The Ben Mulroney Show - Will anti-greenwashing rules clean up the environment debate?

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Guest: Tony Chapman, Host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, Founding Partner of Chatter AI GUEST:   Derryn Shrosbree, a family farmer and founder of 33seven If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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by completing hours of tax research in seconds. Get better answers to tough questions. BlueJ, AI, for tax experts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. All right, just quick question for you. Tony Chapman, who's joining us in studio. I always love seeing you in studio, sir. Are we alone in the universe?

Do you believe that we are, that there is nothing else out there, that we are the only blue rock? Well, I'm going to take you even further. I think we're a virtual reality of a master race, so definitely we're not alone. I just think this is a whole simulation. And by the way, quantum physics is now giving that probability at 50%.

So you might think I'm a little strange, but this, in fact, could be just a very sophisticated video game. You think we're in the matrix? I think we have, we still act out our life. We still make decisions, but I do think that, and we don't have time for it today, but just take a look at all the animals that are created above the ocean and below. Yeah. And ask me, is that not the masterpiece of a masterfully creative race to create all these

different variations, a skunk that farts, you know, a shark that, a shark that, you know, like all the different things. It's just to me, just a vivid imagination. All right, but I've lost all credibility with your audience. No, no, no, no. We will drill down into that at a later date when we can do long-form conversations. By the way, you and I are going to be enjoying on stage in the city of Toronto coming up. But I want to move on to a few stories that I'd love to get your take on.

I love seeing how your brain works on stories. A lot of us will just blow past. But one of the stories that we want to talk about was the, Well, we'll start with the second one. The scam ads. We talked about this last week. The scam ads, how much meta is earning in revenue from allowing bad actors to scam people on their platform. It's the tune of $16 billion.

That's a big chunk of change. But they're a bigger company than that. I mean, it's not a rounding error for them, but it's such an unethical way to make money. Why don't they do everything in their power to get rid of that? Because they think they're in control of the union. I mean, listen, if those products were on Walmart, Walmart would be taken to the woodshed and beaten for selling that stuff. They get away with it, and the response was, we're going to charge them more. We're going to make them pay a premium for scamming the consumer so we can take that $16 billion and move it up.

It's horrific, and the claims that are made on their Instagram account, you know, people are going, I grew a full head of hair in two weeks. You know, on and on. But the products are selling because they're all focused on. Yeah. And so that's how they justify it? They just, I mean, they justify it by just basically saying, we're in control the same reason the statement they made the CRTC and everywhere else in the world. We control the data. We control the data centers. We get to shape how you think, feel, and behave. And therefore, we make up our own rules. Okay, well, let's talk about the rules in place. The rules right are that the federal government is in large measure trying to prop up certain failing media brands in this country, subsidizing the media.

and all that comes with, is it media or propaganda at that point? And is it seeking truth or only telling the truth the party and power wants? And why don't we demand that all political parties and the government of power only advertise on Canadian media? Yeah, I mean, there's two things to unpack there. Let's start with the formal. If you're believing your media, if you're thinking we have to prop it up, then only invest in media as a government. Absolutely, without exception. Show that you, but they don't.

They talk a big game. the next thing you know, they pour hundreds of millions of dollars in the Facebook. Why? Because they can fly fish in with the personalized, oh, you're a single mom. We're going to talk to you about your nanny care. Second thing is, though, is in terms of one party propping up the media and the other party not, is absolutely a recipe for propaganda and biases. And whether you like it or not, that's just the reality of it. If your job's on the line, if your newspaper's on the line,

the only way to solve that is absolutely put a tax on consumers and says, will pay for Canadian media, and they're allowed to chase the stories and put the politicians' feet to the fire. But the second they look the other way, instead of becoming unbiased media, it becomes just pulp fiction. Yeah. Well, don't they do this in certain places where you can opt in to certain things on your tax forms?

I might not be – I don't like the idea of taxing people and then just giving it to business and picking winners and losers. I know that – and there's nuance to that. But I wouldn't mind having a list of government priorities. on my tax bill every year. And I could check the boxes of the places where I want that money to go. That's an incredible idea.

So you've got a little bit of your money is discretionary. And people actually campaigned to say, hey, this is something I want you to support. We have to do something because the state of media in Canada is not sustainable. And yet we need investigative journalism to put people's feet to the fire. And if we don't have that,

and we've lost it at city halls, all the local media has disappeared. So it's a free rein on our money. And that's the reality. Things get buried. Truth gets hidden in the shadows because journalists don't have the resources to pull them out. I mean, I always prefer incentivizing behavior than to start, than trying to tax behavior. Like, we're going to tax you into making better environmental choices.

I would rather incentivize environmental technology companies to come to the fore, make it, make them more attractive to investors from startup all. the way to, but scaling. But you're a capitalist, and a capitalist would think that way, and it's the right way to think, that says, listen, let's create IP in Canada. We can then market around the world. So if we believe in a green economy, don't just buy our way there or tax our way to an oblivion, actually invest in it so that we're creating it. But again, it has to be based on unmet needs in society. You can't just as a government dictate that this is a product or service that's going to sell just because it happens to be part of your ideology. It has to be something that the society wants. Look at EVs and batteries. I mean, how many billions of

dollars did we spend on creating and begging branch plants to come up here and cut ribbons and then they disappear because there's not enough demand for EVs? Okay, so I'm glad we've talked about the environment because that flows really well into this next story about how there's new federal anti-greenwashing provisions in the Competition Act, which are requiring companies that have evidence for their environmental claims, which I think is important. But I wonder if that'll stick and apply to, say, an EV, right? And one of the knocks on, say, a Tesla for as wonderful as a Tesla is, is nobody takes into account the massive carbon footprint of the battery itself and how many places around

the world those critical minerals have to come from before you build that battery. And the fact that there is no end-of-life strategy for the batteries, as smart as Elon Musk is, when those batteries die, he houses them at a factory in Texas or something like that. Because he doesn't know what to do with them yet. There's no plan for them. They're almost the equivalent of nuclear waste. That's how toxic they are. But listen, let's take windmills, for example.

Everybody talks about how wonderful windmills are. But you know how much grease goes into making those windmills? You can't, those blades, when they're done, they never decompose. So it's all about what looks good to the public versus the reality. So if you want to put in a system like this, you've got to have metrics that are backed by science. Not rhetoric. No, and that's my point. So, like, if the government is going to do this, and I'm all for it, like, people,

it's giving as much information to the consumer as possible is, it should be the barometer. Like, how much information, how much real information am I getting before I make a decision? Because I want everybody as a consumer to make an informed decision. And, and I, you know, I think when they prepared this, this was for, you know, irresponsible companies like those companies on meta, right? They're making claims about how green a product is. But the unintended consequence of this is I hope it holds other companies. And in fact, a lot of these massive green contracts that government just doles out holds them to the same standard. But it has to be an independent bureau and you have to believe in it.

And I can't just impose a tax on corporations that are already suffering in their competitive ability. And here's what I know we haven't got a lot of time, but I'd rather see us focused on how many jobs in Canada is this product represent? How many people in Canada are working based on the product you're about to buy? buy. I'd rather signal that in our economy right now and saying this is how you support Canada versus focusing simply on the environment. Okay, last question. We only have about a minute left. But Air Canada coming together with Tilly, the Tilly Hat Company, two Canadian brands collaborating on a limited edition Canadian-made bucket list hat. The design features 90 Air Canada roots under the brim, aiming to inspire

the enduring spirit of travel. Is this going to move the needle for either one of the brands? It's Joe Mimran at his best who created Club Monaco and many other products. He bought Tilly and he's doing this and what a great way for an adventure. It's a great, just puts Tilly front center. I didn't know Tilly still existed. Now I'm thinking about it. It's collectible. Our Canada is going to put their muscle behind it and their wings behind it.

So I think it's a smart, creative move for a company. It wouldn't have a lot of marketing dollars. But guess what? You're talking about him. Yeah, well, he's the most, yeah, he is the one most stylish men I've ever met. And one of the most brilliant marketers and branders. So I'm going to go look at the. this, because now I didn't know Joe bought Tilly.

And he also bought Mastermind Toys. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I know. And now they got fashion in there for kids. If you go in there, it's beautiful fashion for kids. This guy is a genius. Interesting. Oh, fantastic. All right. Well, thank you very much for that, my friend. Always a pleasure. All right. Don't go anywhere. When we come back, worried about the price of food, then you should be worried about

family farms, which are in danger of disappearing. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney show. The holiday season is full of choices. sauce or gravy, skip rent or skip Christmas. I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Murray of the Salvation Army. When poverty gives someone an impossible choice, your donation is their answer.

Donate now at Salvationarmy.ca. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear-off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. business so join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardin today we'd love to talk business welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show in a speech that

I gave in Saskatchewan last a couple of weeks ago I highlighted that if if you have heard this show before you know how much respect I pay to the entrepreneurial class and there is no group of people that embody the entrepreneurial class more than farmers across this country. They bet on themselves. They help build community. They're early adopters of technology. We depend on them for so much more than simply the product that they give us. The knock-on effects are what help build this country.

And if I told you now that thousands of family farms are at risk every year and nearly 3,000 family farms disappear every year, threatening generation. of family agriculture in Canada. Time to ring the alarm, sound the alarm on that. The reason why that's happening is why we're having this conversation with Darren Shrosbury.

He's a family farmer and the founder of 337. Darren, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much, Ben. Thanks for having me on. So tell us why are so many family farms at risk?

To what do you attribute that? So, yeah, Ben, it's a series of factors. But obviously, with farmland value increasing precipitously, it's been a bit of a double-edged sword. It's really good that farmland values have increased, but it's also really tricky because now it's difficult for people to inherit farms that aren't part of either a son or a daughter. So if you're a son or a daughter, you get a tax deferral in that you can roll the family farm from generation one to the next generation on a tax deferred basis, which means if you have a son or daughter, they can directly. take over the farm with no problem. However, as you know, back in the day, farmers had many more children, maybe five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten kids. These days, they have very few. So there's a lot

less actual physical human beings out in the countryside wanting to farm. Now, what's happened is a lot of folks don't want a farm. So they, now the farm is sitting in limbo saying, okay, well, if my son and daughter don't want to farm, what happens to the farm? Well, what happens if my niece and nephew want to farm, but the nieces and nephews can't get that same tax deferral on the rollover. So it's so easy. Section 73.3.3 of the farm of the Tax Act states that tax free deferral goes to son and daughter. What happens if we could add nieces and nephews that have probably been working on the farm and want to farm and continue? Can we add them? Just add two more words into the TAC Act. Wow.

Section 73.3. And that's interesting. You vitalize. Yeah. Yeah. It's a low-hanging fruit. Yeah. It's still the family tree. It's still family. It's still blood. None of that changes. And yet, this is a great example of our laws not keeping up with the realities that they

are expected to support. Tell me a bit about your farm, Darren. What have you been farming? Right. I'm just north of Mount Forest, which is just north of Guelph. And I'm a vegetable farmer. So I farm vegetables predominantly for restaurant consumption and some local community-supported agriculture as well. So anywhere from, you know, asparagus to garlic to butternut, squash, watermelon, and all that good stuff. So I have 103 acres, and we have glass, which is obviously greenhouses.

We have raised beds and in broad field as well. And how many kids, if I can ask, Darren, how many kids do you have? yeah i have one son and who's hopefully going to be very active in farming soon wow and how old is he he's 11 he's 11 and i have to assume at 11 he knows what the family does he i'm sure he's gone out into the fields with you before he's with me at 530 every single morning and he's not bad on the tractor i probably shouldn't say that on this that's awesome well that's private property i think you're okay um that's that's fantastic uh but yeah i I'm, and the numbers are staggering, Darren, the fact that nearly 3,000 farms disappear every year.

So we've already lost a lot of, who buys them? What happens those family farms? Yeah, so they get amalgamated into larger farms. Some of them are family farms. Some of them are corporately owned. And then obviously there's, you know, there's a lot of foreign folks that are knocking on the door trying to get into the Canadian farm agricultural space, which, you know, as political climate's changed, it becomes a bit more tricky. So trying to protect the rural family, trying to protect the rural economy and society,

because I'm sure, Ben, as you drive through the country, you drive through a village, and there's no people there. It's like it's a dead village. Everything's boarded up and stuff. Yeah. It's terribly sad, and it's avoidable. Because if we had lots of smaller farms, you'd have food security, you'd have more variety, and you'd have more folks that have worked the land for generations that can stay on the land,

and stay in the communities and keep our rural communities vibrant. Well, that's the thing. They don't think wrong with large farms. The village is not the large farmer. Large farms have a place in our society, for sure. We just want to try and focus on keeping these towns alive and keeping these communities alive

because that's what built Canada. That's what supports us. That's what feeds us every single day. And as we go down the road, having food security, being able to be food self-sufficient as a country, in my opinion is extremely important. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing.

A lot of us, we don't see where the food is made, so we don't question it, right? We just, and so long as the food gets to our grocery store, nobody's asking the question, was this a corporately owned massive mega farm, was this a small mom and pop farm? And so they don't necessarily really care, but the, you know, the impacts are felt in the communities themselves. I mean, if those families are gone, then they have not necessarily any reason to stay in that town and then the town is put in danger. You know, you, you seem to know a lot about the legal lay of the land for these, for these

farms. Is that succession rule the only problem facing farms from a legal standpoint? Well, that's probably a longer conversation. Well, let me put it this way. Let me put this way. Let's say you had the ear of the entire federal government and yet a day where you could Or, you know, you had, well, how many minutes? We've got three and a half more minutes on this segment.

So you have two and a half minutes with them. And you've already explained the succession rule to them. What else would you tell the government that family farms need to make their lives easier so that they can then pass their farm over to whomever they need to? Yeah, for sure. So we've discussed the rollover to the nieces and nephews and making that possible. Obviously, that's a low-hanging fruit. That's a win-win on both sides of the aisle.

in that there's no downside for anyone, because everyone wins. It depends if you're blue or red, it's okay. So the other dispensations would be, yes, if there's more focus on building the ability for farmers to get more capital at perhaps a cheaper rate. So being able to increase the velocity of money in the agricultural sector, which would enable people to replace equipment faster. We were able, enable people to tile the land, tile and drainage, like drain your land or to irrigate their land.

If there were programs that the government could just, farmers, you're an entrepreneur, we're all entrepreneurs on this call. Farmers aren't looking for handouts. They're looking for mechanisms to help them build their farms and build a community. And yeah. And anything to the government. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. What I try to let people know is, look, as if you look at farmers as entrepreneurs, they're goods.

The better their goods, the better people get fed. It's a direct line, right? We're not looking to, you know, that we have some food that's designed for export, but that's still feeding people. It's not the same as a startup that wants to get some capital so that they can build an app that would, I don't know, that we heard some stories about an app that'll let you know if you're underwater or not. This is not something that necessarily helps anybody, but the work that you do on your farm directly impacts the lives in a beneficial way here in Canada,

which means the rules should be a little more, they should be different. They should be unique for farmers. Yes, absolutely, yes. Like I said, no one's looking for a handout. We're just looking for tools that can help us increase the productivity of our land that is being our family and our families for generation. And if we could get to bend the ear of someone in the right spots, that's what the message is across the board.

whether you're in Saskatchew, Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, it doesn't matter. Everyone is looking for the same thing. How can we make farming more productive and more profitable for the next generation so that we can continue to fill the grocery stores? Well, Darren Troshbury, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for all you do. And anytime we can highlight the good worker farmers, we're going to do that here on the Ben Mulroney show.

Thank you, Ben. Great to chat. Have a great day. I want to stamp myself one of the best players to ever play this game. Wednesdays on Global. That's how you're doing. This is their moment. The lying. The backstabbing.

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