The Ben Mulroney Show - Will Iran conflict impact FIFA and F1? And why you should consider learning about shingles

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

GUEST:  Dr. Jeremy Gilbert is an Endocrinologist at Sunnybrook Hospital Guest: Dimitri  Soudas, Former Director of Communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper  Guest: Max Fawcett, Lead Columnist for Canada's National Observer -  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

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Hey, everybody, it's Ben Mulroney. This is what we're looking into on today's podcast. We all know what's happening in the skies above Iran, but there is a knock-on effect in sports. For example, the FIFA World Cup and F1, both are going to be tremendously impacted. by what's going on in Iran. Also, shingles. It's something that affects a lot of people over 50. I got it when I was about 45. It is not fun. There's new knowledge, there's new advances,

what you need to know to protect yourself against the virus. And of course, our political panel was tremendous. We looked into the bias in media as it relates to this battle in Iran. And somehow, in some way, it's also infected the NDP leadership ranks. So let's get right into it. This is the Ben Mulroney Show podcast. The stakes in Iran could not be higher. The future of 90 million people who have been living under repression for 47 years,

their freedom is at stake. The stability of the region and indeed the world, it hangs in the balance of getting this right. So there's a lot to take seriously. And I promise you we will endeavor to do that. And to show this conflict the respect that it deserves. and to approach it with as judiciously as we possibly can. That doesn't mean you can't laugh every now and then.

And as a matter of fact, it's probably incumbent upon us to laugh once in a while to cleanse the palate, if you will. And Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, and the star of Curbier Enthusiasm, the curmudgeon who would focus on the smallest, smallest little thing, and it would blow up in his face. A little while ago on his show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, found himself in a little bit of a pickle with the Islamic regime in Iran. And maybe today, he might be breathing a sigh of relief. Today, the Ayatollah Abdullah Kazimani of Iran has accused Larry David of blasphemy, issuing an actual Fatwa and calling for the death of the comedian.

Here's what the Ayatollah had to say. Masalan, honoremane by his name Larry David, she'll be surest in this barraming of Sanfield. What the fuck? What the fuck is right? No one would dare insult the secret beliefs of Muslims, nor disparage our honor. I didn't disparage.

That was no, disparage. You did disparage. No, no, I did disparage. I begged you not to imitate the Ayatollah. No, you did. Well, so perhaps, perhaps that, that fatwa, for lack of a better expression, has been lifted today. We'll have to see anyway.

Or Larry David, maybe you can sleep easy. The knock-on effects of this conflict won't just be felt in the theater of war and at the UN and amongst the diaspora in their lives and their worry for their family. But the FIFA soccer matches in North America are sort of up in the air as well. You'll remember a few months ago, we talked about the pride game, FIFA's pride game, to be played in Seattle. And because of how the, I guess the lottery went in terms of which teams would line up against which teams on which days and which cities. Because of the luck of the draw, quite literally the luck of the draw, Iran was supposed to play against Egypt in the quote unquote pride game, celebrating the LGBTQ community in that city.

And obviously both of those countries took umbrage to the situation. But that was the last we'd heard about it until today, where now Iran is saying that they are unlikely to even take part in the FIFA World Cup. And that makes perfect sense. I can't imagine that anyone is kicking around a soccer ball these days when they're worried that a missile might. blow up the building next door to the pitch. So, and I don't even know what would happen, intrepid producer Mike Droulet.

If Iran pulls out entirely, would Egypt get a buy in that match? Or do they have to rejig the entire schedule? I'm curious. Maybe what they'll do is they'll take the person who finished next in line, who was eliminated, whatever country that was, and they'll have to jump in. I mean, who knows who would, I have no idea who would be.

This is the state of play today, but what happens if through an incredible show of force by the United States and Israel, maybe the IRGC waves the white flag in a week? I don't know. I suspect not. But if they did, could a new government come into place and present a new fief a team to the FIFA World Cup? I don't know. Well, we don't have a lot of time to figure it out because the FIFA World Cup starts mid-June. Yeah. Oh, I know. Oh, yeah. I know. This is very, very interesting stuff. And look, it's not the only sporting event that could see some issues. F-1 has races. The Formula One has races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia next month. And F1 and its teams typically start to fly its staff as well as its freight into those countries weeks in advance. And given the fact that we've seen. airports closed down and missiles rained down on Saudi Arabia and Bahrain and Qatar. Like, I don't know what's going to happen.

Are they going to have to postpone them? Are they going to have to move them to another city? Who knows? Who knows? Now, as a reminder, Canada has, we've identified about 20 former Iranian officials, members of the IRGC, which is a listed terrorist organization, according to the, Canadian government. You'll remember that the conservatives worked very hard to drag the Trudeau Liberals into a world where they finally ascribed the terrorist moniker to the IRGC a few years ago.

So we know these guys are living here. And that's based on immigration investigations reported last year. And that figure comes from a global news reporting that noted 20 senior Iranian officials have now been found living in Canada. And yesterday there was a story of of a boxing gym in just north of Toronto that had the pre-Islamic revolution flag in the window. And it was a place where members of the diaspora would get together for meetings. And all of a sudden, somebody rained bullets through the windows of that gym. The police are not saying whether it was politically motivated, but given the context and the timing,

is it possible that these guys or one of these guys or a group of these guys took issue with this anti-Iranian regime group of members of the diaspora and shot them up? I think it's fair to hypothesize. And so when you look at it that way, do we have active terrorist cells?

Sleeper cells. Sleeper cells operating in, Canada. I think it's a fair question to ask. They entered Canada years ago, if you're asking yourself, how the heck did the IRGC enter Canada, often through immigration pathways? And we as a country didn't screen for past IRGC service. Let's go to this CIS clip. Yeah. Dan Rogers. This is from November this past year. Speaking about the dangers that are out there, and it really puts it into perspective because it's real. Yeah. So this is from November of 2025.

This is Dan Rogers from CIS talking about Iranian officials in Canada. Particularly in alarming cases over the last year, we've had to reprioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime. In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating, and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada. I mean, I don't know how many times I can say this, but I'm going to repeat it every single time it's germane to the conversation.

We as a country do not take seriously the things that must be taken seriously. And having 20 members of a terrorist organization just live in their life in Canada, who have been indoctrinated, who are ideologically focused on the love of their regime. And they're living here in Canada. and we have no way of finding them or kicking them out. And no, the ones that we know are here, guess what they're doing? They're using the system. Yeah, they're using the system.

We have to start taking things seriously that deserve to be taken seriously. And the protection of civilian life and the rights of all Canadians, including members of the Iranian diaspora, that stand firmly against this regime, they deserve to feel. safe in their homes and where they live and where they work. And because we've let these guys in, God knows, I mean, have they been organizing? Have they been recruiting? I don't know. You don't know.

And you know who else doesn't know? The Canadian government doesn't know. Come on, guys. It either matters or it doesn't. Let's start acting like it matters. All right, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're going to have a conversation about shingles. We hear about it all the time.

But what is it? How can you screen against it? How can you protect yourself against it? That's coming up next on the Ben Mulroney show. A few years ago, I was down in Florida and near the end of my vacation, I started feeling what felt like insect bites inside my ear, inside my hair. And over the course of a day or two, those what I thought were bites were multiplying and they were presenting in a direct line angled from above my ear down my cheek to about the middle of my cheek. And then I thought, maybe these are spider bites or something. I don't know.

And I started getting lethargic and my bones started hurting. And my mom said, that doesn't look normal. And so my wife and I went to the doctor. And the doctor did it, ran some tests. And then he told us, he said, well, we figured out what you got. And I said, what is it? He said, you've got herpes zoster. Now, when you're sitting in a room and you're with your wife and she hears that you got herpes,

I begged. I said, doctor, please tell me what that means. He goes, oh, you got shingles. I said, could you please lead with that next time? Anyway, I had to extend my trip. I couldn't travel for a few days. And I learned a little bit about shingles along the way. And it was not as bad as it could have been.

But there is new research into shingles. And so to discuss the risk and the impact of shingles on those living with it, were joined now by Dr. Jeremy Gilbert, who's an endocrinologist at Sunnybrook Hospital. Doctor, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Ben. That was a great story. You had me, like, chuckling. off to the side.

And it's an honor to be on part on your show. Oh, thank you. You know, he really, he should have known his audience. Like, just say I had shingles because I didn't know what he was talking about. But yeah, why don't you tell our audience what shingles is? I think we've seen a lot of ads on TV for vaccines and that sort of thing, but people don't necessarily know what it is. Yeah, sure.

So basically it's a type of virus. So the name of the virus is called Veracella, which most people know of because it's the same virus that gives us. chicken pox. And in French, chickenpox is varicel. Okay. Perfect. So, so that, that virus, the varicel exhaust or v. ZV, that virus is what gives people chickenpox. And then when people get older, they can have it reactivate in their body, and that presents as shingles.

Okay. And he can be, listen, I got it. It was quite painful. what my doctor said is like, hey, you caught it pretty early. And if you catch it early, then you'll get rid of it quickly. If you let it linger and fester, then it takes longer for it to leave your body. Is that accurate? Yeah, I mean, some way. I mean, the idea now is that we want to prevent this from happening in the first and not have people. Because you're right, some people might present later, might present earlier,

and people could have different courses. is the most, you know, kind of the worst thing that I've seen from this, and there are a variety of complications, but, you know, about 40% of people can get what's called post-herpetic neuralgia, which is basically that area that got affected by the rash that you were describing, that area could become extremely painful, like rip-roaring pain, and that can last months and even years. Like it's debilitating pain, like you can't work, can't function,

and so that's bad. It can also affect it, depending on which part of the body it hits, like it can affect the eye and other parts, which would be pretty bad too. So if we subscribe to the belief that know thy enemy, right? And if shingles is the enemy, what do we know about it today that we didn't know in the past that could then allow us to either treat it better or make sure people don't get it in the first place? Yeah. So a few things.

One is that we know that people are more likely to get it when they're, immunity is low. Yeah. And we know that as people age, their immunity goes low. And the newest latest research is showing that when people have certain chronic disease states, that that can predispose to Zoster or to shingles. And in fact, the shingles can make those chronic disease states worse. And some examples of chronic diseases that you might think about could be like diabetes,

which is probably why I'm here. and then other conditions like underlying heart disease or COPD or kidney disease, all those chronic conditions makes one more susceptible to getting shingles. Now, I've seen a lot of ads on TV for the vaccine. I think it's called shingricks or something like that. Right. And apparently it's quite effective, like 90%. And yet only 50% of people in Ontario over 50 are vaccinated against it.

It would seem to me like, what's the rate of outbreak? How many people typically in a year get, or as a percentage of the population, would get shingles? So about one in every three people will get shingles in their lifetime. Oh, so wait, one in three people. One in three. Okay, that's a lot. That's a lot more than I thought. So it feels to me, Doc, then, given that number, I just assumed it would be much lower than that.

But if it's 33% of the population, it would feel to me that, that, that, The government should, I mean, I don't think we want to mandate vaccines in this day and age quite as quickly as we might have in the past. But it feels to me like we might want to suggest very heavily to people to get this vaccine because the preventative costs, preventative savings rather, would be tremendous to the health care system. Totally. Well said. Because not only is it debilitating and affects people's productivity, but it can actually even, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke getting shingles. So if you think about the cost of having a heart attack or stroke on the hospital and the health care system, that just expounds it. But you're totally right. It's extremely common.

Certainly as one ages, it's more common and with those chronic disease dates. And there are, like a lot of the provinces do do have public funding for it if you're over a certain age, like your age is over 65. there's also private drug plans that will cover the cost of it. And to be honest, I think it's money well spent because getting shingles is miserable. And it is preventable. It's like one of those things where there's actually something you can do about it. I know, like you kind of were mentioning before, about vaccines and like mandating and all that.

And there's like a lot of that stigma. But when you're talking about like a shingles vaccine, this is a very user-friendly, safe, well-tolerated. that can really make a big difference for a person. Now, if you've had shingles, as I've had shingles, am I immune? Do I need to get that vaccine? I'm turning 50 next week. Aha, young man. So the answer is that you may not be immune just because you had it once.

And so it still may be worthwhile talking to your health care provider about getting a shingles vaccine yet again if you haven't had a vaccine before. just having had it is not sufficient to prevent it in the future. And what happens, like, as I said, I found out, I went to the doctor pretty quick because it started popping up pretty quickly on my face. And so I was able to deal with it very quickly. But in worst case scenarios, if people have it and they don't do anything about it, you're saying that their immune system could weaken to the point that they could get all sorts of other negative knock-on effects?

Yeah, I mean, the fact is that basically having, what we've seen in multiple data sets is that having disaster infection can then predispose, because it's kind of like an inflammation in the body, can predispose you to other significant consequences. So the longer you don't address it, that's a problem. But I think the nuance point is, as we were saying before, not waiting for it to come and then trying to get to health care

provider trying to get treatment, which may or may not be overly effective, but rather ideally prevented from having in the first place that proactive approach. And before we end, why don't you, what we end on what people should be looking out for? What are some of the precursors that could suggest, oh my gosh, I'm in the early days of a shingles outbreak? Yeah. So I like how you described. I think being in Florida and thinking about bug bites, like I get it, you know.

So they might, it could present as a rash. It can present like almost like a blisters, like painful blisters. It can be anywhere, typically chest, abdomen, face. The pain varies in how it presents. So if you kind of are starting to have some pain over a rash, an ache, a burn, a stabbing like, shocklike, those are kind of the things. Okay. But you definitely want to seek medical attention if you have that. And I think also just like raising this awareness amongst health care providers that treat chronic states as well as for people in the community that they should be speaking to their health provider proactively about this.

Okay, doctor, in about 20 seconds, I need to answer two questions because people who are texting in. We want to know how long does the vaccine last for and how much does it cost? Yeah, so the cost, it varies from place to place and province to province. and how long does it last for us? So we have data going out for many, many years, so it is effective for a very long time once you get it. Doctor, thank you very much. Dr. Jeremy Gilbert from Sunnybrook Hospital.

Thank you very much. Have a good day. Thank you. After the weekend we had, I can't imagine two better people to break it all down. I've got Demetri Soutis and Max Fawcett joining us for this week in politics, the Monday edition. Well, after the weekend of news, I was following it as closely as I've followed anything over the past few years. Very glad to have our next two guests join us to make sense of it,

debate some points, and see if we can come to a better understanding as to what we're dealing with. Please welcome to the show. Dimitris Sudis, former director of communications for Stephen Harper and Max Fawcett, lead columnist for Canada's National Observer. Gentlemen, welcome. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. Good to be here. Okay, I want to talk with you guys off the top about what we're seeing from certain

well-respected news outlets. As I've been saying all day, every word is a choice. Every picture that is put on a news feed is a choice not to use a different picture. And I'm struggling to understand how revered news outlets and newspapers that view themselves as the newspaper of record are making choices that clearly are designed to portray. what's going on in the Middle East in a very specific and I think highly politically charged way. And I'll give you an example

and I'm going to pass the microphone over to you. But for example, you've got the fact that six Arab nations join the United States in a joint statement condemning Iran's retaliatory strike. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. And yet, the Spectator Index, which has 3.1 million followers, chose the following to highlight.

Palestinian Authority condemns Iranian attacks on Arab countries. That's a choice, Dimitri. That's a choice. So what do you make of this? Well, first of all, let's let's properly define the current totalitarian regime in Iran. It's a place where women are arrested because a strand of hair is showing. Women are forcibly taken by the morality police. women cannot pass their citizenship onto their children the way that men can. Women whose testimony in court is worth less than a man's. Women who are disadvantaged by law in divorce or even child custody.

Women who must ask her husband's permission to travel, permission to speak, permission to stand. Women who are banned from stadiums and public events. And I can go on and on and on. Executions just in the moment. month of February, we're looking at possibly 30 to 40,000 Iranian people who have been executed by this regime. We're looking hundreds, if not millions of Iranians of the diaspora, supporting what is happening. Yet we see it in English. We see it in French as well. Yeah, headlines. La press was terrible.

La press, CCTV news, who's talking about, you know, who did Israel. kill, I'll tell you who Israel killed. Israel killed a man over the last 40 years has been oppressing his people more than any other regime on the planet. And I will only conclude by saying this, he can rot in hell. Yeah. Well, and Max, look, I fully expect that when you and I talk or when I read what you're right, I'll probably disagree with you, but I will absolutely respect, you know, the position that you take. What I'm witnessing here is, is almost like a concerted effort by by outlets that have a certain amount of baked in public trust, taking advantage of that public trust to create a reality that I don't recognize.

And to me, it's not a counterpoint. There's, it's a, I don't know what, I don't know what to make of it, but it makes me very uncomfortable. I mean, I think moments like this are always, um, opportunities to confirm your preexisting biases, whatever way they might flow. I don't think that's the way that news coverage should happen, but I think it does tend to be that way on both sides of this particular issue. I think Dimitri was right to really hone in on what the important part here of this is. This is a terrible regime in Iran.

I think that is sometimes lost in the West, certain parts of the West, certainly not in the Iranian diaspora, but in the broader community. just how bad this regime is, how hostile it was to its people. The concern that I have is less around the way the media in the West frames it and more around what happens over the next days and weeks in Iran. Are we going to get a quick resolution here? Are things going to get worse for the Iranian people? I think doing media coverage right now is tricky. I totally hear and I hear and validate your.

points. I think you could make similar ones for right leading outlets that are maybe going in the other direction. I think we need to just say focused on, you know, the facts on the ground and what is happening in Iran to the Iranian people. And look, I think it's incumbent upon journalists to challenge the Israeli leadership and the U.S. leadership to ensure that we know what's going on and that this doesn't turn into an entrenched forever war. I think those are important, those are important guardrails that the press could be, could be applying. But to, to eulogize the Ayatollah who suggested that women who are convicted of crimes, if they're virgins, they need to be raped so that you ensure that they don't go to heaven. I mean, this is, this is the

embodiment of Gilead. And to, to, to, to, uh, uh, uh, uh, eulogize his. him as a man with a warm smile who loved Western books like Les Miserables. I don't understand why the New York Times what they're doing there. And if we can pivot, because I want to make sure I get to this here, I'd love your take. Max will start with you on two of the NDP leadership contenders, probably the top two in Heather McPherson and Avi Lewis, who jumped on a missile strike that, that, that, saw a number of young school-aged girls killed, this was immediately ascribed to the United States and Israel.

Depending on who you believe online, the IRGC has either taken a credit for it or responsibility for it, rather, or the best you can say is, you know, it's controversial. We don't yet know. And for two leadership contenders to be that cavalier with something this important, I think demonstrates this party still isn't ready for

prime time. Couldn't agree more. You know, when I saw that, when I saw when I saw that come out, my first reaction was we need to wait and see not just what the Iranian state media is reporting, but what is confirmed independently by independent journalists because it's really easy to, like I said earlier, confirm your biases about who the bad guys and the good guys are here. That is not what leaders do. It is unfortunate that the federal NDP most clearly defines itself these days through its attitude towards Israel. I don't think that's a constructive outlet for a Canadian political party, especially one that is nominally focused on the needs of working people.

I think, and I've said this before on your show, they need to get back to addressing and identifying themselves with the material interests of Canadian working people, not international relations debates that tend to happen on post-secondary campuses. I don't think, and I think their lack of focus, on sort of meat and potatoes issues explains why they are where they are in the polls. Dimitri, over to you.

Not ready for primetime, Ben? They're not ready for House League. I'm trying to be kind. I'm trying to be kind. Well, you be kind. I won't. They're not ready for House League, for Bush League. They're not ready to run a lemonade stand,

a two-car funeral. These people should not be sitting in the Parliament of Canada. You know, these are the same people who right now are literally siding with a theocracy that has oppressed its people for the last 40 years. These are the same people that wave the flag of equality between man and women. These are the same people that lecture society as to what is right and what is wrong. But when it comes to actually put your money where your mouth is,

they literally hide behind, you know, international law, how can you even have a conversation of respecting international law because the United States and Israel chose to cut the head off this snake that has been poisoning one of the richest cultures in the history of mankind when that same regime had nothing to say. This is, you know, the Ayatollah is a man who was encouraging little boys to to grow up, become scientists, and when the time comes, they will become martyrs. Yep, yeah. Who says that to a child?

Who says that to a child? We got to close the book on Iran. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about this rapprochement between Canada and India and an announcement by the federal government that could rewrite property rights in all of Vancouver. Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulroney Show. All right, our prime minister made, I think, quite a splash and moved the,

the needle a little bit in his in his foray into India with trade deals being announced lots of deals being announced. He secured a $2.6 billion deal to supply Canadian uranium to India. I believe part of that deal was also the sale of some small modular reactors, which I'm sure the government of Ontario will be happy about. And as he said with this new partnership, we're going to get closer together. And so to me, that feels like a good thing. But perhaps lost in this, Max, is the elephant in the room, which is the fact that there was a reason why our relationship with India soured in the first place. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's lost. I think it's more that we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time here. And so, you know, the concerns about

Indian interference in our elections, in conservative leadership races, you know, apparently in the murder of a Canadian citizen, which I think the Globe and Mail reported new information about that yesterday. Those are still there. But, you know, I think we also have to be able to have a parallel process for human rights concerns, democratic concerns, and trade concerns. And I think the government is wisely sort of taking those things on their own tracks. You know, Canada last year, saw the highest level of foreign direct investment since 2007. And it certainly sounds like we're on track to have another good year this year with this deal with India. So I think these are all important steps forward that the public really wanted to see us make, which is not just showing quote unquote moral leadership in the world, but also economic leadership as well. I was going to follow up with a question, but I just saw Dimitri chuckling to himself. And so I'm just going to ask, I'm going to ask him, you know, what's so funny, Dimitri? Well, Max so eloquently introduced Indian interference into conservative leadership races,

as if interference does not occur in liberal leadership races or new democratic leadership races. But, you know, you are right to say, you are right. Well, I would beg to differ. I agree that it's the elephant in the room. And why is it the elephant in the room? Because officially, Ottawa, and specifically, Prime Minister's National Security Advisor, during a briefing with the Ottawa Press Gallery,

flat out said that interference activity has fully stopped, which we all know it's not true. And the Prime Minister today canceled his press conference, I only wish the press gallery would cut me so much flack. Mind joy, I never canceled press conferences on international trips because he didn't want on Indian soil to say what he should have said, which is we raised the issue and we received assurances. So there's been a big diplomatic foe pa in the prime minister's closest advisor on the issue

who basically said Indian interference no longer exists. Well, hold on a second. less than a year and a half ago, we literally expelled six, not one, six Indian diplomats. They sent out the Minister of Foreign Affairs to try and clean this up. But the reality is that Indian interference still continues to exist, and the Prime Minister will have to answer a very simple question. What assurances did he receive that it's actually going to stop? And not to say, the trip seems to be a success.

a new era, going up to doubling, basically doubling bilateral trade to 70 billion by 2030 is an achievement, but now we need to see it. We need for this actually needs to happen. Yeah. And look, you got to give credit where credits.

Dude, there was a moment in time where our relationships with the largest democracy in the world, the country with the largest, the second largest economy, and our closest neighbor were, were not in a good place. And the fact is it looks like two of those three relationships have improved. That's a net positive.

And if that's credit needs to be given to Prime Minister Carney for that, I have no problem heaping praise on him for that. But in our last few minutes, guys, I want to spend time on this resource deal between the federal government, the Muscoim Band, which, depending on who you talk to, could, has echoes of the Cowichin ruling in enrichment.

And I remember talking with Max about this, about the Cowichin ruling by the Supreme Court. And you definitely had a position that was sort of like, hey, turn down the temperature. It's not as bad as it looks. Tell me what your assessment is of this case. Yeah, it's basically the same. You know, the Muscrium have been advancing their economic interests,

their trade their deals with the federal and provincial government for as long as i've been alive it feels like uh you know i grew up i grew up playing golf on a public course that is now operated by the muskrium because it was always on their land this is this is not as exotic in british columbia and in vancouver as it probably seems in the rest of the country and it's certainly not as dangerous as certain commentators politicians want to make it out to be um there's no threat to the property rights of homeowners in vancouver just as there was no threat to the property rights of homeowners in vancouver just as there was no threat the property rights of people in Richmond. This is a negotiation between levels of government.

And this will continue going forward as indigenous communities there continue to assert their traditional property rights and their traditional rights. But they have no interest in upsetting the broader apple card here. They are major partners in the development of real estate in Vancouver. They are as wedded to the success of the economy in British Columbia as anybody else is.

possibly more. Max, sorry, not Max, Demetri, counterpoint perhaps? Yeah, I think there's a

transparency gap that basically what Canadians have seen so far on this is a press release level summary and I don't think

that's sufficient. If Canadians have unanswered questions, if they have concerns on how this actually affects

or not, property rights, there's no reason why Canadians should not see the full content of the agreements signed between the federal government and First Nations. And I got to wonder, Max, when I hear you say, turn down the temperature, my inclination is to believe you, right? I don't want things to reach a screeching, boiling point devoid of fact. But when you say nothing changed in a, in a media.

way after the Cowichin ruling, unless everything I read was false online there, I heard a great many stories of people not being able to renew their mortgages or companies that gave up investing until there was clarity on the fact. So I don't know if nothing has necessarily changed. Isn't uncertainty, isn't confusion, or as, as Dimitri said, with a transparency gap, if there's confusion as to what this actually means, that in and of itself is a problem, no? To some extent, sure, and the couch and decision, that's ultimately going to be settled in the Supreme Court. I think everyone's very clear about that, including the Premier. That's where we'll get the clarity.

The question is, who is amplifying that uncertainty? Who is weaponizing that uncertainty, perhaps to their own ends? You know, I have no doubt that businesses who are not deeply familiar with the legal framework and the legal history in British Columbia might be discouraged when they hear from, you know, someone online, some influencer that this invalidated property rights. You know, I think that is sort of a flaw in our information ecosystem right now. And a lot of this stuff is really hard to understand. It's complex legal jurisprudence. I think politicians have to do a better job of explaining it. I think Demetri is right. The government hasn't been. done the provincial government and the federal government have not done a good job of explaining this stuff to people, but it is incredibly complicated. And so, you know, maybe there are edge

cases where people have had to answer some questions from their banks or whatnot, but by and large, this will not impact people negatively so long as it isn't sort of turned into a political cudgel, weaponized and used to create a bad reputational risk for this part of British Columbia. All right, Max, Dimitri, thank you very much. Great to kick off the week with you, and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you, gentlemen. Thursdays on Global. I'm Madeline Matlock. She's the lawyer with a legendary name. Don't underestimate Miss Matlock. This woman's a sharp. You know it, baby. The one you can trust, even if she has to bend the rules. Things aren't always as black and white as they seem.

To crack a case. This is how I get things done. Emmy winning actress Kathy Bates is is Matlock. All new Thursdays at 9 Eastern on global. Stream on Stack TV.