The Ben Mulroney Show - Why the EV Industry is on the verge of collapse

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Guests and Topics on Today's Show -Why the EV Industry is on the verge of collapse with Guest: David Booth, Automotive Journalist, Senior Writer for Driving.ca -Speaking with the family member of a women held hostage in Gaza with Guest: Maureen Leshem -Killing ourselves with Interprovincial Trade Barriers with Guest: Dr. Eric Kam, Economics Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University -Israel and Hamas agree in principle to ceasefire and hostage deal with Guest: Iddo Moeb the Ambassador of Israel to Canada -Harm reduction advocates hope high court will 'clarify' Canada's 'Good Samaritan' law with Guest: Joseph Neuberger, Neuberger And Partners Criminal Lawyers, host of the podcast “Not On Record” 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

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And this time last year, the future of the automotive industry of the entire sector, it was electric. It was that that's where we were going. The government had planned for us to transition entirely to EV cars by 2035. And it looked like everybody was was getting on board. What a difference a year makes. It looks like EV sales. There's now a conversation in the United States about an ending federal rebates and possibly giving up entirely on the mandate to pivot the entire industry from the internal combustion engine to the to the electric engine. Speaking at a press conference on Parliament Hill, Brian Kingston, the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association president,

calls called for an EV mandate for the mandates themselves to be scrapped. It should be obvious to everyone now that provincial and federally mandated zero-emission vehicle sales targets are no longer ambitious, but a complete fantasy. There is no pathway to 100% zero-emission vehicle sales in the next 10 years with the supports being provided to Canadians. Dictating what vehicles Canadians can and can't buy without providing them with the supports necessary to switch to electric is a made-in-Canada policy failure. Today we are calling on provincial and federal governments to scrap the mandates. Is this the end of EV subsidies in Canada

and could that spell the collapse of the entire industry itself? Joining us now is David Booth, automotive journalist and senior writer for driving.ca. David, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Thanks for having me. Okay, so with no subsidy support, with no opportunity to make the cost of transitioning to electric vehicle, a lesser burden on the consumer. And with people calling for an end of the mandate to pivot the entire industry, are we witnessing the beginning of the end

of the EV industry as we know it? Certainly, the beginning of the end of the super rapid revolution and transition that we've been promised, most certainly. On the one hand, you can't, the ZEB mandates that we have, both north and south, north is a border in provinces like BC and Quebec. What they do is they punish automakers a certain amount of money if they don't reach a quota for their overall sales in their total mix of

cars. The problem with that is on the one hand currently or before about two days ago they were subventing and incentivizing the buying of those cars. So consumers were buying them and hopefully the OEMs could sell them enough cars. Now with the incentives gone, the EV mandate still penalizes the automakers and there's no incentive for consumers to buy other than if they just happen to love EVs and right now that's a little iffy. So that's why Brian Kingston and the other organizations that were joining them on that podium are pretty incensed, actually, they use stronger words than I've ever seen from the auto industry. Yeah, but you know, I remember last

summer, in the province of Ontario, there were these massive rollouts of government handouts to battery makers, and to various parts of the EV car supply chain. We, we, we in the province of Ontario didn't want to get left behind. That was the argument. We didn't want to get left behind as as the entire industry revolutionizes. What happens to all of those investments? Well, first of all, you know, there's been about $3 billion spent on incentivizing consumers already that's run out. Now, the numbers that's been bandied about is around 50 billion to build the plants. Now to understand not all of that money is upfront, they haven't given Stellantis and Norfolk, which looks like

to be toast, and Volkswagen $50 billion. What they did is they promised to incentivize every battery they produced for the next 10 years, until actually 2032. And when you tallied up all the monies that would cost, it would turn out to be about $50 billion. Now, we just ran out of money at $3 billion. It's hard to believe we could spend another $50 billion over the next eight years or so, incentivizing not just the consumer buying it, but the automakers producing it. It was plainly ridiculous at the beginning. I did understand the fear of missing out that automakers and the government were worried about. But then when you thought about how much each job costs, I've seen numbers from as low

as $50,000 to as many as $1 million for every job that they were creating with these subsidies. It was pretty ridiculous. We made our own beds, shall we say. Now, I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to square the circle in my own head, where you got Donald Trump, who says he wants to end these, these subsidies for people who want to buy an electric vehicle, all while he stands shoulder to shoulder with the most successful producer of electric vehicles on the planet in Elon Musk. How do you reconcile those two things? One I think it's a marriage of convenience or a bro a bromance of convenience. I don't think that Musk is long for the coalition that Trump's put together.

He's already pissed off a lot of the MAGA supporters with his support of H1Bs. The most important thing to remember is Musk isn't there necessarily to promote electric cars. Really what he wanted to do was rewrite the autonomous vehicle legislation that is probably coming from the federal government, the Department of Transportation. He's much more concerned about selling future robo-taxis than current Tesla. I see. That's interesting. But in the here and now, given these new headwinds that the entire EV industry is facing, are we going to see a thinning of the herd? Are we going to see only

the strong surviving? So you have the likes of, you know, Kia and Hyundai and and and Tesla surviving, but companies like Ford that have never really found success in the EV market, they're just going to that part of their business is going to collapse? To give you an indication of the change in headwinds, I'm going to sort of wrap it all in one pretty bow, hopefully. There's four across Canada and US, there are four pillars to getting EV sold. There's EV incentives in Canada, EV incentives in the States, EV mandate in Canada, and the quasi US mandate which is really a California mandate which covers about 12 or 13 other states that is the same as our get rid of gas by 2035. Those are the four pillars.

Well, the EV incentives in Canada are gone immediately. By the time the election happens, Trudeau is gone, Paul Levers is in, he's not re-upping those incentives. So that's one pillar gone. Paul Levers already said that he's going to almost assuredly get rid of the EV mandate. It hasn't got a tagline like ban the tax, but he wants to get rid of EV mandate. So that's our federal EV incentives gone, our federal EV mandate gone. Trump has also said that he's going to get rid of absolutely the $7,500 US dollars that they give to consumer incentives. That's gone. So there's three pillars

gone. The last one, and it's really the most important people don't realize, is California being allowed to set its own EV mandate and letting other states do so as well. That's always been sacrosanct. It's a longer conversation than we have for the 10 seconds left to go. But I say and I've written a lot of articles on it, that it's got a 40% chance of going. That's three gone, one with a 40% chance of going. Yes, there are huge headwinds for all those manufacturers trying to transition to electric vehicles. Wow. Well, so yeah, so last year looked a particular way. Things look completely different today. And I suspect one year from today, the automotive industry will be in a

completely different place. I do appreciate your time, David Booth, journalist and senior writer for driving.ca for giving us the lay of the land and for adding to a really interesting conversation. Thanks for having me. If you are anything like me, your heart has been breaking every day since October 7th of last year when we saw the horrors unfold at the Nova Music Festival that started a war that has gone on too long that has seen hostages taken into Gaza by the bloodthirsty and ghoulish terrorists of Hamas. And for a great many of us, it's a story that happened half a world away.

For our next guest, it is a horror that she relives every single day, and it's a deeply personal one, because her cousin was one of those people abducted at the Nova Music Festival. We're joined now by Maureen Lesham. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.

Maureen, first of all, before we get into the state of play and where we are today, tell me about your cousin, Romy. Thank you for asking. Romy isn't just a hostage. She is a beloved daughter, sister, cousin, friend who has her entire life ahead of her. She's full of life. She's feisty. She's funny. She's endlessly kind.

You know, she loves to travel. She loves to spend time with her friends, listen to music. And that's exactly what she was doing on October 7th, when, you know, like so many of us here in Canada have done before attended music festivals. When her life just changed in an instant. And you as her family, we're speaking to her during those terrible awful moments.

So her mom and her sister yard and we're on the phone. We have audio recording of of when the terrorists and Gazan civilians kidnapped her. We have audio of when she was shot. It's something that you cannot get those sounds out of your head. And I don't know if we ever will. And what has life been like since October 7th of last year? Because I, and I don't I don't want to be I don't want to hit this over the head too hard. But are how do I say this? Are you do you know if she's still alive? So I got notification approximately six weeks ago from

Romy's mom, Marev, letting me know that Romy is indeed alive. As to the details of that, I don't have them. But we know that she is alive. She was shot in the arm before she was violently abducted. And we also know that she had not received any type of proper medical care. So I was told that she's not in good condition. And every single second that she's there is just a second too much. And so when we got word yesterday that it looked like the two sides were coming together on a ceasefire deal that could see the release of as many as 100 of the hostages. What did you think? I mean, just say that we're on edge is an understatement.

I'm speaking to you now and I can feel myself shaking. I haven't stopped shaking. We are nervous, anxiety-ridden, not sleeping, glued to our phones, praying constantly. You know, some hours my stomach is in knots, twisting, then in other hours. I can't even feel anything. You know, it's a numbness that is just so overwhelming Every single emotion that you can think of we're truthfully we're feeling it all at once This is the first time For myself that I can say that I actually feel like there's the possibility of a breakthrough and that's what's keeping us going.

But it's also excruciatingly difficult to live in this space of uncertainty. Maureen, I can't I can't imagine that the stress that you and your family and those who know and love Romy have been enduring since October 7th of last year. But when you overlay that with the sense of unease and the lack of safety that Jews across Canada and across the West have been experiencing with the massive spike in anti-Semitism across the West. I can't I can't even put myself in your shoes. But there, what has life been like for you? And and those are close to since, since October

7. I'm an incredibly private person before October 7, you probably would never heard my name or known who I was. October 7th, you probably would never heard my name or known who I was. October 7th forever changed me. You know, it's remarkable that you you're able to make that connection of what's going on in Israel and the anti-Semitism and the hateful rhetoric that we're seeing on the streets here in Toronto. I cannot tell you how many journalists have actually said to me, this is half a world away

and this is not something that so many Canadians think about, but you don't have to look far in our streets to see that what is happening in Israel is directly affecting what is going on here in Canada. This is a global humanitarian crisis. And Canada, who's a part of the global community, has a responsibility to protect civilians

and prevent violations, any type of violation under humanitarian law, and Canada has failed to do that. They failed to protect Jewish people here on the streets of Toronto. They failed to bring the body of a Canadian hostage, Judy Weinstein, home for a proper burial. It's something that I've often asked people. How is it acceptable?

How is it acceptable that a Canadian citizen continues to be denied a proper burial? How is it that I have to worry about my daughter who's in university and, you know, that has students wearing kaffirs in her classroom? It's no matter where we turn, it just... There's a lack of words. I don't know if I'll ever be able to understand this lack of protection that that has

happened. Well, there from my perspective, there has been we've given space, we've given a license to a certain type of person to behave in a certain type of way. And that certain way has been designed, explicitly, and orchestrated to make Jews not feel safe, where they they they deserve to feel safe, meaning in their communities, in their schools, in their synagogues, in their homes in their communities, in their schools, in their synagogues, in their homes, in their

neighborhoods, we have allowed and given license to protesters to go into those spaces where you should feel safe to protest, to scream, to organize, to intimidate. And no no Canadian should feel that way. And we for some reason in this country have an exception for the Jews. I couldn't agree with you more. I spent 20 years of my life working in the women's sector. I started an organization in Vaughan that was hugely successful called the 482 collective. I've spent my entire life advocating for the

vulnerable. I've spent my entire life advocating for the vulnerable. I've spent my entire life helping people with never ever asking where do you come from? What's your religion? What's your background? You needed help? We were there to help you. And what I have seen in the gender-based violence sector was the biggest betrayal of all. We had organizations like the Toronto Rape Crisis call for a ceasefire without mentioning the hostages in Israel. So many, so many women's organizations

and victim service organizations, you know, claim to speak up for women and girls, but then they cherry pick which one deserves your support and attention. And that is why this past October 7th, I made the very easy decision to close my organization. I refuse to work or associate with people who have demonstrated whether it's blatant

or covert antisemitism. And right now, my community needs me. And the message that we need to send even to Jewish women, you know, that if they are raped, because the numbers are one in three in Canada, Maureen, Maureen, I'm sorry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to cut you off. But I just, I hope to God you get to hear Romy's voice again very soon. Thank you so much. Thank you. Welcome to Kidsplain, where kids explain how underfunded our schools are. Let's take a call from a listener.

Kelly, are you there? Hi, I was wondering why I get less one-on-one time with my teachers. Great question, Kelly. It might have something to do with the fact that we have 3,500 fewer teachers under Doug Ford. Ugh, that sounds about right. Wanna help support students and teachers?

Visit nomore.ca. That's K-N-O-W-M-O-R-E.ca. A message from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. At BC Children's Hospital, we're always learning from our patients through our life-changing research and with specialized training. We're the only dedicated pediatric hospital in BC and we're

constantly growing to better serve our patients. If you're looking for a career where learning and development are core to the culture, BC Children's Hospital is the place for you. Amazing people want it. Must love kids. Apply now at jobs.bchildrens.ca. of kids. Apply now at jobs.bcchildrens.ca. Let's talk Trump tariffs and let's do so with a good friend of the show, Dr. Eric Kam,

economics professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. Good morning, hello there, doctor, how are you? Benedict, you gotta get it back on track. Yeah, well, that's what you're here for. That's what you're here for. I'm ready. My producer's loving this.. My producers loving this. My producers loving this.

Okay, so I tweeted back, I think in 2015, I said the prime minister who solves the issue of national reconciliation with our first nations and who solves the problem of inter-provincial trade barriers will forever be remembered as one of Canada's greatest prime ministers. And I think that still holds true today. And people are talking more and more more about interprovincial trade barriers as a weight around Canada's

neck that we could remove ourselves. Yeah, and you see, the problem is, is that this is really systemic of a lot of what goes on in Canada. We've talked before about the term comparative advantage, right? Do the things that you are best at with the lowest cost and then for the other things, those are the goods that you buy internationally. Well again, you would think in theory, what do we do best? How about trade interprovincially where you don't have the taxes and the tariffs and the quotas that you have north and south. You should not have those problems east and west, yet somehow Canada finds a way to bungle this up as well. And so yes, you have tie-ups where there should

absolutely be no tie-ups. You know, God bless your father, he brought in free trade and we had to do free trade, but part of that, the idea was we already have in theory free trade, East and West, let's bring it in North and South. And now we have managed to bungle up the East West trade. And yes, it costs Canada billions of dollars and that could be eliminated with the stroke of a pen just by asking people to stop being stupid and take advantage of something the country does well, almost by definition.

But. Doctor, when I was on television, I went to New Brunswick to do some promotional stuff. And I went to a vineyard, one of the oldest vineyards in North America, absolutely beautiful. And as I was talking with the owner of the vineyard, he told me that it was easier for him to sell a case of wine to China than it was for him to sell a bottle of his wine to Nova Scotia. Yes, exactly. And so this is kind of you know, I've had the same situation. I was once in Manitoba. And I was talking about purchasing something and some store owner store owner was

mentioning problems they were having between Ontario and Manitoba. And I just looked at them like like they were crazy because we're part of the same team. I don't know how this got lost somewhere that yes, we're a bunch of provinces. We're not the United States of Canada, but we are unified provinces. And if we can't get trade straight among ourselves, how are we ever going to get it straight with other countries? But what is the sticking point? I mean, if because

according to this study by the National Bank, removing inter-provincial trade barriers could raise Canada's GDP per capita by nearly 4%. Like this, this seems like a layup to help Canada, especially in the face of these tariffs, it would certainly be a mitigating factor. If we could of these tariffs, it would certainly be a mitigating factor. If we could improve provincial trade, it would dampen the blow of these tariffs. Yeah, it would. The problem is, the problem is, in a sense, the profits that we have through trade have been falling. And I mean, literally, the profit margins through trade have been falling over the years. So different provinces have tried to make those up by applying taxes at the border. But as you said, it would be a slam dunk if the country could unilaterally remove those taxes.

But the problem is, is there's always the cheating motive. And you have some province who's going to say, you know what, if we just put on an extra one percent or two percent, it'll raise our revenues by this many millions of dollars. And so the whole thing starts again. So this is one of those cases where Canada is gonna actually one day have to act as a country and get together with its premiers in a room and say, listen, we're shooting ourselves in the foot.

Let's at least trade goods and services. Let's increase mobility across our country. And wouldn't that be a start and a foreshadow to better trade to other nations? I mean, there's no sense tripping over your own feet. But somehow this country has a habit then of doing it to itself. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Man. Meanwhile, Premier Doug Ford of Ontario, as stated that he had his ministries crunch the numbers

about what the impact of these Trump tariffs would be on the province of Ontario. And he says it's not going to be good. Let's listen. But I was getting numbers yesterday from the ministries. It could cost 500,000 jobs. This is serious. It's unprecedented. And let's hope it doesn't cost 500,000 jobs. But we need the ability to go in there and support the sectors and the people to make sure we protect Ontario and return Canadian jobs as well right across our country.

I mean, that half a million jobs in Ontario doc, if the numbers are to be believed, I mean, you're talking over a million jobs lost across Canada. Yeah, and things aren't looking so great right now. Anyway, right. When you have an employment rate of about 60% of participation rate of about 65%. We frankly don't have enough people working, especially young people. But to go back to what the premier said now full disclosure, I voted for the premier and I rather like the premier. But I don't like when they use hyperbole. I don't know where he gets a half a million jobs, right?

We haven't done, first of all, we haven't done any econometric studies into this, and it would be purely counterfactual if you did. So I think the premier might have come out in a better way and said, this could cost us a great many jobs. That is for sure. And as a matter of fact, if you look at gross domestic product, right, which is just the scoreboard of our country, how is it doing as the sum of consumption and investment, government spending, and net exports, the tariffs are going to kill all four of those factors. It is going to put our country into a gross negligent position in terms of the economy. But I really would rather people stop dealing for once, right? Usually, I'm a quantitative data driven guy. But when there's no data, you don't make up data. And so this half a million is coming out of the sky. The reality is, if they

slap 20 or 25% tariffs on everything we sell to the United States, in a non quantitative sense, then our economy is going to ground nearly to a halt. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Except for government jobs, I guess those will keep growing. Apparently government jobs ballooned four times faster than the private sector since the pandemic began. This makes me furious. And I want to tell the good

listenership that right now if you subscribe to a school of thought called post Keynesian theory, you're going to want to murder me over one of the social media platforms. These are the people that believe that the government should be the employer of last resort, just like they call the Bank of Canada, the lender of last resort, right? So then just before the bank, the banking system collapses, the Bank of Canada is there to provide liquidity to the system.

And a lot of people believe just before the economy is about to collapse, why doesn't the government sector use a credit card that has no expiry and no credit limit and hire everybody? Like these people believe there should be no unemployment because at worst that nth marginal person should be employed by the government. The problem is stupid idea, can't work in a capitalist economy, can barely work in any economy. And so this is one of the problems that you and I have discussed. The one thing lacking, if you said to me, what's the one thing lacking from this economy? It's long run economic growth.

Again, your father realized this, Kretchen realized this, our government has completely let this fall. They think that growth is good enough if it's short run business cycle growth, but it's not. So what is the worst case scenario for a capitalist economy? Only growth in the public sector, because it's not real, it's artificial, it's easy to bump up, it's easy to bump down.

And so this is just systemic, it's just part and parcel of microcosm of an economy that doesn't have any real growth. Ben, when the public sector grows, people should not be happy. They should be sad because it means the private sector is shrinking. Doc, I want to thank you for your time. I also want to thank your wife's grade seven and eight students for listening at RJ Lang Elementary and Middle School. Thanks so much. A draft deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and hostage release has been agreed to in principle. And if all goes well, could be finalized by Israel and Hamas

this week. To get into the details of how we found we got ourselves to this place, I am honored to have on the show the ambassador of Israel to Canada, Edo Mohed. Ambassador, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Talk to me as an Israeli right now. How do you feel with the prospect of a ceasefire looming on the horizon? I can tell you that these days are the hardest days for Israelis to wake up every morning to this excruciating news that our hostages are coming back after more than 465 days.

Today is the 467th day. It's excruciating. It is so hard. It's an open wound. It's an ongoing trauma since October the 7th. And every day that passes, we are continuing to pray that we have our loved ones come back home or bring them to appropriate burial. It's very hard. It is, but there are still some hoops to jump through from what I understand that if the final details are approved, then it still has to be approved as a vote in the Knesset, is that true? No, the government will vote for it.

If the government approves and there is a majority in the government, then it will pass. That's the condition that we have. There are some other issues internally when we are releasing terrorists. The families of the victims have a right of appeal to the Supreme Court. But that is, of course, not a technicality, but the expectation is that the Supreme Court will not withhold the deal because of those appeals, but we expect that. So there are a few processes that need to take place. Perhaps later on there will be some repercussions in the Knesset when the Knesset will vote confidence or non-confidence

in the government because of this deal and maybe other issues. You know, I think a lot of us, everyone was glued to their televisions during that first ceasefire so many months ago. Israel and Hamas in vastly different places today than they were then, where you've got Hamas on its heels, its allies in the region in shambles.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, you have Joe Biden on his way out, but working very well in conjunction with the incoming President Trump. I have to think that when you put all of those circumstances together, you get this perspective ceasefire. It is a combination of circumstances which is the optimal for reaching a deal. There's no doubt about that. Therefore, Prime Minister

Netanyahu knows that he can count on a vast majority support both in public, in Knesset, and in government. So this is the right time to do it, but it is just imagine 467 days of people being held wounded who know what kind of abuse they've been undergoing in those tunnels, in those catacombs underneath the Gaza Strip. It's just unimaginable and we know that some of them are dead or died while they were held captive. We know that some of them are dead or died while they were held captive. So all of that is very hard to process for Israel. But of course, everybody's standing and waiting for them to come back and to start working on their rehabilitation. And that's one of the frustrating things for a person like myself who's been on the radio

pushing back against the claims of the pro-Hamas supporters by saying, if only you would release the hostages, then Israel would lay down their guns and this war would be over. And they were unwilling to do it for 400 plus days. They now find themselves, had they done this 300 days ago, Hamas would find itself in a far healthier position at the in a ceasefire situation.

Absolutely. And you know, first of all, just to make sure there is of course a Canadian connection with Judy Weinstein's remains that are still being held by Hamas, who died together with her husband on October the 7th, who was murdered on October the 7th. And yes, all of these could have been prevented and stopped, but we have to think, take a step back also today and remember this is not just the Hamas, Jedis, genocidal approach. It comes from the Ayatollahs in Tehran. They are the ones that really promote annihilation of the state of Israel.

And so you see that the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis and the Iraqi militias and other supporters and sympathizers are actually actively trying to eradicate the state of Israel. And we have to remember today that Israel is a strong country and Israel will survive this. Of course, we'll overcome this. We'll overcome this together with our friends around the world because we know that this is our land and this is our place. And this is for us another battle that we'll have to fight for our survival, but we'll get through it. But just imagine that we have to release terrorists, murderers, mass murderers to get our people

back. It is really excruciating. But yeah. Ambassador, I just want to sort of turn our focus to Jewish Canadians who have been feeling unsafe in their own communities, homes. How much of your time is preoccupied with sort of the knowledge that anti semitism anti semitism has spiked dramatically and so terribly in a country like Canada, where if you told me five years ago, that was going to be the reality for them, I would have told you you were insane. Bennett, thank you for raising this question. It is keeping me awake at

night. This is incredible what is happening here in Canada. I was in Bete Kvaar just a few weeks ago on Shabbat to be together with the communities whose synagogue was set aflame, was tried to set aflame. They are using gunfire, they are abusing, they are intimidating students in universities. It is a phenomenon that is, that has risen to such a level that people in Israel all of a sudden realize that Canada of today is, as you just said, very different from what it was in the past. Actually, I don't believe that so much.

I believe that there is a small, very extreme minority here that is behind much of this. And I think that's a very vast majority of your listeners and the people here in Canada know exactly what is the contribution of Jews to Canada and why the relations between Canada and Israel have been so strong in the past and will continue to be in the future because there is so much that we share in common, common values that bind us. So anti-Semitism right now is extremely high and we have to do whatever we can.

We are working together with Canadian authorities, both in the field of education and as much as we can support any kind of best practices in law enforcement, we'll do that as well. We are working also very hard to point to areas that we feel are problematic, just like having a professor at the University of Carlton here, who is a convicted terrorist, talk about social justice, somebody who attacked the synagogue

and put a bomb next to the synagogue in Paris, in France, killing four people, wanting I don't know how many, tens of people. So this is also something that we are very much active on. No, absolutely. And I agree with you. I think it is a very small, very loud, very toxic minority. But that toxic minority, Mr. Ambassador, in my humble opinion, has been given license to allow their anti-Semitism to run amok and run unchecked. Not enough arrests, not enough laying down of the law, not enough by certain leaders being clear and definitive on what our values are and what we are willing to do to fight for them and to and to project them and and

in the absence of that leadership that you get the situation that we have today. We are convinced that so much more not only needs to be done but can be done together with the authorities, be it federal, regional, I mean, provincial and municipal and local communities. Canada adopted the international, the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the International Holocaust Remembrance Association definition of antisemitism. We are very close to marking the 80th day or the 80th year of anniversary of freeing

the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. And that's the 27th of January. It's the International Remembrance Day for the Holocaust. On that day, we expect everybody here in Canada from the highest level to everywhere around the country to remember yet again that 80 years ago something has took place that is horrific, that is unacceptable and it's not just the memory. We have to take that memory to today and we have to understand that today we have to stand up to those who are perpetuating this kind of hatred, those who are for violence, for the eradication of others, those who are perpetuating this kind of hatred, those who are for violence, for the eradication

of others, those who are against tolerance, those who are against mutual understanding. This is our fight. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. And I'm hopeful that that ceasefire will come into play very, very soon. Thank you very much, man. Thank you for having me. There's a story that is really worth a conversation where in 2020, a woman was experiencing a fentanyl overdose and the people that she was with stopped and called the paramedics to try to help her and when the police arrived, they

smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and noticed a baggie that looked like crystal meth on the ground outside the driver's side door. And so the guy who called the cops and got called for a medical intervention was arrested for drug possession and a search later turned up a bag with guns, false identity documents and a quantity of apparent drugs. That's in quotes. So he was convicted in parent drugs, that's in quotes. So he was convicted in 2022, but the Saskatchewan Court of Appeals found that the drug possession arrest was unlawful

under Canada's Good Samaritan law, which is meant to shield people from arrest after they seek help for someone in a medical distress. And I find this entire thing fascinating. And so we're joined now by Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger and Partners Criminal Lawyers and the host of the podcast Not On Record. Joseph, thanks so much for joining us

today. My pleasure, Ben. Thank you. Okay, so explain the Good Samaritan law to all of us who don't know anything about it. Okay, so the Good Samaritan law derives from an act called the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act. It came into law in May of 2017. It complements the Canadian drug and substance strategy, which is a public health approach to substance use.

And it's a harm reduction aspect that is a key of the strategy. What it's designed to do is to insulate individuals who call to assist those in medical emergency from an overdose and insulate them from being charged with various offenses, including possession of a controlled substance, trafficking and various other offenses.

The idea is to promote any civilian who sees somebody in a condition as this young person was, and call for emergency assistance without fear that they will be the subject of an investigation and charge. And you know, it makes sense to me because you know, more likely than not, if you're somebody who is experiencing an overdose, you're probably going to be with people who are comfortable around drugs, probably maybe even using drugs themselves. And so you want those people to feel comfortable calling the authorities.

Absolutely. And you know, it's not a complete carte blanche, you know, prevention of being charged with anything. So more serious offenses a person could be still charged with. Let's say the person who calls has outstanding warrants or they're involved in a more serious type of drug trafficking ring. They could still be charged with that, but the more basic stuff they can't be. And this is designed to promote people to do the right thing.

And I think good Samaritan legislation is very important. Because if you witness somebody who's in distress, at a time where you might be liable for something, we want people to call to save lives. And so this Good Samaritan law is specific to sort of drug overdoses and risk mitigation on that front. Are there Good Samaritan laws on other fronts, other fronts besides sort of the drug epidemic? There's nothing on the books. But and again, it would be hard to imagine other circumstances where somebody acts to save another individual unless they're actively involved in a criminal act themselves at the time,

they would not be insulated in those circumstances. But this was designed specifically for the drug overdose area. But we do have a general concept of good Samaritan behavior and for them not to derive liability from it. So there is a common law concept of that as well. But this was specifically designed because of the issues related to substance abuse. Does, does this court case put that legislation, put that, put that good Samaritan law at risk, or is it generally recognized as a good thing? And it's just, just so happens that it ran afoul with the circumstances.

I think it's going to be, it's going to be interesting to see because the offenses include possession of firearms. And I think there has to be some more clear and I don't have the case law in front of me right now, but there has to be some clear delineation about what types of offenses could a person still be convicted of. And it is clear that this legislation is not to insulate from all possible criminal charges especially those that are serious. And gun possession

trafficking and firearms offenses in Canada is a very serious thing. So I could see on appeal that this individual would be insulated from the less serious offenses but because the search started with the smell of marijuana, and then the officer conducted a search after that, I think the the Court of Appeal decision will be upheld. But I think there will be some clarity mentioned by the Supreme Court. And you know, I part of me thinks that the the issue here

is a branding issue. That by calling it the goods, like it's a good Samaritan law, but this guy is clearly a bad dude. And so there's that disconnect that, you know, if they called it something else, and not the good Samaritan law, then you could appreciate that you can be a good Samaritan, but also a bad guy. Yeah, you know, branding and language is so important. You're absolutely right. You know, we I say, you know, branding and language is so important. You're absolutely right. You know, we could say, you know, help other law, you know, help other people.

I don't know what you could come up with, but but you are being a good Samaritan when you take steps to save a life. So I think more importantly, it's looking at the substance of what happened. Clearly the search derived from smelling marijuana where the officer should have been aware of the good Samaritan law and not taken any other further steps. So I think the court of appeal decision will be upheld. There will be some more guidance which says, you know, it doesn't protect against serious offenses but because the starter of the search was illegal under the charter would be excluded.

But I think this is very important for us as a society to have because we want to protect people and extending it to some extent in other circumstances, which I can't go through all the possible machinations right now. But I think good Samaritan laws in general are helpful because protection of the public and helping save lives has a strong value to all of us as Canadians. Joseph Neuberger of Neuberger and Partners Criminal Lawyers and the host of the podcast Not On Record. Thank you for your time on this one.

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