The Ben Mulroney Show - Who's responsible for the high Unemployment in Ontario?

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Who's responsible for the high Unemployment in Ontario? 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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Get 50% off lens upgrades in the Specsavers Spring Sale. Hey, I can upgrade my kids! You chill, Mom. I'll load the dishwasher. Awesome! Exclusions apply. See Specsavers.ca for details. So as we know as a province we're all reeling with some pretty big news. You'll remember not that far back, massive announcements were being made with Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford, Olivia Chow, that Toronto or rather Ontario was going to be central to the global EV supply chain and part and parcel of that was a massive investment that was slated to happen by Honda here in the province.

Well now given the tumultuous global economy that we're living in thanks to Donald Trump and his neutron bomb that is tariffs, it looks like that investment has been put on pause. Now, some people are railing that the sky is falling, that the investment is money that has burnt up into the ether. But yesterday, Greg Lason, he's an automotive reporter,

told Alex Pearson that technically, technically this hasn't cost the taxpayer anything. I have confirmed with Honda and with the province of Ontario, but not yet with the feds. They have taken zero tax dollars at this time. And now here's why. There have really been no shovels in the ground yet while this is disappointing for the auto industry it's not costing us taxpayers anything yet

it's been shelved for two years which is an eternity in automotive when you tell me something is delayed for two years you might as well tell me it's not happening you know and it is because what you said demand is down we're now hearing rumblings out of the United States that a lot of the inflation reduction act incentives are going to be scaled back. So there'll be less demand for EVs over there, there will be less demand for EVs in Canada, because we too have run out of money for incentives for electric vehicles. Yeah, that's, that's, that's true. So listen, good that we haven't lost the money, but the opportunity cost is massive as well. The loss of that opportunity is going to be felt. And will the world pass us by? That's the question. Merritt-Styles, I guess, even in the face of, if you take what Greg Lason said as gospel, that did not stop the opposition leader, Merritt-Styles,

from criticizing Doug Ford and his government during question period yesterday at Queens Park. Well, back to the premier, but I got news for you. I got news for you. You are the previous government. The government side will come to order. The government side will come to order. I apologize to the leader of the opposition. You may continue. As I was saying, Speaker, you are the previous government, and you're the government before that too, right? And there is anxiety and uncertainty in the province of Ontario, and that is on you. We have the highest unemployment rate in the country right now.

Thirty-three thousand manufacturing jobs lost in April, in April alone. That is more than half the job losses in the entire economy. What planet are you living on? If you don't think we have a problem here. My question to the premier is how long will this government continue to wait and see more people lose their jobs without a plan? So here's the question to you listeners of the show. Does Mahert Stiles have a point here?

Should Doug Ford and his government bear the brunt of responsibility for the jobs, the lack of loss of jobs and unemployment in this province? Or is this specific situation not on him? Is the economy writ large just simply collapsing? So I want to hear from you at 4168706400 or 18888225 talk and we're going to start with Jeff. Jeff, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Good morning, Ben. Good morning. You know, I've said this for a long time. And when these

announcements were being made, I spoke to people on your registration. You weren't there at the time but spoke to people on the registration. I told them, if the province gave 10% of what they gave to Honda and Stellantis to small businesses in Ontario, we'd have had more jobs with higher pay and a greater return. Take for instance, my company. If the government gave me a certain amount of money and say hire 10 more electricians and buy five trucks. That would be 10 electricians making $45 to $50 an hour. And it would have returned more than they gave to Honda and Celactus. We keep doing this all the time.

I know the one reason why they have lobbyists and we don't. Because the pre-mident wake up one morning and said, I'm going to give Sanatana two billion dollars. Somebody went to him and said, here's what we want you to do. And he did it. And because we don't have the representation, that's why we continue to suffer.

Interesting. If the private doesn't have to be the private, if they truly invested in small businesses, we hire people. Yeah. Listen, you're not going to get, you're not going to find anybody, you're not gonna get, you're not gonna find anybody, you're not gonna find me disagreeing with you on the value and importance of small

and medium sized business across this country. So thank you, Jeff. I appreciate that. Yeah, small business is the engine of the economy. They're the ones that hire the most people by and large. So I don't know that I take issue with what Jeff said. Let's see what Peter thinks. Peter, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show.

Hey, how are you, Ben? I'm great. Excellent. It's lack of innovation on the legacy car manufacturers. Nissan is broke. Toyota is going to be broke next. Then Honda, then Stellantis, then, you know, the rest of them. And the lack of innovation is mind boggling. So where do you think innovation is coming from in the automotive sector? China, once decharging, 10 minutes to charge up your car. You can get a BYD dolphin in Australia for 21,000 Australian dollars. Name me a company that can do that. There isn't a company in North America or Europe that can do it. It's a lack of innovation by the companies and not moving forward with electrification. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I mean, I would say one of the reasons maybe they are able to keep their costs down like that is they don't have to pay a fair wage to employees

in China. But that's I don't know enough about the system to say that definitively. Who do we have next? George, George, thank you so much for calling on this Wednesday. Good morning, Ben. Well, the thing is, you had your guest speaker that was an expert on the automotive industry. He's saying we haven't paid anything yet. That word yet is problematic. I mean, who's pulling out of the deal? Like, did they sign letters of intent? Did the government just pledge or they committed? And if is Honda pulling out now we're okay i mean when we don't know the details this is just blowing smoke yeah of everybody's uh you know and i yeah and i don't know what that means either like okay are you you're pressing pause but what but the the industry globally is moving forward so what does what's that that gonna make the value of that investment

two years from now when you turn it back on? Or will we be in a different phase of technological evolution? Will what we had planned for that factory no longer be as essential as it was when we made the plans in the first place? I mean, one other thing here is talking point is we all have YouTube.

Toyota has abandoned electric cars. They're on hydrogen. Japan's been running hydrogen cars for the last 10 years. We got to get out of this thing. You think electrification of everybody driving EVs is going to help us? No, we don't have the power structure. We've talked about it before. I mean, find new technology. So I think, you know, like the orange scam with the with the liberals, and we lost all these billions trying to build power plants and now Doug Ford's paying billions, we're just gonna end up paying for this because we committed and we're pulling out. Hey, well, thank

you very much for that. Let's take John's call. Welcome to the show. How are you today, Ben? I'm doing great, John. Yes, Ben, I've worked on the Ford plant, and we're doing the renovations for the gas trucks. We're building 250s to 350s down in Oakville. Because no one wants to buy the EVs. Yeah, I mean, it's still the number one truck. I think it's the number one car sold in Canada. The Ford F-150 is the number one car sold in Canada. So it's that.

I mean, it's. What's that tell you? It tells you it tells you that we are we have needs in this country and we have a and that car fills a lot of those needs. John, I got to run because we I want to take a few more calls before the at the end of this segment. And let's welcome Tony to the car to the show. Welcome, Tony. Good morning, my morning.

I just wanted to give you a quick, quick thought on this. Yeah, I've been with the I just wanted to give you a quick thought on this. I've been with a company since 1983. We inquired with the government so many times to help small business grow. So we had to go to the US and got incentives from the US in order to open up a plant, a 200,000 square foot plant, because we couldn't find a place to grow here with the government of Ontario Yeah, it's ridiculous that that companies that have the ability to grow and can't get up Financial aid in order to do that in Ontario that they have to go elsewhere to do that

That is the biggest problem with Ontario. I can employ another 200 people if I wanted to by just allowing Ontario, I can employ another 200 people if I wanted to, by just allowing the government to look in another direction and say, Hey, let's help these small businesses rather than doing what they're doing right now, where all they do is help the big large corporations that basically take the money to and put it in their pocket. Tony, Tony got Hey, thank you, Tony. I appreciate one last call on this. Dan, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show.

Good morning, Ben. Good morning. As your previous caller, the and I'm going to give you a an idea here. Yeah, again, give it to me in about 15 seconds, my friend. Yeah, yeah, the government should stay out of picking winners like the EVs. Now they're gonna say, oh, we're gonna get $5 billion for 1000 jobs out in Allison. That's $5 million a job. What they should do is put the fund into a startup fund for 15,000 mom and pop companies like Best Caller.

And out of that, you're gonna get four or five unicorns. Yeah, yeah, listen, it does seem that what's bubbling up the consensus from our callers is rather than placing one giant bet on a company half a world away, why not place thousands of smaller bets on companies that already exist here in Ontario? Maybe you can do both? I don't know. But it seems like our callers here on the show want the government to focus on small and medium sized business at home as opposed to giant automotive companies from abroad. Thank you so much for

a great conversation on that. Hi, I'm Donna Friesen from Global National. Life moves fast these days and we want to for a great conversation on that. New episodes drop every day, so take this as your personal invitation to join us on the Global National Podcast. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to The our history, co-opt our history, and, if I may add, a push by unelected members of city staff to dictate who we are as a city, what we believe, and what we stand for. Jennifer Dundas pointed out on Twitter that TTC staff have defied the will of the board of commissioners in recommending renaming of Dundas station. Last year, the board led by chairperson Jamal Myers ordered staff to recommend a process

for public consultation. Staff, however, defied the motion. They have brought forward a recommendation to rename the subway stop TMU station with no advance warning, no public consultations. And she goes on, this is gross. This is offensive. This is unelected city staff deciding what we are as a city, how we remember our history, what we value.

And when these unelected people had been given guardrails of public consultation, so people like myself and people like yourself could have our voices heard, complain, warn against the whitewashing of our history, the, sorry, the false narrative that this ideologically guided group of people have decided to impose on us as a city, they blew past it.

And let's not forget, they're now offering naming rights to TMU, to formerly done, formerly Ryerson, to name it a TMU station. So they're going, they're in it for the money. And let's remember what TMU station. So they're going, they're in it for the money, and let's remember what TMU is. TMU is now a school where Jewish students feel unsafe to be Jewish.

So you're getting rid of the name of a man who was an abolitionist in slavery, and you're gonna rename it after a university where Jewish students don't feel safe. And you're doing all of this against the will of the city that has not had the right to be consulted publicly. This is an affront to democracy and I want to hear from you at 416-870-6400-1888-225 talk. What is it with the insistence by the left in city staff to constantly rewrite our history based on the recommendation of a few? I find this so gross. I find this, it offends me.

And maybe I'll ask Craig Baird about this later on the show, our great historical Sherpa, Craig Baird from Canadian History X, asking him what he thinks of this. Because this is that are on the show are great historical Sherpa, Craig Baird from Canadian History X, asking him what he thinks of this, because this is, I don't know who these people are. Before I had the Ben Mulrooney show, and I did the Weekend show, I actually had a whole segment on

who the hell is the city staff? Where the hell do they get off? Spending money on ridiculous pet projects, trying to reshape this city in their own image, is an affront. I didn't elect you. I don't know who you are. And you do not have the right to do this. You do not have the right to do this. This is disgusting behavior. Cam, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. I agree with you. I agree with you fully.

Thank you. I agree with you fully. Thank you. He was, Sundas was an abolitionist. He was a lawyer, the biggest case to the Supreme Court of Scotland, as we know. Yup. And ended enslavement in Scotland. William Pitt was the British Prime Minister, and he proposed, William Pitt came to him and asked him, how do I get rid of this?

He said, you can't unless you own it. And at that time, the British didn't know that it was between France and Spain. Okay? Yeah. So, what they're doing, but they, you know, this is like making electric cars mandatory by 2035. Yeah. We got to get rid of these stupid people. Simple.

Yeah. Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, because you seem to know more about, you seem to know about more about Henry Dundas than I, but you know, his plan was to rid the, rid the Britain and British North America of slavery by doing it gradually over the course of like seven and a half years and that wasn't fast enough for certain people, or not fast enough for the people of today, too fast for others and then it ended up taking another 30 years, much to the regret of people who then said had we listened to him slavery would have been abolished faster. Correct. Yeah. He advised William Pitt, who was the British Prime Minister at the time, you cannot, England cannot afford, nor will they win, a war against France and Spain.

Yeah. So you'll get nowhere unless you own the slave trade, which he abolished in the Supreme Court of Scotland. Yeah. Well, thank you, Cam. I'm going to take a few more calls on this. Let's start with Stanley. Stanley, what are your thoughts? Hey, Ben. Good morning. You know what? I really agree with you. We should have put this to a vote. But that being said, these people,

they're unofficially elected. They're just city staffers. I wish I would have became a government employee. Well, you have to be to become a city staffer, the left has been very, Stanley, the left has been very good at populating city staff with their people over the course of decades. They own the whole thing. Last summer, when there was that ludicrous proposal, what should we do with the island airport if it ever isn't an airport anymore. Hey, we'll turn it into a park. What a nonsense waste of time and money and resources and manpower and man hours to spend thinking about something as stupid and ludicrous and nonsensical as that. It's never not going to be an airport. It is an economic driver of the economy. But I know you guys don't want it to be an airport. So you're going to

populate the conversation with what we could do with it. Hey, let's have a conversation about that, because if you socialize it for long enough, eventually there's gonna be a group of people that are gonna think it's a good idea. But I don't need my tax dollars going into an alternate version of history that suits your narrative because you don't want planes on the island airport. It's insidious, it's by design, and my next mayor needs to go to war with these people. Go to war with these people. I want skulls cracked metaphorically. But this is, these guys got to get in line and they got to start working for the betterment

of the entire city, not just their side of the political equation. Thank you for the call. Let's welcome Liz to the conversation. Hi, Ben. Hi. Hi, out in the West End in the Kingsway, a bunch of businesses got together and sued Olivia Chow and also MP Morley or Councillor Morley

for not running due process on those bike lanes. Is there not a possibility that we could run a GoFundMe and sue the staff of the city that is not doing due process? I mean, there seems to be something that's in the works that people are not gonna be able to get away with this if there's lawsuits. Yeah, well, listen, that's what we need. We need a politically motivated population

beyond election time. I'm always surprised when I hear of the anger and frustration on this show, when people call in, and you can tell that they're upset by something, as I am right now. And I don't see the physical manifestation of that frustration in the form of protests, in the forms of marches, in the form of letter writing campaigns. I don't see any of that stuff. And I think it's to the detriment of this city. You know, it's not just,

it's not just important to go out and vote. Your voice needs to be heard all the time. Cause I promise you, if you're a, you know, one of the reasons it seems like Cycle Toronto is winning in the bike lane war is because they are mobilized 365 days a year. They don't just show up to vote, they show up to vote with their feet, with their bicycles, with their voices every single day of the year. And it's time for everyone in this city to be mobilized because in the absence of that mobilization, you're going gonna have activists within city staff

that do that pull shenanigans like this. Who do we have next? We've got Tom, Tom, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hi, Ben. Hi. One thing is I think we need to get rid of the thought that it's a permanent victim, they'll never ever ever deal with this.

It's always one to be looked at as the victim. I agree, I agree. I think it's time to take control of your, of the narrative. And it's not about being a victim. It's being empowered to make changes so you're not a victim. But thank you, Tom, for that. Who do we have next? We've got John. John, welcome to the show. Hi, Ben. How are you? Hi. Next, we've got john john, welcome to the show. Hi, Ben, how are you? Hey, I just just a quick thought if we're going to go after Henry Dundas and historical figures

like that, then why isn't Joseph Brandt put on the docket as well? Who's that? Joseph Brandt is the founder of Brantford. And he was a slave owner of 40 slaves by historical standards. You can Google it. Look, you want to explain to me why Julie Payette, the former governor general who resigned in disgrace because she bullied people and not 150 years ago, she did it in this decade. You want to tell me why there's still a school named after her, but Sir John A., his head is on the chopping block?

Like, come on here. Like, I mean, we don't have to compare the social mores of a different time. She lived today and she had to resign because she bullied staff. We got time for one more call. I would like to point out the World Cup Toronto deal, right? The one that seems to be costing us more and more every single day.

That was signed off by city staff. Council didn't see it. Council didn't vote on it. That just happened because they wanted it. Unelected people making decisions that are costing us billions of dollars. And it might end up being a lot of fun, but sure would have liked my city councilor that I voted for having a voice in that decision. Doug, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. How are you? Good. Thank you. I just want to point out maybe the left only Caesar salads anymore because he did enslave over a million people. That was only 2000 years ago.

Exactly. Look, the longer you go back, the more ludicrous all of this gets. You know what I mean? It's insanity. It's juvenile. It's the work of a simple mind. It's the work of a simple mind that if you ask them any sort of follow-up question that called into question the hypocrisy, the situational hypocrisy of their choices, their entire worldview would collapse under the weight of its own nonsense. This is something we should not let go of Toronto.

Because I promise you, the left and the city staff and the activists in this city, they do not let go of anything, anything. They hold on and they fight for every inch of the debate. Every inch of it. And it's time that the other side of the equation start fighting the exact same way. every inch of it. And it's time that the other side of the equation start fighting the exact same way. Welcome back to the show. And you've heard me say it many times. One of the biggest barriers to success in this city is the people that run it. And a lot of people have been living in a world where they are afraid to walk through a park, walk down the street, take their dogs out for fear that a coyote is going to come out of nowhere, walk down the street, take their dogs out for fear that a coyote is gonna come out of nowhere,

snatch up their dog and eat it for dinner. And this is happening in the Fort York area and in the Liberty Village area because the city is building in places that is encroaching on the natural habitat of the coyotes. It all makes sense, it all makes sense, but people and coyotes are colliding in real life. And it is affecting the livelihood and the safety and the quality of life of people who pay taxes. And last week, maybe two weeks ago, there were signs

that were put up in the area because people like me are like, kill them, euthanize them, get rid of them, move them, do anything you got gotta do. But they don't belong there. The people who pay taxes and bought property deserve to be there. This is not a it's not a choice. Get rid of them. I don't care how you do it. Get rid of them. No, no, no, you can't do that. The city has been working overtime to do anything but get rid of the coyotes. To the point they actually put up signs anthropomorphizing them, humanizing them, making them seem like they are your neighbor and they're only there to protect their kids and feed their kids and don't worry we're mostly omnivores and we eat rodents. Okay but you're also eating dogs. Okay and so we had that conversation on this show. Anything but solving the problem, that seemed to be the policy of this city.

Well, after a few more attacks, two of these coyotes have finally been euthanized, which hopefully will send a message to the rest of them. Maybe they got word out by way of a howl. This is not a good place for us to be anymore. And so my question to you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK, why does the City of Toronto always insist on learning things the hard way? Like the path forward was clear. Prioritize the people of the city over the coyotes of the city. the people of the city over the coyotes of the city. I don't think that is a hot take. I think that is the take of an adult, of a rational human being who sees that the value of a human life, and more importantly, if we've got to say it, the value of it, of the life of a taxpayer,

the value of a property owner. I mean, if those things matter to you, okay, let's say them, but I don't think they should matter. Human life trumps coyote life every damn time, every time. And the fact that this city was putting out nonsense tweets about making yourself look bigger and saying, go away coyote. When people every single day were walking their dog fearful that it could be the last time they saw their dog alive. And so finally, so what happened was these, there were two coyotes who were believed to

be responsible for attacking several dogs because yeah that happened in Liberty Village in Fort York have been euthanized according to the city the municipal the municipality said this was a quote difficult decision Right there in lies the issue. It should not be a difficult decision double tap to the back of the head. Goodbye coyote Old yeller that guy take him to the back of the woodshed and make an example out of them for the rest of the coyotes. Okay, this is, I'm not, we're not living in the country here. I'm not walking through the forest. This is zoned for residential use.

Zoned for residential use, meaning if there's something there that doesn't belong in a residence, goodbye. Am I heartless? No, I'm not because my heart belongs to the people and the dogs of the area. That's who has my heart. Pete, welcome to the show. How are you doing, Ben? I'm well, thank you. I don't want you to take this the wrong way.

Don't worry about it. I'm not making judgment on the euthanization of the animals, okay? Yeah, okay? But the bottom line is the way coyotes biology works, if you try to wean down the population, the females go into heat more often, they have more pups, it is impossible to euthanize them to solve the problem. They do it in the States all the time, cattle ranchers, things like that. They shoot coyotes like crazy and they can't figure out where they keep coming from because they just breed more. It's the way they are. The biggest problem you've got in Toronto is you've got everybody hating the coyotes and about 15 people that put food out for them.

Yeah. Same with raccoons and stuff like that. And the issue, the big issue is, or the easiest way to deal with it is if you bait them with birth control. That was gonna say, listen, my goal is not to kill coyotes. My goal is to ensure that the coyotes are no longer a problem. And so if you're telling me that the euthanizing of them

is a bad idea, I will take you at your word. My goal is to make sure that people can live safely. And so yes, bait them with birth control so the women don't go into heat anymore. But something tells me that the people who made the quote difficult decision to euthanize these would also view the idea of chemically neutering them or spaying them would be an equally difficult decision.

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