The Ben Mulroney Show - Why are we debating if the poppy is appropriate to wear?

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

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Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. Since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. You're listening to the Ben Mulroney Show. Objection, sir. Objection. I have places to go. It is not yet December. I live in southern Ontario.

The southernmost tip of this province is more south than the northernmost tip of California. No, sir. No, sir. I shall give you no quarter on this Monday morning. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Bing Crosby is full of it. Full of it. Shame on you, sir. I kid, I kid. Welcome to the show. It is Monday, November 10th. Thank you so much. And welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome also to the team that makes the Ben Mulroney show possible. My intrepid producer, Mike Drillet. How are you, sir? Good morning. I think there should be a law that you can't play that song until after American Thanksgiving. Well, look no further than the person responsible for it.

technical producer, Dave Spargal, shame on you. Yeah, shame. Honestly, uh, what were you doing? You're just trying to, you're trolling me, trolling me. I told you before the show, I'm like, you're going to hate me for this. Fifteen feet away, you're trolling me. And welcome to Amy Siegel, our video producer. Thank you so much for being here.

Of course. Uh, yeah, I had a busy time. I was, um, I was in Saskatoon. Was it snowing there? Oh, it had snowed. Okay. It had snowed. And the air hurt my face, which is typical of this country.

I seriously start questioning some life decisions at about this time of year. But I had a wonderful time. It was the SAS party, the governing party, they have a biannual convention where they vote on policy initiatives. And they voted on the leadership of their leader and the Premier Scott Moe. He got 80% buy-in. So congratulations to him. And I gave the keynote address, which if anyone is interested, a portion of it has been published as a column in the National Post today. And, but without context, people might think it was a little bit dark.

I wrote Canada's obituary and then what would the response be to that obituary? Like, how would we respond to seeing that Canada was dead? And you've got to take a step back. And we're going to get the video. We'll put it up on the Ben Mulroney Show YouTube channel a little bit later. But it was all based on the story of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize. Prior to being known for that, he was known as the inventor of dynamite. and that dynamite was used

in bending the world to our will with massively you could finally do things that you could never do before with explosive capability you could level mountains you could redirect rivers you could build projects of national importance

and on and on and on but it was also used to kill people in the military right so when he woke up one day his brother had passed away and this newspaper published his obituary thinking Alfred Nobel had died

and so he wakes up and sees he's dead. And the title of it was, Le Marchant de la Moor is dead. And rather than write a letter to the editor, he decided to change the narrative of his life. And so that was the thought exercise that I put forth. What would Canada's Obit read like?

And then what would we do to change that narrative? And that was... What's the answer? The answer is... I guess read the article. Yeah, read the article, yes. In the National Post and very... I tried to post it and...

I got banned from Instagram from posting political articles. Right, because the federal government made it so. Thank you, Justin. That's another thing that the new manager of the Liberal Party could maybe take under advisement. Yeah. I think I wonder I don't think that wouldn't be very high up on his list. No, it's not.

It's not. And he's got lots to do. And I did end it. You'll read it. I did end it on an optimistic note about this government. I wasn't trying to attack them. But I did write, and hopefully people see that I am not a rage baiter or some neocon, Nazi fascist. Go read it and tell me what you think. I'd love to hear your opinions. You can reach out to me at Ben Mulroney on all social media platforms except Snapchat and TikTok because I'm not 12.

Yeah, I don't need them. I do not need them. I get everything I need from everything else. There's another one, Twitch. Yeah, I'm not on that either. and I'm not on blue sky. So, yeah, so not on every platform. The platforms that are not going to be canceled.

But we've got lots to get to in the show today. Obviously, you know, I knew it. I knew that at this time of year, given the world we live in and the values that we're fighting for, that the poppy was going to become sort of a battle line. And I did not know where those battle lines would be drawn. I'm unsurprised that the, Our erudite judges across this country have decided to, I think, wrongly put themselves on the wrong side of this debate.

We've got two fronts in that war, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, where we've been told that they are political symbols and therefore have no place in a courtroom. I think that is, I can't put into words how dumb that interpretation of the poppy is. So we're going to be talking with a good friend of the show, Mike Burns. he's the, he's not the creator of the, he's CEO of the Valor games. He also helped bring the Invictus games to Canada. He's a man who has deep, deep respect for our men and women in the armed forces. And so we'll talk about that and what the poppy means to him. We also found out that there is a major league baseball betting scandal.

So we saw that there was a big problem in, yeah, it's like, like these pitchers were, oh, it's crazy. We'll talk about the betting scandal a little bit later. Oh, hold on. I need to do air a correction. we're getting all these texts. Did I say something wrong? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That wasn't Bing Crosby singing less. Oh, who was it? No. Because everybody sung that song. Okay. And all these people were saying, no, no, no, no. They're saying it's Dean Martin. Oh, Dean Martin. No.

Dave says it was. That's a satra version. That's a synatra version. All right, well, listen. The other one. Yeah. Listen, yeah, well, Bing's done it too. Honest mistake.

You know, listen, Frank, Frank didn't sing it. If Frank were asked today, should we play it on, on the 10th of November in Canada, he would have said, forget it. He would have looked at you, Dave, and he would have given you, he would have said a thing or two about a thing or two. Well, I'm sorry if I offended him

from the grave. He's a great man. You know that he was one of the reasons that they desegregated Las Vegas? I did not know that. So as the story goes, so he had, you know, a number,

like some of the biggest singers in, like, lounge music were African American. And he rubbed shoulders with them and they were his friends. friends, and these great singers would pack a room, and then they could not walk through the casino to leave to go to their hotel. They would have to walk out the back. And when he found out about that, he called his friends in the, you know, in the, the made men of the mafia. And every one of

those guys, every time they sang, when they got off stage, would be surrounded by big Italian bouncer guys and walked clear through the casino. And to make a point, to all the people running those casinos that Frank Sinatra is saying that this is unacceptable and with just a few years it was one of the earliest desegregated cities in America.

He also refused to stay at hotels and play at clubs that did not admit black people. Wow. Good thing. It took people to really stand up for rights back then for civil rights. This was, I guess, what kicked off the civil rights movement. This is the 50s.

Civil rights movement was the 60s. I mean, it took some time, obviously. Yeah, no. Frank Sinatra. I love Frank Sinatra. I love Frank Sinatra. Or Bing Crosby, you know, whichever. Yeah, don't say Bing Crosby again. I'm going to get a bunch more texts. But by the way, what happened to the name? That's a great name. Yeah. I mean, there's Chandler Bing, right?

It's a last name. But that's his last name. Bing is a weird. Bing's a weird name. I don't know. Isn't that the default or the other version of Internet Explorer? It went from Internet Explorer to Bing? That nobody used. Yeah, nobody use it. I use Bing. Yeah. And do you remember, do you remember Yahoo? Do you remember Yahoo, how Yahoo! spent millions and millions of dollars trying to get you to say, do you Yahoo? And then people just started using Google as a verb

and they didn't cost them the penny. That's when you know you're in trouble. That's when you know you're in trouble. And also, a big conversation we're going to have today is on the BC land claims. You know, we've got the Cowich and Tribe. We're hearing stories of uncertainty all over that province as to what,

if people want to invest in that province, are they going to invest if they don't know who owns the land. Invest in Canada. Invest in Canada. This could have major implications. Like we talked about the judge is not getting it right on poppies. Well, they didn't, in my humble opinion, they didn't get it right on this because I ask you,

I would submit to you, are we in a better place today in terms of reconciliation with our First Nations than we were before this ruling? And the answer is absolutely not. But will we ever be? We could be if decisions like this weren't. made. But the Cowich and tribe, and I don't know a lot about them, but I know they're a band of about 5,500 people. We know that they receive about $85 million a year. And when you couple that with a global news story that came out that shows an illegal garbage dump just past the

border of their territory, I think you're going to have people now who are going, who would normally deferentially sit quietly, start saying, show us the books. Like you got to to open these up. Where's the money going? What are you going to do with all the rest of it? And if this is the state of the land that you occupy that you call your own, what's going to happen if the judge gets their way here and you get all the land? So we're going to delve into that a little bit later. But up next is Canada need to legislate the right to wear a poppy. That's next on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and this is the time of year that we all ideally adorn our heart with a poppy in remembrance of all the sacrifices that had been made in generations past for democracy by young men and women who put on the uniform and went to fight for those values.

The Royal Canadian Legion makes about $20 million a year from poppy sales that go to veterans and their families. That's no small chunk of change. And they could use much more than that. Oh, 100%. They absolutely could. That's a drop in the bucket in terms of what they need,

but more importantly, what they deserve. And, you know, we wanted to talk about the origins of the poppy and the problems that we are having today getting buy-in, which should be automatic for that notion. You know, the origin of the poppy for Remembrance Day in Canada. It's rooted in the First World War. It's the poem in Flanders Field. A lot of kids still learn that in school.

And it was written by a Canadian military doctor, lieutenant colonel John McCray. And that's it, this should not be a hot take, but it represents sacrifice and gratitude. And respect. Like, I view it as a sign of respect. I wear this as a sign of respect for those who gave me the right to be here. And in the UK, they have a very similar relationship with the poppy.

There's looks a little bit different. I like the look of theirs as well. But there's this beautiful, remarkable installation on a pier that you showed this to me, Mike. The longest pier in the world. Yeah, how long is it? It's a four miles, two miles? It was, yeah, 2.7.

Anyway, it's adorned with 110 poppies, including a statue of a soldier made out entirely of poppies. It is so beautiful and it's moving and it's important. And it's something that links us to our past. You know, we on this show do our... It's two kilometers long. Two kilometers long. So we've got, you know, we have a rich history in this country. If we knew more about our history, it would bind us more closely.

together one one to the other. We don't know those things. We try to do our best on this show with our weekly segment with Craig Baird

from Canadian History X where he teaches us things that we honestly should know more and I'm fully cognizant of the fact that I don't know those things either. I get very excited about learning them but the poppy

and what it symbolizes and that sacrifice that Canadians from all walks of life but young kids went to war died on the fields of Europe for democracy and for Canadian values

and for us to become this country that we are today that we all need to know that we should all get in line behind that general idea we're not talking politics we're not talking divisiveness we're talking something that should inspire all of us who are here that would bring us closer together

meanwhile in Canada you've got a prosecutor in Saskatchewan so this woman by the name of Lana Morelli was told by the Saskatchewan court that she wasn't allowed to wear a poppy in court. Let's listen to Lana, Ms. Morelli, talking about why this is an emotional issue for her.

We have freedom of speech because of what these brave men and women have done for our country and not being able to honor them by wearing copies while I'm arguing for freedom and protection. Pugs at my heart and strings. Yeah. By the way, that was her speaking with the CBC. We thank them for that clip. She gets, you can hear it in her voice. She's emotional.

I find it deeply ironic that the, the judge in this case sort of seemed motivated by, so how symbolically impartial they wanted the robes to be. You got to have respect for the robe. And the only way to do that is to disrespect that other aspect. that other aspect of our society that made the judiciary possible does anybody see

the short-sightedness the lack of context that the judge in this case was making this is crazy this is I feel like I would be it feels like in this moment that I'm not talking to a judge I'm talking to a child trying to explain to them

why the poppy isn't political I would love if they would bring those at the Maple Leaf game on Saturday night, which was Remembrance Day weekend there. The veterans that they had at the game, 100 years old, 102 years old, they're not getting any younger. I would love to bring them to that judge's court and have that judge explain to them why they are not allowing the poppy. And that judge, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, and this may be part of the other case that we're talking about in Nova Scotia. But equating the poppy with a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness or, God forbid, a Livestrong bracelet. If you believe that those two things are equivalent,

I got a question why you're on the bench. I really got to question your perspective and the value that you're bringing to your job. I really do. This is fundamental stuff. Like I understand not waving a flag. You shouldn't be going in there waving a Palestinian flag, an English flag. An Israeli flag. Is any flag whatsoever?

None of that is this, dude. Yeah. Like if, sorry, you don't get the respect from me that the robe demands if the person in the robe is making decisions like this. Sorry, you don't. I'm not giving it to you. And in Nova Scotia, something very similar happened. But let's go back to last year first because this, this is happening in all. in all aspects of our lives.

Last year, there was a school board, an elementary school, Sackville Heights Elementary, in Middle Sackville, Nova Scotia. The school's administration made such a terrible decision. They were asking service members, so soldiers who had fought, soldiers who had put on the uniform,

who bravely were willing to give of their lives for this country. They said, you know, so students aren't triggered who came from war zones. We want you to come dressed as civilians. This is the problem with moral equivalency. The fact that that decision, by the way, it was reversed. But the fact that anybody would look at a Canadian soldier,

somebody who valiantly defended democracy, and put them on the same level as a barbaric warlord that brutalized the family of a new immigrant, and say they're the same thing and therefore you don't want to trigger a student who was brutalized by a warlord because your Canadian soldiers would remind them of that. Absolutely not. They are diametrically opposed to each other. One is the opposite of the other.

And if you can't see that, you don't deserve to be in a position of leadership. Let's fast forward to this year, where the Nova Scotia judiciary stated, quote, no symbols of support should be worn in courtrooms to avoid any perception of bias. and it went on and on and on, very similar to Saskatchewan. Fortunately, the Nova Scotia Premier came out and said that this was disgusting and is arguing that the poppy is a national symbol of remembrance and respect, not a political statement, good on you, Premier Houston. Yeah, bravo to Tim Houston.

But then he said, he said that we are, they're going to enshrine this in legislation, which is sad unto itself, the fact that we have to legislate what should be common knowledge and commonplace is sad. And then you've got this final wing of issues with the poppy, the dilution of the value of the poppy, where you've got people creating purple poppies to honor animals who have died in war. And while I don't like ever seeing any animals die, hmm, sorry, I'm not sorry, they're here to help us. That's why they're here. The horses that have died, they're here, they're here to help us. And we have, by the way, we have a, a a remembrance in Ottawa of the animals who've died in war.

You are drafting off the death and sacrifice of the men and women that are symbolized by that poppy, by taking that symbol, changing the color, and making it all about your pet project, pun intended. And then you've got the people who are just the worst, the people who've decided that the poppy is a symbol of the celebration of war and therefore we need a white one. If it were me, the Legion would sue these people for intellectuals. property violation. We'll talk about that next. Next, why all the Remembrance Day events aren't just for show. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show.

As I said, this time of year, given the world that we're living in, given the country that we're living in, the perspective of far too many people, it is. unsurprising to me that we need to talk about the value and the importance of the poppy. There are far too many people who have either deliberately misled people about what it means or are actively trying to undermine it for some other goal. And so I'm glad to have somebody with whom I find common cause on this fight. Mike Burns, who's a good friend of the show, executive chair of Canada's Valor Games. She's also the former CEO of 2017's Invictus Games in Toronto.

He knows what the sacrifice and the value of our Canadian Armed Forces as well as our veterans mean to this country. Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Great to be here, Ben. So you've got an op-ed that I guess is going to run tomorrow in the Globe and Mail. Is that correct? I'm hopeful, yes. Okay, well, I want to read in case it doesn't make it in there. And I suspect that if they have, if they know what's good for the country, they'll run this because it's summed up beautifully.

The poppy doesn't represent nostalgia. It represents sacrifice. And sacrifice doesn't lose relevance just because attention spans do. And what I like at the end here, if a symbol of remembrance is now considered controversial, the problem we need to solve is not the poppy. It's our perspective. And I think that's, I think that's where we need to start. There are, I think, far too many people who devalue. or just don't know our history.

And if they don't know our history, they don't know the importance of it. And I think they just think that Canada, Canada is just, it's here and it's always been here, and they don't know that we have to fight for it. No question. And, you know, it's interesting, Ben, we're on the eve of November 11th.

And I was reminded the other day that since Confederation, we have had more than a half a million men and women injured in service and more than 118,000 who never made it home. And the vast majority of them were under the age of 25. Yeah. So just let that sink in

when you think the poppy is offensive or it should come in a variety of colors. Well, yeah, and we sort of touched on it in our previous segment. It seems like a battle. If you and I are shoulder to shoulder fighting for the poppy, then that fight has a number of different fronts to it.

So on one hand, you've got, you know, the people like the judges in Saskatchewan in Nova Scotia that say that it is something that it is not. It's a symbol that they are equating to, you know, wearing a pro-Palestinian or an Israeli flag on your lapel or wearing some sort of button that demonstrates your passion for one pet project or another. This is not that.

No, no, you're absolutely right. And, you know, I have to tell you when I read the story about what happened in Saskatchewan, I laughed out loud. I mean, seriously, a prosecutor was banned for wearing a poppy because it might show bias, bias towards what? Gratitude, the fallen, basic human decency. Look, if a tiny poppy rattles the justice system, what happens when someone walks in with a Tim Horton's cup? Do we declare a mistrial because the judge looks biased towards double doubles? I doubt that any defendant is standing there thinking, your honor, I demand a mistrial. She's wearing a poppy. It's ridiculous.

Yeah. And the judge in that moment should look at that person and say, you are wrong on the facts. You are wrong on the law. And also, not for nothing. Our institutions are part of what our brave men and women have fought for. It's the preservation of our way of life, which includes our judiciary. I'm sorry, are you saying that the poppy that stands in that moment for upholding the institutions of this country, including our judiciary, is somehow misguided? You're sitting there, dear judge, because of what this poppy represents. Oh, there's no question. I mean, people forget that the poppy represents the impact that war has on the soldiers

that have fought and defended our freedoms. This is simply a thank you and gratitude and simply nothing more. It should unite us, not divide us. And so that's one front. And then you've got the front, we went back to last year in Nova Scotia when one school asked that on Remembrance Day

when veterans were to come in, could they please not come in dressed in their uniforms as that may trigger some children of new Canadians, who may have had bad interactions with the military in their home country, to which I say that is a level of moral equivalency that quite honestly angers me. Because if we can't teach new Canadians that the soldiers that are coming in on November 11th fought against the people that you say are triggering them. There's a reason you're here now and not there. You came perhaps because there was a military that was trained against its own people,

our military stands against those notions. And if you can't teach the difference and the distinction, if you create a moral equivalency between all military, then you are not fit to educate. If you can't tell the difference, and if you can't teach that difference, you shouldn't be teaching. Yeah, no question. The issue around new Canadians being introduced

to the poppy. Look, I think it's completely understandable that we should meet it with some empathy. Yes. But the poppy isn't a symbol of conflict. It is a symbol of loss. It doesn't celebrate war. It mourns it. So for refugees, the poppy actually resonates because it represents the peace they came here seeking. Yes. We can hold space for diverse experiences without erasing a national symbol that honors sacrifice. Absolutely. And the final front as I see it is exactly what you just said. It's the diminishment and the dilution of the poppy by all these organizations that try to say, they do a bait and switch. They'll tell you, they'll misrepresent what the poppy means, which then justifies their use of the poppy in a different way.

So you've got the purple poppy for animals, but the one that really aggravates me the most is the white poppy because they say the red poppy is honors and celebrates violence. And so we need one that celebrates peace. And I've got so many problems with that, but why don't you take over? Yeah, well, you know, I sort of rolled my eyes when I saw the stories again about the white poppy crowd. And it's been around for a while, by the way. People have been using the white poppy since the 30s.

Correct. And, you know, it shows up every year like seasonal allergies. They insist the red poppy glorifies war. I mean, that's like saying tombstones glorified death. the red poppy doesn't celebrate war as I've said before it marks its cost and i think the canadian legion is absolutely right when they say that the red poppy is all encompassing it doesn't need any competition no i mean you know what's what's next ben a beige poppy for people who want to honor sacrifice in calmer emotional palate yeah but and i've got to wonder i've got to wonder

and i'm you're not a legal expert here but feels to me like this is copyright infringement. The poppy should be the exclusive domain of the Legion, which depends on the donations that come from it. And anybody who comes in and tries to draft off of that imagery and that symbolism for their own needs and goals is taking advantage of the intellectual property of the Legion. I would love to see some lawyers come out in pro bono

threaten to sue all these people and say, get off our junk, man. you want you want to honor whatever you want to honor find a different symbol but it would be like I don't know it's it I what do you think of something like that yeah listen that the trademark is with the Royal Canadian Legion and there's been lots of examples where they've gone after people who have tried to use the trademark or distort it yeah so they've got lots of practice with that okay um so uh you know again you know again I can't speak for the Legion but um you know they've They've got eyes scanning the horizons all the time to make sure that people are using it or misusing it.

But, yeah, look, I would have no problem if they sent their legal team to, you know, put these campaigns down for sure. And wouldn't that be ironic if this took place in a Nova Scotia or a Saskatchewan courtroom, the defense of the poppy in front of a judge that said that the poppy was a symbol of division? Hey, thank you very much, Mike Burns. I really appreciate you. Any time, Ben. All right, let's hear from you. We want to hear from you. Give us a call.

How do we get Canadians of all stripes to understand the meaning of sacrifice? Welcome back to the Ben Mulrudey show. Thank you so much for spending some of your Monday with us. This is the day before Remembrance Day and every day in November leading up to November 11th. We wear a poppy on our chest right above our hearts is a symbol of our respect for those who have sacrificed so that we may all enjoy this incredible country of Canada.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that are trying to undermine that symbol and misdirect us into thinking it is something that it is not. And so I wanted to open up the phone lines at 416-8-6400 or 1-8-225 talk. I want to ask you, our listeners, what can we do to bring everyone around to the idea that should not be controversial, that we should respect the sacrifice that led us to where we are today? This Canada did not manifest on its own. It did not happen by accident.

It was a lot of hard work. And in a lot of cases, a lot of sacrifice that required the blood of our young to get here. So let's start with Ben. Ben, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Happy Monday. Good morning, sir. Good morning. Before we go on, I want to remind this has been a tactical, strategic takedown of what Canada's history is, our proud history of fierce warriors. We were the most feared warriors in World War II if you listen to the access powers. And it was under this, this current liberal government, just a couple of years ago, with a current minister, Sean Fraser, reprehensible Sean Fraser, who removed the Vimy Ridge monuments from our passport, our Canadian passport, in addition to removing Terry Fox.

Yeah. Okay. And that tells you, it's a takedown of our history that we have to feel guilty for having, for being, you know, post-colonial nonsense Marxist studies in the university. Ben, I've said, I've said before, there's a lot of, a lot of negative things that I will ascribe to the Trudeau years. I think what the most destructive thing that was ever said in those 10 years was Canada is the world's first post-national state. We have no core values. I think that was the most destructive, toxic thing that was said because from that false assumption flow so many dangerous ideas. And all of those have weakened our nation. And I don't know if it was by design or by accident or through incompetence or evil, but it was a terrible thing that set us down the path that we're on today.

Thank you for saying that. I know you're a fighter for that, but it is by design. Every action that they do, every policy, Sean Frazier passing three, four bills against our speech, our freedom of thought, thought control, ministry of truth type of bills. This same sort of philosophy. Well, Ben, I think I listen, Ben, I want to stay on the poppy, but I thank you very much for your call. And I wish you a very good week ahead. John, welcome to the show. And thanks for calling in from Oshua. Yes, sir. I call every couple of weeks. I know I'm a pain. No, never, never.

My father served in World War II. Thank you. Please. We appreciate his service, sir. And my wife, Robin, her father, he was a tank repair guy in Holland. He saw horrible things. But anyway, what we need in our country, if people can march for three years and block streets indefinitely and get away with blue murder, why can't someone a prosecutor or a corps of commissioners or anybody in a court just say,

I'm sorry, Your Honor, the poppy's not coming off. it's it's part of my family part of my heritage part of my life it stays on we have to have people that just stand up and say no yeah well tim he's doing it tim houston is doing that today is monday yep today is the day because it's close tomorrow everybody has to get out there with a poppy if they're in court for a traffic ticket or anything else yeah fight fight fight because if you don't do it they're going to take it away from it well thank you very much uh john and again thank you your dad thanks to your father for his sacrifice and everything he did that allowed for us to enjoy this day.

It's pretty simple to me. There's a direct line between the people who fought and the country of today. Mike, welcome to the show. I think what you're about to say is not a hot take. Poppy is not political. It is not political,

and I looked at stuff this morning after I heard, for evil to triumph, it takes good men, to do nothing. And that's the first thing I thought of. My uncle was a tank commander in World War II.

was killed in Italy with months left to go in the war. I put, what I used to have been calling with, there was a grocery store that would allow you to put up their names and all that in their grocery store as, you know, out of respect. Yep. I will be attending in Port Perry the ceremonies at the Semitaph tomorrow. And I just, I just, this is not my Canada. I have no, what's going on?

I have no idea. Yeah. It's starting to be ridiculous. Mike, thank you very much. And yeah, I think a lot of people would be with. and disappointed. And look, let's cast our regard back to 2019. Don Cherry, who got himself canceled over what we're about to play for you. And I ask you, you know, if you can not clutch your pearls for just a moment and appreciate that he was for years, somebody appreciated for calling it

as he saw it. And yes, he was rough around the edges. And sometimes he used a word that you may not want to use. Listen to what he says here. Look at the country of today and ask yourself, Ask yourself if you're looking at what he said then today a little differently. You know, I was talking to a veteran. I said, I'm not going to run the poppy thing anymore because what's the sense? I live in Mississauga. Nobody wears a very few people wear a poppy. Downtown Toronto, forget it, downtown Toronto.

Nobody wears a poppy. And I'm not going to wait a minute. How about running it for the people that buy them? Now, you go to the small cities and, you know, you know, those, the rows on rolls, you people love you that come here whatever it is you love our way of life you love our milk and honey at least you can pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like that these guys pay for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada these guys paid the biggest price yeah it's look it's it's it's i would have phrased it differently but there was such an outrage over the

idea that the sacrifice that was made by by Canadians in generations past was not appreciated by people today. And perhaps he was focusing a little too much on new Canadians in that. But I subscribe to the disappointment that what led us to today has been forgotten. It's almost, and the line is, lest we forget,

lest we forget. He was pointing out that we have forgotten. And I don't think that's a cancelable offense in any way. Hey, Tim, welcome to the show. How you doing? I'm well, thank you. I'd like to be able to have the, you know, Remembrance Day as an actual statutory holiday, much like it is in other parts of the country, B.C. has it off.

And I'd like to be able to spend it with my brother, who's a member of the Armed Forces. Please thank him for his service from everyone here at the Ben Mulroney Show. I will. Yeah, no, it's a, look, I can, and thank you. We're going to, it's an interesting point. It's a tricky one. You know, do you give Remembrance Day off as a national statutory holiday? it's tricky because a lot of people

are not going to take the opportunity to then make it to do what we should do with it which is reflect and spend time I kind of like the moment of silence where everyone stops what they're doing I think there's something really wonderfully symbolic about that where everyone stops for a moment

should stop for a moment and reflect over everything that we've lost in order to gain so much on the other end Maria I think you'll be our last call here You're welcome. Hello, Maria. Hi. Hi.

Hi, how are you? I'm well, thank you. Good. I'm calling from Alberta, actually. Well, thank you for calling in from Alberta. Big fan. Anyway, I was just called in to just kind of give a little bit of support on. Yeah, I absolutely think it should be read.

I did remember that there was green on it years and years ago. I don't know if you remember that. Well, I know that the British poppy has a green leaf attached to theirs, which is distinctive. And I don't know if anyone knows on YouTube, they've noticed that I'm wearing something that looks completely different than the traditional poppy. It's beautifully like a stemmed poppy. And my producer gave it to me.

It was in honor of the, it's the 100th anniversary of the Legion. Oh. Yeah, but people ask me about it in Saskatchewan. I had to point to it. I had to tell, no, this is actually a Legion poppy. But I liked it because it's got a backing on it so it doesn't fall off. But anyway, continue with your thought.

Oh, I was just going to say, I just, well, and I also think, like, I see a lot of indigenous with beaded poppies, and I think it's fabulous. No, so do I. Absolutely. It's a show of respect, and it's a reminder that First Nations have sacrificed as well in our armed forces, and they deserve our respect. And I just, listen, there are so many different ways to do it. There's no one way to honor everyone, but we can rally around this one symbol that should unite us all. And frankly, we are short, in short supply of symbols that unite this country. Thank you to everybody.

You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story. Until now. People assume that I'm like, this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed, and in my new podcast, I talk to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people? I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify.