The Ben Mulroney Show - Will the Gun ban actually accomplish anything?

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Guests and Topics on Today's Show -Feds say these banned firearms are for battlefields, and may go to Ukraine with Guest: Tony Bernardo, Executive Director of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association -Fifteen per cent of ER visits in Canada are not for emergencies with Guest: Dr. Brett Belchetz, ER Physician, CEO of getmaple.ca -Baseball re-inventing the wheel, and can the Jays land Juan Soto with Guest: Mike Wilner, Baseball Columnist, Host of the Deep Left Field Podcast  -We’re making holiday magic for our kids, but at what cost? with Guest: Erin Bury, Globe and Mail Parenting Columnist 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

Hey, it's Ben Mulroney. We had a packed show today, including the Liberals targeting guns again, baseball, trying to reinvent the wheel, and are we doing too much for our kids at Christmas? Enjoy. Off the top of the show, I sort of laid out the groundwork for this conversation we're about to have about additional banned firearms that the Liberal government has added to the banned list. They're doing this on the eve of the massacre at the École Polytechnique. I believe that is politicizing a terrible tragedy, pulling at people's heartstrings to get what they want in political terms. this is a ban for the sake of a ban and i i also said i don't have an affinity to any sort of gun but there are people for whom it is deeply intertwined with their culture with their traditions and so let's talk to one of those people right now tony bernardo the executive director of the canadian shooting sport association tony thank you for being with us

well thank you for having me on ben now i don't know if you heard what I said off the top, but if they want to ban guns for the sake of banning guns, just say so. But to suggest that this is a ban that makes our streets safer is a fallacy. It's totally a fallacy and to suggest that we're going to do something good with them, like give them to Ukraine. It's even more over the top. Ukraine wants cruise missiles. They don't want Canadian target rifles. So talk to me about there's 324 new firearm varieties that are now banned. What's now been caught in the dragnet? Well, just stuff. It's almost difficult to understand what their thought

processes are. But back in the day, they opened up a catalog and they banned everything that they looked in there that was black and ugly. Then four years ago, they revisited this. They added 1,500 makes and models of firearms to the black and ugly list, and they were supposed to come and collect them. They told us that we had to keep these firearms in our gun safe, stored in the same manner as they were before they were prohibited, that they would come collect them and actually pay us for them, give us compensation. Well, four years later, not one gun has been taken.

They have $75 million sunk into this program, and they can't even get them from the dealers and many tony i want to stop you for a sec so you're telling me that all of your members of the canadian shooting sports association all of the guns that they own some of which fall on the banned list they still own yeah and have since they were banned four years ago okay so so they've just added more guns to a list of banned guns that are banned but they haven't taken away that's right and there was no no money allocated for this second ban. So it leads me to believe they have no intention of actually doing anything with it at all. But now there's a low hanging fruit here and they really mess this up. OK, the firearms dealers association that was contracted to make the values of what each firearm was worth on the used market they did their their uh work they finished the contract the government

immediately canceled the contract and then started to really treat them quite badly in the media and privately. Now they have to go back to the same well, because there's another 324 makes and models of firearms. Now this could encompass thousands of guns, thousands of variants. We're not talking about 324 guns. These are makes and models. Imagine what the variants would be like if you had 324 makes and models of cars. But Tony, if you use the guns to go out and do skeet shooting or whatever it is, target practice, that are currently banned, are you running afoul of the law? Are you putting yourself in legal jeopardy?

Oh, big time. Big time. You are then in possession of a prohibited weapon in a place that it's not supposed to be. What are they expecting you to do if they're not creating an environment for a buyback? What are you supposed to do? You can open your gun safe and you can look at it. Once a year you can clean it, you know, but that's it. That's it.

And they've even done things like the amnesty. They have an amnesty in place so that if you are in possession of these firearms, you can't use them. But if you're in possession of the firearm, the amnesty covers you. You're allowed to have it. That amnesty expires two weeks after the next election. I mean, as somebody who runs an organization

that has been deeply affected by this, what are your members saying? How are they behaving differently now than they were before the ban? Well, they're furious because the ban is just ether. There's no substance to this. The people who had these firearms before

and still have them now are empirically not committing crimes with them. And yet every single night, the streets of Toronto and every other big city in Canada are being ravaged by hoodlums shooting up the place. And they're concentrating on target shooters. Well, that's what I want to talk to you about, Tony. Talk to me about the hoops that someone in Canada has to or had to go through in order to purchase one of these legal firearms and keep it in their home. What did you have to do before it became a banned gun? Well, the first thing you had to do was get a firearms license. And there's two courses to get your restricted and non-restricted

licenses. And they require a fair bit of time. Usually to get a firearms license is a process that lasts over six months. And then you get them and then you have to go purchase it and you have to display your license. And in the case of restricted firearms, these are recorded into a list that the government has. And then you have to store it in a manner specific to the law. And in the case of many of these firearms, that means in a locked safe. And when you take it out you can only

take it to a shooting range you can't take it out and go hunting with it although their their net is so wide on this one that many of the guns they did encompass are hunting firearms tony i gotta say i'm sitting here shaking my head i i did not know that none of the guns that had been banned were bought back. I assumed something had been done. So have you talked to the government? Have you been having conversations with them? What are they telling you as to why this thing is stuck? Yeah, you just talk to the wall.

They say, oh oh any day now but the dealers the the firearms dealers are sitting there on some of them have like millions of dollars in inventory in prohibited firearms they can't sell they can't do anything with them and they're paying outrageous amounts of insurance because they're all prohibited firearms. What's the difference in insurance now that it's prohibited versus what it was when it was legal? Oh, it's considerable. It's three or four times that. Wow.

And so the dealers are sitting on this. They would be quite happy to have the federal government buy their four-year-old stale inventory that they're paying a fortune for. They're happy to do it. And the government hasn't been able to even figure out that. So before they've even collected any of the guns they originally banned, they're throwing more on the list that they will not be collecting, making it harder for legal gun owners to do anything with the property they originally banned. They're throwing more on the list that they will not be collecting, making it harder for legal gun owners to do anything with the property that they own.

Right, and you can't sell it. You can't buy it. You can't take it out of your home. There's nothing you can do with it. Everything is prohibited. And the fact that it's, every time it feels, every time they want to ban a gun, they bring up the spirit of the massacre at the École Polytechnique.

Yes, they do. And while that's a terrible tragedy, it's also a 35-year-old tragedy. Tony, I want to thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you very much, Ben. 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. Want to help support students and teachers? Visit nomore.ca. That's K-N-O-W-M-O-R-E dot C-A. A message from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. Years after my father left office, I was having a conversation with him. And one of the topics we were talking about is, did you do everything in office that you set out to do? Was there anything that was left on the table and he said you know what i did everything i on the big stuff i did everything

that i wanted to do but there was one thing i never got to do that i thought could have been a net benefit to the country and i said what was it he said i wanted to send an invoice to every canadian at the end of the, letting them know how much they had billed to the healthcare system. And it would have been just an invoice just to let them know how much they cost the system because he felt the studies were telling him that people were going in for because they had the sniffles or they were lonely or they had a headache, all things that don't necessarily have to go to the emergency room. And and look, it was a different time.

The health care system had its challenges back then, not the challenges we have today. But this this topic reminded me of that conversation with my dad, because one in seven emergency room visits across Canada are for issues that could have been dealt with elsewhere. That's according to a new report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Why is that happening? Well, I do not have the answers, but maybe our next guest does. Dr. Brett Belchats, ER physician and CEO of GetMaple.ca. Doctor, thank you for being here.

My pleasure. Good morning and thank you for having me. So, Doc, you're an ER doctor. Are you seeing these facts play out in your ER? Are people there for all the wrong reasons? Oh, I have seen this throughout my career. And, you know, this is not a new thing. And this report doesn't surprise me. I would say the only thing that does surprise me about this report is I would have expected the percentage of people coming into the emergency room without true emergencies to be much higher. There is a huge number of people I see anytime I work in a hospital setting, people who are coming in with really what we would

consider to be family practice type issues. And, you know, for the most part, there is this thought that it's abuse of the system. You know, I would argue that really this is due to the fact that people just don't have many other options the way our health care system is working right now. Well, that's right. We hear there's a dearth of family doctors out there. So where are you supposed to go? What would you recommend to somebody who's listening right now saying, I know I go to the emergency room when I'm not supposed to, but I don't have a family doctor? Well, unfortunately, there aren't a ton of options. And across Canada, the reality is that there are nearly 7 million people without family doctors. So this is a huge percentage of our population. And even those who do have family doctors are not immune to this. So

if you look at the data, there was a study from the Canadian Medical Association last year that showed only 26% of those people with a family physician are able to get an appointment either the same day or next day when they have symptoms. So you can imagine, you know, you've got a UTI, you've got a rash, you know, what are you supposed to do? So, you know, I think you look into other things, you know, virtual care, which is obviously something I'm active with, is always a good alternative. In some provinces, the provinces have instituted really interesting programs to connect people with care. So in the Maritimes, a number of the governments have actually stood up things that they call virtual primary care programs for people who don't have family doctors.

So, you know, before running to the emergency room, before getting in that awful waiting room and waiting that extraordinary wait time that you're going to see there, really do spend your time researching the other options that might be available in your area. Doctor, what recourse do the emergency rooms themselves have? If someone presents at the emergency room and you can tell that they are not presenting with an emergency room issue, what are your options? Unfortunately, not very many. We do have a duty to treat when somebody comes into any healthcare setting. Even with the sniffles? Even with the sniffles. And the reality is, there's not much treatment you're going to provide to somebody who has the sniffles. We have to assess them. We have to see them.

How quickly we see them is a different matter. So when you come into the hospital, every single time you arrive, you are going to be triaged by a triage nurse. And they're going to say, how urgent is it that you get seen? And they're going to put you into the queue not based on when you arrive, but based on the urgency of what you're presenting issue is. So there is a really good chance if you come in on a very busy day and you arrive with the sniffles, you are going to be last in line because almost everything else there is more important. So, you know, that is really the only recourse that we have in a hospital setting is to push people further back in line when their need really isn't an appropriate emergency. But honestly, I think the recourse here is more at a system level. It's not really us in the emergency rooms telling people not to come in.

It is the system having to do a better job providing people with other options. There's, you know, at 2 in the morning, there's really nowhere else to get care in our system, and that's not the case in other countries. But, Doctor, when I hear that 15% of what happens in an emergency room shouldn't happen in an emergency room, what I'm actually hearing is you guys are doing 15% more work than you should be doing. And you're already, the level of burnout for doctors and hospitals is already staggeringly high.

And to me, this is an issue that needs to be addressed. You're absolutely right. And actually, I'm not surprised the number is 15%, because when you look at what percentage of Canadians don't have a family doctor, it's about 15% of Canadians that don't have a family doctor. So there's a really clear driver of this issue, and what it points to is that the places that our health care systems are investing dollars are all the wrong places.

The cost of an emergency room visit to our system, there's been lots of study on this, but it typically sits at around $300 per emergency room visit to our system. There's been lots of study on this, but it typically sits at around $300 per emergency room visit. The cost to our system of a family practice or a walk-in clinic visit is about $40. So you're looking at something that is almost 10 times as expensive. And instead of investing in all the right things in the community, that would be one-tenth the expense to keep people out of the hospitals. We're just not doing it. Yeah, doctor, I've been saying it for a very long time that never in the history of this country have we spent more money in terms of raw dollars but also in

terms of like per capita on health care and never have our outcomes been worse so the absolutely we need to make sure that it's properly funded but where that funding goes is as important as important as as how much money goes into the system. A hundred percent. And there's this great fallacy that you keep hearing across Canada, that the result that healthcare is so poor, access is so poor right now in our country, is due to governments underfunding it. And that is just so far from the case.

If you look across the developed world, depending on how you measure it, we're often number one or number two in the developed world in terms of how much we spend on health care. We are right at the top, but yet our outcomes are the worst in the developed world. We have the worst wait times in the developed world. And so really, it is not about how much we spend, but it is all about how we spend it. Doctor, there's one other wrinkle I want to talk to you about, because we've been talking about how the consensus on immigration has been broken and the bargain that we struck years ago is all out of kilter

and there are more people here than we can handle. And we talk about it for housing and we talk about the affordability crisis. But it also must have impacts on the health care system. How much of the pressure in emergency rooms do you think is being felt by new Canadians or newcomers who just don't know where to go and they just see that there's a hospital, go there? Yeah, it's certainly a factor. And throughout my career, I think one of the more difficult things that we face is we will see people who are newly in the country who have not seen a doctor

almost the entirety of their lives in terms of where they came from. And so they're coming in. We don't have a health history. We don't know what their diagnoses are. They've generally never been treated for things like diabetes, high blood pressure, et cetera. And these are people who have multiple medical illnesses. They're very difficult to treat. They're very complex. They eat up a lot of time.

They eat up a lot of resources. And a lot of the time, these people will come in with what initially appears to be a simple complaint. And then when you start to dig in, there's just so much more wrong with them that is just never being discovered in terms of where they came from. And so this is really difficult. It's particularly compounded by the fact that many of the people that will come in in these circumstances are coming in without proper health coverage. They don't have private health coverage from when they land in Canada, and they have not yet qualified for public health coverage. So you do see a lot of individuals for whom the system is bearing the brunt. And as a physician, I can tell you, when I've worked on what we call a fee-for-service basis, you often come up across this phenomenon of treating patients who have newly arrived in the country, do not have government health coverage, and don't have private health coverage, and can't afford to pay physician fees.

And so as a physician, you work for free. So in many respects, this is just a big strain on the system. And it is something that we need to have better approaches for. Lastly, I only have about 30 seconds left. What did you think of my dad's idea of sending an invoice to every Canadian? I think it's actually a great idea. You know, I think people should know what they're doing and how they're using the system. And I think part of that idea would be even more effective if we gave people suggestions along with that invoice to say, this is how you could have saved the system some money because I think people just don't know. I just don't send it through Canada Post because it's not going to get there. Doctor, thank you very much.

Thank you for everything you do. Thank you for all your hard work. And thank you for joining us today with your insights. My pleasure. Have a wonderful day. I want you to imagine you're watching a basketball game, and the Bulls are down by two with five seconds left. Michael Jordan is in the game.

Who are they going to hand the ball to? They hand it to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan scores. They win. Ah, crowd goes wild. You're in a football game. And the New England Patriots have, they don't have a lot of time

left on the clock. They're down by five. You're going to, you're going to trust your best player to throw the football to win the game. And same thing in hockey.

The final play will be designed so that Wayne Gretzky shoots the puck and wins the game. Well, it looks like baseball is flirting with the idea of a rule change that could bring them in line with these other three sports. The Golden Bat Rule, which was floated by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.

It's a proposal which he floated during, and it would allow each team one chance per game to swap in its best hitter for an at-bat, even if it's not his turn. So, there, listen, it sounds cool because it's new, but is it a good

idea? Some people think it's the bastardization of the game to talk more about it. We're joined by Mike Wilner, Toronto star, baseball columnist and host of the deep left field podcast. Welcome to the show, Mike. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks a lot, Ben. Uh, appreciate you having me. So, uh, talk to me about this, this idea, cause it feels like it might be a stunt, but

it also might be cool. And is it really, I mean, baseball steeped in tradition and this is kind of new. So where do you land on this? Yeah, I don't know. You know what? I'm of two minds. You set it up really, really beautifully. I mean, that's the reason that they're talking about it. It has been, I don't know that there's been an idea that's been so universally rejected by fans and observers than this one. But it's true.

Like, when you have the biggest moment in a game in one of the other sports, like you said, in basketball, you're going to give the ball to Michael Jordan. You're not going to give the ball to the third guy off the bench just because it's his turn. Right. You know? Yeah. And that's the way that baseball has always worked. You wait your turn.

And it's the biggest moment of the game. And it's the seven hitter coming up. Well, it's the seven hitter coming up. and it's the seven-hitter coming up. Well, it's the seven-hitter coming up. And there are some great stories that come out of that. Sure, Kirk Gibson, for example. Right? We were talking about that all year because it harkened back. The Dodgers harkened back to that this year.

He wouldn't have been up there if that had been their choice. Well, but he was. Kirk Gibson was pinch-hitting at the time, right? So, I mean, they had the, it was the bottom of the order, and they had Gibson, who was their superstar, but it was because Gibson wasn't, was hurt and didn't start. Right. And they picked the biggest at bat for him.

So that's kind of, you know, what this is, right? It's kind of choosing your best hitter to have the biggest at bat, but not having the best hitter have to wait on the bench for the whole game. Some of the strategy of the game when a player is getting a day off or is a little compromised and you don't want to play the whole game, the word is, well, we can at least put them in if there's a huge point in the game, if there's a big at-bat. And that's what this does.

But you also get to have the player play the whole game. But it does destroy all the history of the game. And you're getting your best player an extra 150 at-bats a year in big spots. And what's that going to do to the record book? What's it going to do to baseball? But the same thing. You could argue the same thing about the designated hitter, though. I mean, that was supposed to, that was a big, big change as well.

And the American League is as strong as it's ever been. And everybody's, you know, the DH is universal now. And you could argue the same thing about the pitch clock and about the bigger basis and about all these other things that people really didn't like the idea of. And I think that's why they're talking about this because a couple of years ago, they made all those changes and they put in the three batter rule for

relievers and they put in the pitch clock and they put in the three batter rule for relievers. And they put in the pitch clock. And they put in the bigger bases. And at the time, most people's reaction, or certainly traditionalists' reaction, was this is terrible. It's going to ruin the game. Really, now we all love it. Because they were great ideas. And this will, if this happens, of course there will be some great moments. Well, the moments that we don't get anymore, we won't know about because they won't exist. It'll be a different type of moment.

But I do want to pivot to a different conversation because the Juan Soto sweepstakes are on. A $700 million price tag is being bantied about. The Blue Jays say that they are still in these sweepstakes. What say you? Well, the Blue Jays are being really coy. They haven't actually said whether they are or not. We're just assuming that they are because all the leaks are suggesting that they're one of the teams that's still in it, along with the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox. The Dodgers kind of maybe pulling back a little bit. I don't think

they'll wind up signing him, but I do think they're certainly in there punching. But they're playing their cards close to their vest because of what happened with Otani, right? No, but that's because this is what they always do. They never say, you know, and when we spoke to Ross Atkins, there was a baseball writers meeting on Tuesday, and Ross Atkins was there for a few minutes.

And, you know, we asked him about, well, you're raising expectations again. Is this going to be Otani again? And are people going to wind up being disappointed? His answer was basically, well, you know, if that if that's what happens, that's what happens. But we're still going gonna try to do things i don't know how to how to make people you know how to keep expectations low when you're trying to do big things without anything that they were actually trying to do a big thing mike mike do agents use the blue jays as leverage to get their players more money with their preferred destination i think they used to i don't think they do anymore.

I think that the Blue Jays' interest in Soto is really serious, and I think that the Blue Jays will put up as much money as is necessary. I don't know if they'll go over and above to the extent that they probably need to go over and above to bring in a guy like that, but I do think five, 10 years ago, yeah, agents did used to use the Blue Jays as leverage. But they've shown they're swinging with the big boys. You know, they've signed some really, really big free agents

over the last five years. Mike, when the Raptors won the championship, it really felt like it was a win for the entire country. We have one basketball team, we've got one baseball team. And we're on the Chorus Radio Network from coast to coast. We're talking the entire country. Are the Blue Jays Canada's team

or do people in Vancouver gravitate more to the Mariners? I mean, I'm in Toronto so I, you know, and I'm not hosting a national radio show anymore like I did for 20 years

when I used to hear from people from coast to coast after every game, but I still think the Blue Jays are Canada's team. The people that I talk to, I certainly, you know, I know that so many people tell me that they used to listen to me on their tractors in Saskatchewan

after games all the time. I think there are a lot of Mariners fans in BC, but the Blue Jays have a farm team in Vancouver now, and that's helpful. I still think if you ask the majority of baseball fans in every province what their team was, it would be the Blue Jays. And all it takes is one magical run. Oh, I mean, they lit the country on fire in 2015. Yeah.

It was an incredible thing to see. And it doesn't even have to be that magical a run, especially now with everybody getting into the playoffs, you know, almost half the league. That was another thing that everybody couldn't stand. Right, right. And now it's, I don't know. I don't know if people love it or not, honestly. But if, you know, if you get in and you actually do something, right?

The Blue Jays have gotten in a bunch, but they haven't won a playoff game in eight years. If you get in and you actually do something, right? The Blue Jays have gotten in a bunch, but they haven't won a playoff game in eight years. If you get in and you actually do something, I think again, everyone will fall in love. Mike Willner, I want to thank you for joining us on the show, and I hope you come back to the Ben Mulroney Show soon. Anytime. Thanks for having me. The flip side of

the most wonderful time of the year where we're buying presents for our kids is eventually we got to pay off our credit cards. And maybe we're making too much holiday magic for our kids. And the cost is killing us. We're joined now by Erin Burry, Globe and Mail parenting columnist. Welcome to the show, Erin.

Thank you so much, Ben. Thanks for having me. So what's going on here? Is this like one of the trends, the helicopter parents, the parents who organize the play dates and they're out there with the kids at all of their after school functions? Is this an extension of that? We're just going farther than our parents ever did for Christmas? just the age that we live in. Our parents didn't have to contend with opening TikTok or social media channels and seeing not only what their friends and family were doing for home decorations and baked goods and hosting, but also what influencers, content creators, and random strangers on the internet are doing. So there's this sense of social pressure and comparison that I don't think existed as much when my mom was, you know, putting up pencil on the Christmas tree in the eighties. That's right. I mean, I've got friends who, uh, all of a sudden

I go to their house and they've got like three Christmas trees. It's like, well, why do you need three Christmas trees? And they're beautiful and I like it, but I want 23 and, but see, they don't even post on social media, but I wonder whether that is the effect of social media on them. Yeah. And it reminds me of this whole bachelorette party phenomenon where, you know, when I got married, it was just, let's go to a cottage and, you know, have some wine. And now you see these highly curated, you know, welcome bags and trips to Vegas. And it just seems like it's really become this thing. And I feel that way about Christmas where, you know, now it's not just about the intangible magic of the season, the Christmas carols, the time together as a family.

It's about how creative your elf on a shelf poses. And do you have a wrapping paper theme? And, you know, are you making all of these beautiful recipes that are photographed well that you can then post on social media? And I know the answer, many of the comments on my article were, well, just don't open social media. But I'll be honest, I'm a digital native. I live my life online. That's not a solution for many of us who live our lives on social media and who like seeing all of these things, but then inherently walk away from it thinking, oh my goodness, I must be a bad parent. I'm not doing Elf on the Shelf. Well, Erin, you bring up the point that I really want to get to. In this effort to curate the perfect Christmas existence, do we run the risk of forgetting the kids in all of it?

Well, absolutely. I mean, I know your kids are older. My kids are one and three. So, you know, the one-year-old doesn't really understand. The three-year-old is just starting to. And so the reason I was reflecting on this this year is I have an opportunity to set expectations. So part of my thinking around this is, especially for parents whose kids are younger, who don't have that built-in expectation, how are we more intentional about how we do things? And I suggested this framework of want, need, wear, read. Four presents for our kids, something that they really want, something they need, something that they can wear, like pajamas, something they read to set that expectation of books, but having it be four gifts instead of 20. I mean, but then the challenge is try telling the grandparents don't buy my kids anything that doesn't work. I'm sure you've tried that as well. Every time. Well, we have a pretty streamlined operation in our house. We tell our kids, find five things you want and you're going to get three of them. And so they

do their research and they know that everything they get is something that they want, and they're getting three presents and no more because we don't need anything more. And I'm lucky. I don't know how we did this, but our kids don't covet that which they don't have. Well, and that's part of this, right, is just also recognizing the privilege that comes with a lot of folks during the holidays. You know, I'm on the board at Save the Children Canada. I think a lot about kids here at home in Canada, but elsewhere around the world, who are spending their holiday in refugee camps

or who don't have the ability to get a gift under the tree. And how I can teach my children, even at age three, that it's a luxury and a privilege to be in a warm, safe house, opening a gift under the tree. And how we can, you know, to your point, make our kids happy for what they have instead of coveting what they don't. Actually, that lesson would do well for us as parents, too. Well, that's what I'm thinking here. I think the parents

during this conversation, it seems the parents have more to learn from the changing dynamics of Christmas than the kids. Absolutely. And I mean, if you look back on the holidays, when you were a kid, the things that I remember, I mean, there was one Christmas I did get a Game Boy. So that stands out in my memory. But by and large, the memories I have are about how I felt about being with my family, about singing Christmas carols and watching the same Christmas movies. And those are the things I still look forward to every year. I don't say, wow, I can't wait for Christmas because I'm going to get a gift from my mom. I think, wow, I can't wait for the lights and the feeling and the festive, you know, all of that stuff.

So I think it's a lot of the column was therapeutic for me just to say, hey, it's okay. Let's give ourselves permission to not be perfect. Let's give ourselves permission to focus on the things that our kids will actually remember and on making that magic instead of, you know, especially in this phase, right? Again, my kids are really young. I have my own business with my husband. I'm just trying to hold it together day to day. And then you add on the Christmas to-do list and it can feel a bit overwhelming. So I've kind of put the word out to my family. Like if this is the year you're expecting the most perfect, beautifully wrapped, thoughtful gifts and, you know, homemade recipes, that's not the phase of life I'm in. And I'm just setting that expectation. You're getting some store-bought gifts.

Yes. I don't even, I don't even need any gifts anymore. I don't, I, if I didn't get a single present at Christmas, it would not phase me. The one thing I do like doing is being in the kitchen and helping cook Christmas dinner. I love that part of it. Are you available from my house? Because I don't want to do that. I've actually gotten really good at deep frying a turkey. Oh, okay. There you go.

I like that as a suggestion. I think I could deep fry. Putting something in a vat of oil sounds doable. But it is this idea of, you know, the column is, I write a personal finance column. So, you know, the column talks about the mental load of Christmas, but it also just talks about some of these practical ways that we can save money. And, you know, part of that is giving ourselves permission and setting expectations around not buying 72 gifts. But, you know, I'm thinking about, I haven't started my Christmas shopping because of the aforementioned two kids and my own company,

not because I'm strategic, but December 14th, right? We have this GST break that's coming in on kids' toys. And so I think there are ways that we can save around the holidays, whether that's re-gifting. I mean, my daughter's birthday is November 3rd. I'm going to tell you this because she's never going to listen. I'm re-gifting some of her birthday gifts. She's not going to know the difference. She got way too much stuff on her birthday. She won't use it. Why the heck would I go out and spend more money? Erin, when I, before I had kids, I didn't understand why we, why people gave kids who couldn't remember presents presents. I always said, when I have kids, I'm going to give all my kids a cork on a fork. They can't hurt themselves. It bounces, it makes funny noises.

And then what I'll do is I'll take them to Toys R Us. We'll take pictures in front of the toys, and then they'll think they had those toys. I totally did an about face once I had the kids. But now I'm happy that they've become kids who don't want too much. They enjoy getting the two or three things that they really want. Well, I love that. I mean, even in our community, I live in Prince Edward County, a couple hours east of Toronto, and they have this amazing angel tree program where you can go take a, you know, a kid off the tree who has less than who you go shopping for. And so I've also started setting that tradition of, again, giving back and trying to remind them, much like your kids, you know, you don't need to focus on what you don't have because you have so much more than a lot of other kids out there. And so hopefully that's a tradition they will remember when they're older. And lastly, I'm so glad you wrote this because I bet you

there are a ton of people who read your article and didn't realize that they were in this self inflicted rat race. And once you know, there's an issue, then you can address the issue. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, I obviously have my column topics from my own personal experience, but this was something that I was just informally chatting about with girlfriends, you know, leading up to the holidays. And the number one emotion that people talked about was anxiety, anxiety that I have to add all of these things to my list. Even if I have a supportive spouse, you know, I still am the holder of the list in my mind,

the maker of the list, and just this anxiety that I'm not doing enough. I'm not making it magical enough. And so I think, again, the thesis of this article was let's give ourselves permission to understand that what makes holidays magical has nothing to do with the number of gifts under the tree. It has everything to do with how it feels,

and that costs nothing. Erin Burry, thank you so much. It's a great read, and really important for some people to sort of open their eyes and realize what Christmas is about. I appreciate it, and have a great weekend. Thanks, you too, Ben.

Yeah, that was Erin Burry. The article is called We're Making Holiday Magic for Our Kids, But At What Cost? Thanks for listening to the podcast. We hope you enjoyed it, and we hope you'll join us on Monday for another loaded edition of The Ben Mulroney Show.