The Ben Mulroney Show - Would capping grocery store profits help bring down the cost of food?

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

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Hey, it's Ben O'Hara BirdByrne filling in for Ben Mulrooney. We had so many great conversations on the show. Here are some of them. Well, good morning. Great to have you here. Welcome to listeners on CFPL in London, 640 in Toronto and across the radio, across the country. You're listening on the iHeart radio app, a convenient device to hear us anywhere, anytime.

My name is also Ben. It's not Ben Mulrooney. It's Ben O'Hara-Byrne. I'm the host of conversations. You can hear me evenings from 7 to 10 p.m. right here on the 640 in Toronto and CFPL in London. That's my normal shift. But I'm here today sitting in for Ben. And this is a circular moment for me. I'll tell you why. When you're turning on the radio and you expect to hear someone and you hear someone else, you're probably wondering, well, who is that person if you haven't heard their shows before? So we share a same first name, but I'll tell you a bit about myself. I spent two decades as a reporter in the field, first in Montreal and Toronto, then on Parliament Hill, which is why I really don't like any politicians, by the way, of any stripe, but we'll get into that as the show goes on. Then abroad, first in Beijing, where I covered all of Asia for

several years. Then I spent time in Afghanistan, time in London where I covered news stories from around the world. I've been to war zones, disaster zones, challenged the very powerful and tried to share the very personal stories of very ordinary folks caught up in some pretty horrific situations. And why this is a circular moment is many years ago in Beijing I sat down for the first time, not the last time, with the late great Brian Mulrooney. It may come as no surprise that he was a fantastic interview full of interesting stories and insights. And you basically sat there,

you did whatever you needed to do for about five minutes, and then you talked to him for another 25. But just as we began the interview, I was introduced to Mr. Mulrooney. He said, oh, my son's name is also Ben, a good name. And so here I am in Ben Mulroney's chair for a few days. And I was reminded of that little encounter and how circular life can be at times.

I've often wondered what the late Brian Mulroney would think of what's happening right now with negotiations or the threats from Donald Trump in his second term. Obviously, Brian played a big part of our negotiations in the first term, trying to keep that new NAFTA deal alive and well as we renegotiated. So it's with interest that 13 premiers are down there now, trying essentially to figure out what it is

that Donald Trump wants, how it is we can avoid these tariffs, and what we need to be saying and doing to get out from underneath them. It's not been an easy trip, obviously, for any of them, because they're trying to get attention at a time when there are a million other things going on in Washington, but it is a valuable trip, I think. It's the first time all 13 premiers have been

in Washington at the same time. Obviously, a lot of eyes on Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, for clear reasons. He's in the middle of an election campaign. His opponents are saying why is he there? Why is he able to use this platform, essentially this Captain Canada platform, while he's supposed to be worrying about what's happening on the ground in this election? Taking heat from the opposition essentially, Bonnie Crombie particularly was on 640 yesterday with Greg Brady talking about these very same issues. That being said, what Doug Ford has said is, listen,

what would happen if we weren't here? Canada's, you know, the province with Canada's biggest economy, if we were, there were 12 premieres down here, but not us, wouldn't it be glaring? Yes, indeed. So I agree with him in that point. And he's been making some interesting points while he's down there. The fact that he called an election right in the middle of this, right in the middle of this crisis, in the middle of this crisis as the threat of tariffs was hanging over Ontario, as these new tariffs on steel come in, which is huge

for Ontario. Leuven moved too obviously big for Quebec and others. We'll talk about that in a bit. But the idea that he called an election right in the middle of this is cynical. Let's be honest. It was a cynical move on his part, opportunistic if you want to be more generous. That being said, if all the premiers were heading down to Washington to pitch the case for their individual provinces and for Canada, it would make no sense for the Ontario premier not to be there. He's been saying some interesting stuff of late.

He's sort of throwing some threats out there about flipping the switch on electricity. Not sure that's such a good idea. But he's also talked about the importance of the Canada-US trading relationship and how ultimately we're not the enemy. We've never been the enemy when it comes to trade with America. If anything, we've helped them grow,

whether it be through the auto industry or anything else. We're an integral part of their supply chain. We're a great partner. In many ways, China's the problem. Have a listen to the Premier. We can usher in a new American-Canadian century, what President Trump calls New Golden Age. We do so by building Fortress Amcan.

Fortress Amcan is a renewed alliance between America and Canada that has a beacon of stability, security on both sides of the border. First, Fortress Amcan promotes free, fair and balanced trade. Fair trade means fighting back against freeloaders that rip off workers by taking advantage of free trade agreements designed to protect jobs at home. I'm talking about China. Together, let's put an end to Chinese trans shipments through Mexico and American and Canadian markets. Every

member of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement needs to match or exceed US tariffs on Chinese products. Doug Ford makes an excellent point there, because really what this is all about, if this is about trade, the trade imbalance that America has with Canada is negligible. If you take out energy, it doesn't exist. The trade imbalance is with China, and Canada could be a good part about competing with China. Why Donald Trump has decided to pick on Canada is an issue that only perhaps he knows. I think there's a big idea of tariffs and reshoring into America.

That's a big thing with his administration, but let's be honest. China here is the threat. And I think maybe Doug Ford should include Mexico in some of this. I think Mexico could be a valuable partner to Canada in trying to counterbalance what Donald Trump is up to. But we are a good partner, and have always been a good partner. Donald Trump was saying this week, Canada's stealing the auto industry from us.

We're not. We helped build America's auto industry. We should be proud of that. America should recognize that. At this point in time, they're not, and it's an issue. But it's good for the premiers to be down there talking this stuff out, making these announcements. Hopefully someone is listening. I gather they've had the ear of quite a few people of importance over the last little while. Whether that all gets to Donald Trump these days, who knows, but it's certainly worth the effort. Speaking

of China, you know where Tesla was making most of its vehicles that were sending into the Canadian market? Shanghai. For quite a long time. Now at the time no one was saying much because of course everyone was promoting EVs and our EV is great and we need to be subsidizing them and people need to be buying them. Then suddenly of course Elon Musk runs wild within the American government. He's the head of the Department of Governmental Efficiency or DOGE and the left are upset about what he's been up to for good reason to some extent. But all of a sudden, Tesla's become a target for a lot of people on the left. They want to go after Tesla. Forget EVs generally, forget subsidies, Tesla specifically. So perhaps

no surprise that Toronto's mayor on Tuesday, while introducing the City of Toronto's budget, carved out a little space to take a bit of a hit, not a very effective one by the way, at Tesla. Have a listen. The Prime Minister has said that it isn't just about a president who wants a new trade deal, but a threat to our sovereignty. And one of the best ways that we have is to send a message to the President's right-hand person, Elon Musk. And there's no reason why a billionaire, a person that is one of the richest persons in the world, would need the taxpayer's dollars to assist him in selling cars. So that's why we should stop doing the subsidies.

Yeah, I mean, so what are these subsidies? What message did we send here? What message is Toronto sending? They're cutting out this new system. They're temporarily restricting new Tesla cars from registering in its zero-emission grant program. How many cars, how many Teslas were registered there already? Nine, nine, $4,677 according to reports.

Nine, that's the message we're sending Elon Musk. I mean, listen, fine, but let's just admit how performative this really is, right? Is Elon Musk gonna care about nine vehicles not being subsidized? Anyway, I mean, it is just one of those things. There's been a lot of stuff out there that feels legitimate to me about fighting back against this tariff threat. Some of it is ridiculous. This certainly falls into the latter category.

And it's a topic you're going to be interested in, obviously, grocery prices. We can all agree that groceries have been expensive. This threat of tariffs could make everything more expensive. We've been talking about that now for quite a while. So how do you fix it? How do you fix it? This is obviously an issue we haven't been talking about quite as much of late politically,

but Liberal leadership candidate, Christian Freeland came out on Tuesday to pitch a plan to lower food prices. What did she say? What did she say? What did she say? She's gonna essentially put a cap on profit margins, that's her pitch, a cap on profit margins for grocers on essential items such as eggs, milk, vegetables and baby formula.

She's also promising to outlaw shrinkflation. We know what that is, right? When your pack all of a sudden has a lot less in it than it used to or your cereal box is so thin that you can barely stand it up because it falls over. Zero tolerance for bad actors, right? But let's get back to the first part of this. A cap on profit margins, a cap on profit margins. And she's also wanting to bring in more competition. So here's the contradiction here. How do you bring in more competition if you're going to contradiction here. How do you bring in more competition if you're gonna cap their profits?

And can you cap profits? How does it work? The supply chains for these things are complicated. Who do you go after? So to me, again, this is one of those things, it sounds good on paper, right? I'm like, oh, I'm gonna cap prices. I'm gonna cap profits so that, you know,

we don't get gouged at the grocery store. But these things never work. Give me a call and let me know what you think. Is this a decent idea? Is there any merit in this at all? 416-870-6400 or 188-225-TALK. We'll talk about this. Christia Freeland wants to put a cap on profits

for grocery stores because she thinks that will bring down prices, specifically on certain items. Here's a bit of a tell on this one. Of course, she was finance minister for a very long time through all of this. The NDP came out quickly to say, right after this plan was announced, the NDP, federal NDP rushed out a press release to say,

we told you so, we were pitching this last year and you basically voted against our motion that would have put a price cap on groceries. Shame on you, Christia Freeland, but we notice now that you've made this promise and we think it's really familiar to us. So you have the NDP coming out to absolutely praise Christia Freeland for making this promise,

which should probably tell you what you need to know about that promise, given the fact that, caps on profits never seem to work they just don't but let me know what you think the phone number is 416 870 6400 or 188 225 talk we're gonna go to the lines I would just talk to people about what do you do you think this makes any sense at all David let me know what do you think well I don't understand none of these politicians have any basics of economic theory at all.

There's not been a single time when a government has instilled anything like this, that hasn't led to a black market or underground economy. If you wanna, if you wanna know how much you can make, all that's gonna do is, you're either gonna not get product, which is kind of what's happening with the housing market when you make it impossible for someone to make a living renting stuff out, right?

Because of all your caps and how hard it is to get people out. If you stop people from being able to sell what the market wants the price to be, what's going to happen is the supply is going to be pulled. It's basic supply and demand. If you won't let them sell what the margin is, then no one's gonna supply it. It'll go somewhere else. It'll go wherever they get the higher price.

Basic economics. And if you limit it, you're gonna end up with an underground economy where people are gonna sell it for more. Because people are gonna pay whatever they can to get it. You should call our former finance minister and let her know.

David, thank you so much. Daniel, your thoughts on this idea of capping grocery store profits to try and bring the price of groceries down. All right, thank you. So look, I can go to Vermont and I'll buy, for example, cheese curds, manufactured in Quebec, but they ship it to Vermont and the

supermarket in Vermont even what the American exchange is selling it for one third less price than what the exact same package of cheese curds sell for in Quebec literally kilometers from the factory. We need to eliminate all these protective associations in Canada like the dairy control board. You know another thing is you know the US we're complaining about the US putting 25% tariff on our product. Here's a reality check. Canada puts approximately 300% tariff on American dairy products, okay? Bull vine, bull vine beef products coming from the US, whether it's Texas or Kansas or whatever,

incur between a 40 and 60% tariff in Canada. So the sooner we can eliminate these- Drop those protections, yep. Right, the sooner we can eliminate these price control associations, the sooner we can eliminate these price control associations, the sooner consumers will not be literally raped and pillaged price-wise, okay? We are suckers to Canada.

I get you, thanks so much for your call, I appreciate it. Our question here, Christia Freeland has announced the Liberal leadership candidate, former finance minister and deputy prime minister, that she would bring in a cap on grocery store profits. She thinks this will bring down the price of certain items. She's also gonna try and go after shrink inflation, which is a decent idea.

By the way, on that whole idea of supply management, eggs is an interesting one, because obviously the price of eggs has skyrocketed in the US. Avian food is a big problem. Supply management in this country has actually helped keep the price of eggs down a bit. So there are some arguments for and against that. Jay, capping profits, would they make any

difference at all in your grocery bill? None at all. Good to be here, Ben. Nice to talk to you. Yeah, thanks for calling. The unfortunate thing I believe is 90% of this country is mathematically illiterate. I mean capping a profit has nothing to do with the cost. Your eggs could go up 10 times and you can still have the same profit margin at the grocery store level. So on the grocery store level that does nothing. It's just preaching to the mathematically illiterate. Yeah.

Jay, I appreciate your time. Ben, apparently this has been done before and failed. Another Ben on the show. Welcome. Good morning, man. I knew Freeland was an experienced finance minister, but this just caps it off. A, trying to stop the size deflation, whatever was the sizing of the packaging. Shrink deflation, yes yes. That's complete disaster for all the supply chain and the stores and so forth. We get so many products from all around the world that are put on our shelf. You can't control how they're sending it to us. They just will seize, I'm in that world.

They're going to seize shipping at the Canada. Second, one of the contributing factors to the Great Depression was price fixing on profits. This is everything she does is, is, is complete disaster for economics. Yeah. Ben, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. We're talking about Christia Freeland. If you're trying to figure out, we're talking about groceries, obviously, I think we can all agree that the price of groceries is simply too high, right? How do you, how do you combat that? What do you do? The tariff threat is not making that any easier.

Christia Freeland, of course, the Liberal leadership candidate, the former finance minister, long time finance minister and deputy premier came out on Tuesday to announce that she would put a cap on the profits that grocery stores make as well as try to regulate the price of certain goods like eggs and milk and so on, things that we rely on. The NDP were quick to point out that this was their idea. So that might tell you something

about how just how economically viable it is. Michael, do these caps work or not? No, I don't think so. I don't pretend to know much about it, but I can't imagine any economist would agree that it would. It sounds like a populist idea. I think we have to stop subsidizing our dairy industry. I think we probably need to start allowing more imports in, but mostly just incentivize these things through taxes. Allow grocers to save at their year end what they don't pass on towards the consumer. So in this case, you'll incentivize the company. The government coffers will take a hit at the end of the year, but that's to be expected.

So there's less pressure on the consumer. I feel like everybody would win in this point. Yeah, it's been a difficult one, I think. Thanks so much for your call. I mean, one of the big problems here is that we need more competition How do you foster more competition in a market that's so spread out like ours capping profits is certainly not how you're gonna attract other Corporations to come into this country and compete against the ones that are already here. Listen, we're gonna take a quick break

We're gonna continue talking about this issue. Call us at four one six eight seven zero sixty four hundred. That's four one six eight seven zero this issue, call us at 416-870-6400. That's 416-870-6400 or 1-882-25. Talk more of your calls on Christian Freeland wanting to cap profits. This is Ben O'Hara-Byrne on the Ben Mulroney Show. Sitting in, thank you so much for listening in. Big pleasure for me to be here, whether you're on 640 Toronto or CFPL in London. We're listening, we're talking to you this half hour. We've been talking to you

about this idea that Chris J. Freeland brought out in Vancouver as it happens on Tuesday. The Liberal leadership candidate wants to put a cap on profits that grocery stores can make of certain essential items in particular like milk and eggs, vegetables, baby formula and so on. She of course is the former finance minister, right? So for a long time this was kind of her writ, this was her gig and now she's pitching this sort of stuff. If you want to know what the reaction's been, the conservatives said almost nothing, they said nothing about it. You know who came out rushed out to say this was our idea and you're stealing it? Because of course the

liberal leadership candidates have made a real a game a real sort of habit of stealing ideas from other from other people specifically the conservatives these days this was an NDP idea the NDP came up to say we proposed this a year ago Christian you voted against it we've been asking you what you think will a cap on profits on certain items or a cap on profits on grocery stores period is it a good move? Will it lead to any kind of difference in your grocery bill? Mark, you seem to think absolutely not.

What's your reasoning on that? Yeah, it's just ridiculous. We're in real trouble in this country. It seems like the answer to every question is higher taxes and more government intervention. I wonder when we're gonna have the discussion about right-sizing government. You look at a place like Toronto,

all the biggest employers used to be banks and insurance companies, the TSX, it's all government now. Whether it's the TTC, TDSP, TCHC, we have federal, provincial, municipal government, universities, hospitals, the list goes on and on and on.

It's unsustainable. We're in real big trouble. We need to get back to the top. federal, provincial, municipal government, universities, hospitals, the list goes on and on and on. It's unsustainable. We're in real big trouble. We need some right-sized government. That should be step number one. Everybody knows it at this point. Unless you're mathematically and economically illiterate, you kind of know what's going on. Yeah. Mark, thanks for your opinion on that one. I mean, what I don't get here, to be frank, is if you want more competition, then that has to be the answer here. The only way that grocery prices come down in this country,

I think, is if you bring in more competition. You attract other places. I lived in Europe, or I lived in London for quite a while. And there's a lot of competition in the grocery business there. Now, if you want to go spend a ton of money on groceries, you can. There's all kinds of people all kinds of stores that offer that. There's also stores that are discounted stores

the Lidl's and so on out there and they're competitive because and the reason why you can get groceries tailored to your budget is because there are lots of comp there's lots of competition out there and you get it doesn't mean you pay for less you don't get poor quality the quality is often very good good Lynn your thoughts on Christia Freeland's thoughts about how to make your grocery bill less expensive I'm in shock that anybody would entertain this woman. She brought in the carbon tax. This is what's driving the prices up Every time you make one carrot one carrot. I'm up to trying to figure out how many times carbon tax goes on the production from seed to, I haven't got it to the store yet, 63 times between trucking, maintenance on the machines.

Nobody seems to understand this. When you take it to market, it's just unaffordable and she wants to correct this by doing a socialist move, leading us further down the road to communism. Like I don't understand anybody who's even thinking of voting for this woman. What do you think about what do you think about grocery stores though? Do you think that even if they get rid of the carbon tax and the prices were to come down the grocery stores would still slap The same price on and take the profit. I wonder sometimes, you know Because when we had money invested years ago With a company who was involved that blood money over in one of those countries

I packed and as soon as I found out that they were involved I pulled funds out. Now if anybody's really really concerned and believe their wholeheartedly then let them pull their funds out of the grocery stores. Let's see how many do that. Yeah none none. Lynn thanks for your call. We're talking about to Christian Freeland's idea here to cap profits for grocery stores and whether that would lead to a lower grocery bill. If anything, and this may come as a surprise, you may have noticed over the past little while that all the Liberal leadership candidates seem to be stealing a lot of

ideas right out of Pierre Poliev's playbook, whether it's getting rid of the carbon tax amongst other things. This one, the NDP were the ones to come out and say wait a second Christian, that was our idea. You voted against it last year, how dare you. Mark, how dare you? Mark, what do you think? A cap on profits, would that help bring your grocery bill down? This is a free at its best.

No, it won't because A, if she caps those, they will raise prices on other things so they can keep their profit margins. But secondly, so sort of like playing whack-a-mole, okay, well, price fix this, and then something else goes up. But, you know, if you look at it, when the government already tried to bring in more competition, I think it was they talked to grocery change over in Europe and different places and they didn't want to come to Canada I don't in them because who would want to come and try to do business in this kind of In this kind of market in this country with what our government has done. I would yeah

Yeah, so in other words the idea here is fewer regulations. Let let companies come in and compete We'll see what happens to grocery. They're not gonna wanna show up if you're capped their profits though, are they? No, no, I mean, the minute you cap my profits and it's like, oh, I want you to come, but I'm only going to let you make this much profit. It's like, well, you know,

then how am I actually supposed to launch a company when my profit margins are capped and I'm going to put all this investment in and then I've got to wait a lot of extra time. Whereas a free market system, it's always worked far better, but our government seems to think that you know the best thing to do is to continue filling their coffers with taxes so they can spend more money

on stupid stupid things and while we suffer. Well listen thanks for your call I appreciate it. We were talking this half hour about or at least in this segment about Christia Freeland's idea to cap profits on grocery stores. Universally disliked by the way way, by you, the caller. She also wants to tackle shrinkflation, which is not a terrible idea. Biden government tried that as well. I don't know how successful it would be,

but shrinkflation's been a bit of a problem, you know, sort of deceptive marketing and so on. I've heard some people make some convincing arguments on that one, but the cap on grocery store prices, 416-870-6400 here on the Ben Mulroney Show, 416-870-6400 here on the Ben Mulroney show, 416-870-6400 or 1-88225. Toc, we're taking your calls on this topic for a little while. We'll move on to something else in a little bit. I'll tell you about that. But Ralph, you think we

need to start looking at government to sort of get rid of government waste that we could worry about fixing grocery prices. Yeah, do you really want the government running grocery stores? I mean, they can't even run on their own money and you want these guys sticking their hands in the private businesses? I mean, there'd be no food on the shelves in three days. You think it's going to look like the bread lines in sort of communist Europe back in the day? Yeah, look at the subway system.

Billions of dollars over budget, right? Who knows when it's going to be done? I mean, it took them seven years to widen the 400 highway. They put the railroad across Canada in less than two years. You know, I mean, you don't want these guys sticking their nose in the private business. It'll just be a catastrophe. They can't even run the government,

let alone a private business. Ralph, I appreciate your call. Thank you so much. Gloria, you wanna talk about quality, not price, and that's an interesting way of looking at it because yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we all want to pay less for groceries. The sort of the way that grocery prices have gone up exponentially in the past several years has been a real burden on families. But tell me a bit about this quality versus price idea, Gloria. I think we have to talk about the many sides of this

story. We're hearing just one side over and over and over. People don't want to hear it anymore. How can anybody claim food prices too high when 10 pounds of potatoes is $1.99 or $6 in the winter, 10 kilo of rice or beans, $15, 12 eggs, three or $4, four liters of milk, $6? The problem is they have to go home and cook it with their fancy stove. They don't want to do it. They're paying for pretty packaging.

They're paying for processed, microwavable, easy to eat food. They wanted bread, slice and butter. They wanted vegetables sliced up for them in heavy, strong, pretty packaging. Right. So better shopping, in other words, and better cooking habits. You think we need to get those back instead of complaining about the price of food all the time?

Yes. One manicure, pedicure, and elaborate hair dye represent a month's groceries. And Carbetax, they're paying that on their luxuries. All they do is try and touch the heart. Gloria, we'll have to leave it there. Listen, I really appreciate your opinion on this. It's Ben O'Hara Burn in for Ben Mulroney for the next couple of days. I'm the host of Conversations.

You can hear me usually evenings from 7 to 10 p.m. right here on 640 and on CFPL in London. This is the part of the show where we'd like to hear from you. The number is 416-870-6400 or 1-88225-TALK. When I was away over the holidays, I was in Europe, and I'm always reminded of history, of how important history is, and how history sort of stands by itself. So I was actually inside Notre Dame Cathedral. You know, they just renovated and reopened it. And of course, Notre Dame has seen all kinds of history go by. And it celebrated people that had become vilified. It celebrated heroes of the French Revolution, you name it. And the French sort of live with their history, good and bad. So with that in mind, a group of prominent Canadian historians is calling on Ontario, on Ontario Premier Doug

Ford to intervene and prevent the Toronto District School Board from removing the names of Sir John A. MacDonald, our first Prime Minister, Edgerton Ryerson, a famous educator, and Henry Dundas, one of our Governor Generals, amongst other things, from three of its schools. So I want to know if you think this is a good idea. Is erasing history is simply taking things off the way to go? The number is 416-870-6400-188-225-TALK. The Canadian Institute for Historical Education has written to the school board

since it announced this change saying, and it's also gonna make some presentations, I believe it's this evening, trying to urge that the process be reconsidered before there's a final vote coming up next week. Have we gone too far in the name of progress is the question for you this hour or at least this segment and I'm just waiting to hear from you back if you have any opinions on this because one of the issues as I was pointing out is that no

for instance when I was growing up in Montreal and the PQ came in 1976, all of a sudden, they changed all the names of the streets that I had grown up with, right? You know, Dorchester became Renna-Levesque Boulevard, a street called Church became De Liglis, which is essentially just a translation. But when you start to change things like that, are you erasing history?

Who gets to change history? Who gets to decide what history is? Let me know, 416-870-6400 or 1-88225-TALK. Are we erasing history in the name of progress in a way that doesn't teach anyone anything ever? Shouldn't we just leave these statues up and talk about them? Talk about who they were, flaws and all. Because you expect all your former leaders to be perfect. You expect every one person in history to be perfect. They're not. Now, I

was also in the Eastern Bloc when in Ukraine they started taking down statues of Lenin, for instance, and so there are times when things will come down, when history decides that certain people aren't going to be around anymore. But this feels much more deliberate than that Mike what do you think about this idea of a racing history? I think it all stems from the federal government and Trudeau. They brought all this woke stuff in with all its people kind and all that that's all got to go he's got to go and I think he's playing us really, Ben, because he said he's, he didn't say he was

actually going to resign. He said he was contemplating it, right? So playing on words, all this woke stuff has to go. Once we get rid of the wokeness, we'll be fine. We got to get rid of it all. The TBSP, like with them changing the city of Toronto, changing the name of Dundas and spending all that money, they could be spending it on people and living on the street. Yeah, Mike, I appreciate your call. I mean, therein lies part of the rub as well, right? When it comes to changing names, there is a price to pay too. You have to pay for these things to be done. To change the name of the street Dundas is expensive. To change Dundas Square is expensive. Now I want to point out that history sometimes deserves to be studied and revised. I think one of the big problems here is we stop

teaching history in our schools. We stop teaching history in our schools so even students think well okay so John A. MacDonald I guess he was bad I suppose I guess we should get rid of the name. That's not how this works. If we teach kids history properly in our schools, then they can have an educated debate about this, whether it's time for certain names to go hard. You think this is judging people today, judging people the past by today's standards just doesn't work? Correct. How so? What would you do differently? Then would you simply leave all the names up? Really? This is not progress. This is called presentism. Judging people's actions from three,

400 years ago when the values were completely different and, and getting woke liberal idiots today deciding that Johnny McDonald was a bad guy. There's a statue at Queens Park that's been covered over with a wooden shroud. They took away a statue of Winston Churchill from City Hall because he was a bad guy. Everybody's a bad guy based on woke liberalism. Yeah. So it's absolutely insanity. And if you don't study history and you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it again. Horan, good point, I agree. I mean, I think that's the big problem here is we need to continue teaching people history so we understand who these people are, warts and all. Mike, you think that people want these things down? How so? Yes, good morning, good topic. These are the same people who have no problem going to Cuba where there is a communist dictatorship going on, again I'll go to, I haven't been but I'd go, or people that

would go to Italy where my family's from who are run who were who emphasized the Roman Empire. It's quite laughable how idiotic some people can be. Leave it alone, it's called history. We are looking at the history of the of the place you're going to the country, the province. Enough is enough. The woke is done. Trudeau is gone. Like, let's just get on with things. Mike, I appreciate your call. Listen, we're talking about changing names. The Toronto District School Board's wanting to take some names off a few of their schools. Ryerson, Dundas, John A. McDonald, Sir Sir John A. MacDonald, you recognize them.

We're taking your calls on this 416-870-6400, 416-870-6400. Are we erasing history or is this justified? I mean there are people out there who would argue that this maybe as time goes on, you do change the name of things, right? It happens elsewhere as well. But if you go to a lot of countries, they don't take down the names of their founding fathers, warts and all, Shane, your thoughts on this? Yeah, I think we're erasing everything that makes us what we are. Johnny McDonald, everybody just wants to see the bad.

That's all they see. Nobody has the absolute facts on anything that's about any of these people see the bad. That's all they see. Nobody has the absolute facts on anything that's about any of these people from the past. And you know, people laugh and say Justin Trudeau says we have no core identity and we do. No we don't. You know why? Because it's being a race. And that's the problem. And you wonder why children these days don't know what the Holocaust is or know who Stalin is. It's because we've just stopped teaching them and we're trying to erase everything for them to learn. Yeah, Shane, you make a great point.

I mean, I agree. I think one of the big problems here is having been in many countries around the world for work, history is complicated. History has always been complicated. It's often told by the victors clearly, but you can't just erase it to have it retold. You can't retell history.

You can reinterpret it. You can make it more balanced, but you can't get erase it to have it retold. You can't retell history. You can reinterpret it. You can make it more balanced, but you can't get rid of one side of it just so you can favor another side of it. David, you find the hypocrisy of the government here pretty astounding. Oh, it just shows you how lacking a backbone that the liberal government

actually has. It's a great pleasure and great joy and great, uh, uh, arrogance in, in downtrodding and denigrating, uh, Canadians, especially the people who are protesting in Ottawa against all these, uh, you know, incredibly, incredibly, um, divisive, uh, isolationist policies that they brought in regarding the vaccine. And now, you know, now that it's favorable, now that the liberals know they can capitalize on people giving them more votes in opposition to what's happening in the states and Mr.

Trump. David, I hate to cut you off. Thank you so much for your call, though. Listen, thank you all for your calls. Daniel Blanchard is no ordinary thief. His heists are ingenious. His escapes defy belief. And when he sees the dazzling diamond CC Star, he'll risk everything to steal it. His exploits set off an intercontinental manhunt. But how long can CC Star stay lucky for Daniel? I'm Seren Jones, and this is a most audacious heist. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.