you want.

You can also look at it as a celebration, a very real celebration of the 250th anniversary of the US Army. That's no small feat. And the US Army, you could make a very strong case, has been the tip of the sword at keeping the world order moving forward, keeping democracy on the march. You can make a whole reason why they deserve

to be celebrated. And I'm trying to find whether or not the actual birthday of the the army is tomorrow. And is it just a coincidence that coincides with Donald Trump's birthday? I don't know. But here's something. Here's a here's where Gavin Newsom is wrong. In 1989, on July 14, the anniversary, the bicentennial of the end of the French Revolution, Bastille Day. I was in Paris with my family to celebrate this great momentous occasion in French history.

And I witnessed one of the most massive military parades. I think I, well, I've only seen one in my life. I can't imagine them being much bigger than this. And this was a celebration by the French government to highlight, I don't know, their military. And it was done by a democracy, it was done by an ally, it was done in Western Europe, it was done by the French. And here's the story is that they invited guests,

world leaders from around the world And here's the story is that they invited guests, world leaders from around the world for this seminal day in French history. And, but the way it works at a lot of these things, the protocol is heads of state are given priority ahead of heads of government. And our prime minister is not a head of state. The queen is our head of state. The governor general is the representative of a head of state. The queen is our head of state. The governor general is the representative

of our head of state in Canada. But our prime minister is the head of government. Presidents are heads of state. And so all the presidents and their families were given the front rows for the parade and the heads of government were slightly behind. And so we had a lot of African presidents, the president of Congo, the president of this, the president of that. They were all in front of us and the prime minister of England and the prime minister of Israel and the prime minister of Canada.

We are all further back because that's how what protocol dictates. And the wife of the president, I want to say of Congo, decided, I don't know, because maybe in Africa, they have they hold these, these moments in high regard. She decided that she was going to stand for the duration of this two hour military display. And because she stood and she was ahead of us in the protocol, that meant everybody had to stand. In the blazing sun in mid-July in France, on the hot asphalt of the Champs-Elysées,

we had to stand for two hours and watch a parade of military equipment and soldiers walk by. So I thank the wife of the president of Congo for making me stand as a teenager in two hours in the hot sun. That was a lot of fun. All that to say, that was a democracy that did. I know that there's the trooping of the guard in the UK,

not as big of a demonstration, but a highlight of the pride that the Brits have in aspects of their military. Israel has one, South Korea has one. It's not commonplace, but it does happen. And simply because the despots of the world have made it their stock in trade, doesn't mean that we as nations, democratic nations,

can't find a way to have a military parade that means something else. I'm not suggesting that Donald Trump has thought these things through, but I am not a knee-jerk reactionary to the idea of a military parade. I promise you, if we in Canada build a military that I am proud of, that we as a country can be proud of,

yeah, I wouldn't mind them showing it off after years of watching it fall into such a disrepair. I wouldn't mind a little bit of pomp and circumstance showing the world that we finally respect our own military. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Anyway, Donald Trump had a lot of other things on his plate yesterday. He, speaking of when he says he's not a king, why don't you listen to Donald Trump talking about how he is killing the EV mandates in California for good?

Tell me if this doesn't sound like the power of a king. But in a few moments, I'll sign three pieces of legislation that will kill, totally kill, can't do anything about it. They can't take us to court. They can't do any of the things they can do with the executive orders. And it's permanent. I'll sign three pieces of legislation that will kill the California mandates forever

and they're never coming back. Now the auto companies are the most happy because now they're going to be designing and building one auto. One auto, okay. One auto by all the car manufacturers. Hey, and if anybody thought that Elon Musk and Donald Trump couldn't come back together after the explosive breakup that we all witnessed, why don't you listen to this? Elon still endorsed me because honestly never ever spoke to me about that. And I used to say I'm amazed that he's endorsing me because that can't be good for him. I'm abolishing the EV

mandate. And I once asked him about it. You never talked to me about that. He said, Well, as long as it's happening to everybody, I'll be able to compete. It was very interesting answer. I thought it was a very honest answer, to be honest with you. And I talked about it that incredible, you know, you would have thought he would have been from day one, you got to make sure you don't do the EV mandate, the abolishing. And never did. Very honest in that sense. And he did say to me, I actually asked him because it was like really strange how I'm with him. He's very, you know, friend of mine and he makes electric cars and we're saying, you're

not going to be able to make electric cars or you're not going to be forced to make all of those cars. You can make them, but it'll be by the market judged by the market. And that's what he said. He said, as long as I'm on the same plane as everybody else, we're going to do good. We make a better product. And so look on this Friday as we look towards the weekend and we we want optimistic news. Just remember, if you're having trouble with your friends, if you've had a fight, look to Elon and Donald, nothing is beyond repaired.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And before we do anything in this next segment, I want to welcome to the show the most important listener that I have in the world. And that is, of course, my mother, Mila Mulrooney. She just texted me to say she's listening. Mom, I love you. I love that I get to spend so much time with you. And congratulations on your new dog. And he's he looks adorable. She just sent me a picture. Mom, I love you very much. And I can't wait to see you soon. Okay, let's get to the task at hand, which is, look, being Canadian in the specter, in the shadow of America is tricky

because over the past few months, we have been doing the best job we can, reminding Americans that we are not like them. We are not American. We cannot be the 51st state. Too many differences separate us. However, there are ideals, values that bind us together as one North American family.

And one thing that may bind us together is how we deal with runaway immigration, with people who are in our country who shouldn't be here. And our next guest is Terry Glavin of the National Post, who warns that what's happening right now with the mass deportations in Los Angeles, something like that could happen here. Let's welcome Terry to the show. Thanks so much for joining us today, Terry. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. It's good talking to you again, Ben.

Yeah. So a lot of people are looking at what's happening down there saying that could never happen here. But in an ironic, ironic twist, despite the fact that we view ourselves as very different, we do have similar pressures on our society that are caused at least in part by irresponsible immigration policies. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, I don't want to mislead people. I don't think that we're going to end up in a kind of a nightmare scenario of truncheons and tear gas, like we've seen in LA. No. But I would suggest that Canadians should not look down their noses at what's happening

to the Yanks at the moment. No, because at some point, Terry, at some point, there is going to be a collision between the reality that we're living here and the remedy required to get out of it. Exactly. I think that's the point I'm trying to make is that the difficulty with the Americans is absolutely dysfunctional.

You've got the Democrats and the Republicans standing off against one another on issues of rule of law and due process. Nobody wants to see, you know, Mexican kids torn out of their parents' arms and so on, and those people are entitled to due process. But at the same time, the Democrats with their sanctuary cities and sanctuary states have essentially thumbed their noses at the rule of law and due process in the enforcement of federal immigration law.

Well, and they want to look at it like this is all a product of Donald Trump being Donald Trump, but the fact is Donald Trump would not have this hand to play if for the past 10 years we hadn't been told that, oh, there's no crisis at the southern border and anybody who suggests it is a racist and we've got our sanctuary cities and we're going to thumb our nose at anybody who says we've got to get this problem under control. The chickens have come home to roost and Donald Trump has the support of a lot of Americans

because of that behavior over the course of a decade. Yeah, the point one of the points I make in the piece is that, you know, he's polling badly on tariffs and inflation and all that kind of stuff. But he's actually pulling quite well on immigration and and lawlessness. And the same is true in Canada. If you look at American public opinion polling, I think it's about 52% of Americans support mass deportations. Well, last fall, there was a similar poll conducted in Canada.

I think it was about 48%, 49% of Canadians were in favor of mass deportations as well. And I think this growth reflects a growing unease and disenchantment with federal, basically dishonesty. If Canadians knew how broken our immigration system was, I think they would have a lot more sympathy with the proposition that we need to actually start deporting people in significant numbers. Already two-thirds of Canadians say that immigration levels are far too high. This is even after the proposed or planned or promised reductions in immigration levels. And that opinion, by the way, is shared by Canadians who are recent immigrants. Everybody knows the system is broken, and it's

really broken badly, and it's tied inextricably into the real estate racket, into the housing crisis. And Terry, what you point out is, you know, I grew up with a father who believed and led with the belief and led a government that believed that responsible immigration was one of the key drivers to a successful Canada. And that consensus had been maintained prior to him becoming prime minister and existed long after he left office. That consensus is broken to the point now that you have people like me, who 10 years ago, would have beat that drum of the pride that we all felt in immigration building Canada.

I now have a position I never thought I would have. And that's not because I woke up one day and decided to be a regressive right-wing freak. It's because circumstances forced me into this position. I would have and that's not because I woke up one day and decide to be a regressive right-wing freak. It's because circumstances forced me into this position. Yeah. One of the things that I felt like I've been quite closely associated with the cause of refugees in Canada, and I'm a very strong believer in the proposition that Canada really should be a kind of a sanctuary country

Yeah, or genuinely persecuted people around the world and we really should have a healthy proactive Refugee policy. Well, the difficulty is that that too has been completely broken. We have For half a million people living in Canada at the moment that are applying for refugee status. Half a million. Yeah. And it takes an average of 44 weeks for their claims to be processed. 20,000 new claimants last year from the constituency of foreign students. There's three million, just the numbers, right? If you bear with me. Of course, please. The numbers matter.

Yeah, really, by the way, I should say very, very difficult to weed out because Statistics Canada and Immigration refugee, and citizenship Canada use different methodologies and people from one category will migrate into another category. That's helpful, isn't it, Terry? That's helpful that we have that where one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing. Yeah, we don't know. We have no idea.

One of the things we don't know anything about. There may be the official federal guess is that there are 500,000 people in Canada who are working illegally in the country. Now, we have increased the number of permanent residents last year by 483,000. We've increased the number of non-permanent residents last year by 580,000. We have at least 3 million non-permanent residents here at the moment. Of course, a significant number of those are students. We don't know how many students are still here and still working. And we don't have the manpower or the no, we don't have the manpower, the wherewithal or the budgets to go find the people who have sort of gone underground. Even if we wanted to find them, we don't know how to do it.

Yeah, so, you know, setting aside, you know, the understanding, the consensus on both sides of the house, by the way, in the House of Commons, there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people who are working in Canada. They should not be working in Canada. Apart from that constituency, you've got about seven or eight percent of the Canadian population that, or the population of people living in Canada who are not Canadian citizens. So, you know, this can't last. And when you look at housing, you know, you've got a population between the ages of 18 and 30, and three quarters of them say that

they'll never own a house, they can't afford rent, increasing numbers of people are turning food banks. This is going to break. And I think the longer it goes on address and the longer we keep telling Canadians that, oh, we've got it under control, you know, our targets for citizenship for next year is going to come down and then come down again the following year, the longer we keep lying to Canadians, you know, like the foreign. The numbers are very, we're going to have to leave it there, but you're right. The longer we do that, the higher the appetite is gonna be for taking drastic measures to address this.

The further we punt the ball, at some point it's gonna redline and we're gonna say, all right, drastic measures are required. But I wanna thank you for highlighting this story and for joining us today to talk about it. The best high concept sci fi rig of a roll in the universe is back. What the hell? How long was I out? Close airlock seven. Please let me out.

Rick put you in there for a reason, speed. Mom, just... Get back here! This is for your own good! Breaking Morty. New season, Sundays on Adult Swim. Stream on StackTV. Get your mouth rounded!