00:49:17.860It's probably appropriate that I'm dying this week because it feels like the world order is as well.
00:49:22.920And possibly the world wanted to get your reaction quickly to what took place in the Oval Office this week and then turn to reactions around the world.
00:49:35.300Well, I suppose my feeling this morning is that I'm unimpressed with the patriarchy from every corner, including Ukrainian.
00:49:43.520I think what happened in the Oval Office, if anybody wants to revisit it, turn the sound off.
00:49:51.220And what you have is a schoolyard fight, three would-be silverback gorillas.
00:49:57.140Zelensky, of course, fighting for his people's life, but not completely innocent of some transgressions.
00:50:05.240And of, I suppose, not working towards a more transactional Europe.
00:50:15.640Trump, whom I can't stand, I don't know where his geopolitics or how they're created or what they're informed by, seems to be pushing us into a European war with an isolationist North America.
00:50:31.040And that is a very dangerous situation.
00:50:33.260What has the reaction been in Ukraine to what their leader did or how he did it?
00:50:41.220Well, I will say about Zelensky, who is tough, who has shown real metal.
00:50:47.220If you watch his body language, he is strong, he is purposeful.
00:50:51.700He's trying to make cogent arguments, but it's absurd.
00:50:58.520I think Ukrainians are frustrated that the war hasn't ended, that there's been no victory, that the incursions and the curse and the attacks by drone into Russia have effected nothing, that Putin is perfectly happy to plot along, that maybe up to half a million young Ukrainian men and women are dead.
00:51:17.580And then it looks like they will lose not only the territory Russia owns, but now a lot of their own natural resources to pay back the American empire.
00:51:28.640So I think that Zelensky is rapidly losing support.
00:51:35.540And I think Ukrainians will move towards a strong man because Zelensky has an empathy about him and a softness about him that are unusual for that theater, that political theater in Eastern Europe and in Russia.
00:51:51.380And I think that they will be looking for someone more forceful.
00:51:57.940But he's being celebrated as the leader of the free world.
00:52:14.780Although, as my father before he died said, nothing ever goes wrong when the Germans arm up.
00:52:19.680Germany and Poland, in particular, perhaps Britain, are evolving in terms of their arms manufacturing capacity, in terms of their intelligence, and in terms of a future that probably does not include NATO or America as a dependable ally.
00:52:49.000And he can't lay that all entirely at the feet of the United States and his European partners.
00:52:56.000His organizational capacity, as I understand from people in the military, is hampered by inviting.
00:53:05.040And a lot of people don't even believe he's actually in charge, that Zelensky is essentially a salesman for the investment of equity into Ukraine, so that it can be a future dependable resource provider to the European Union.
00:53:20.840I cannot believe that Russia will ever give up that chunk of land, Crimea, Sevastopol, probably all the way to Odessa, because they don't have a warm water port.
00:53:32.140And that's a 1,100-kilometer border that they have to defend.
00:53:38.860If we decided to join Russia tomorrow, Canada, because of the threats and the tariffs being directed at us by Mr. Trump, the United States would invade and take Canada in one hot second.
00:53:51.880They'd say, I'm sorry, we just can't defend this border, and you've always really been part of our model.
00:54:23.580Should he have taken any deal that was offered to him?
00:54:27.980You know, no security guarantees, just, you know, agree to give them their, what they were lusting after in terms of mineral deposits, and then have some sandwiches in the Roosevelt Room?
00:54:42.300I think that Zelensky, I mean, it's easy to say this in hindsight.
00:54:46.040Zelensky has been, and I've been arguing this idea on your podcast for, I think, two years now.
00:54:53.540This looks like a managed war to me that has helped the American economy and helped the Russian economy and helped Putin's stability as a leader for Nueva Russia, which is the new Soviet Union, and helped the American body politic in terms of providing employment jobs, and up until Trump, anyway, being the world's policeman.
00:55:16.440And there's been a lot of value, but if you're really going to win this war, Vladimir Putin really wanted to take Ukraine, just as if Israel wanted to commit a genocide.
00:55:27.480Russia has the resources, human and soft and hard resources, to take Ukraine.
00:55:51.620Do we declare NATO dead and move into some kind of European firmament?
00:55:56.280Do we get nukes for Canada and Latvia and countries like that?
00:56:00.520What do you think should be the next steps?
00:56:03.320I am no expert in the nuclear question, although I notice many countries are now developing nuclear programs and starting to think about having their own sense of security, perhaps on the Israeli model.
00:56:16.600I think when it comes to NATO, Trump may or may not leave NATO, but he certainly will keep on servicing 50% of its financing.
00:56:27.960And so as an isolationist, and he was the one who first mentioned that big ocean that protects him from Europe, and then Zelensky echoed it.
00:56:36.320We saw that awful scene in the Oval Office.
00:56:42.920It may evolve into something called something else that includes all of the Western European and Eastern European partners, but without America as a necessary partner.
00:56:52.020And then hopefully Donald Trump and his populist fascism that is threatening the very lives of our children will dissipate as people start to realize that these are empty promises and a risky, risky environment.
00:57:06.300And we'll have somebody who puts the office of the U.S. presidency, and they can join whatever the European Union have put together.
00:57:13.620Well, hopefully we get to that moment where Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance are no longer part of the picture, but unfortunately for the foreseeable future, they are.
00:57:27.000John Mraz, thank you for your insight and your wisdom as always, and I wish that you do not get this man called.
01:27:45.360Adam, last night during our global news coverage, I sort of was musing that it was quite a, quite a masterstroke to, he was looking for a reason for this election.
01:27:57.900And so that was the reason that he gave for calling a snap election.
01:28:01.940But it was quite masterful in picking it because if anybody wants to accomplish anything moving forward over the next few years, they've got to get through the Donald Trump issue.
01:28:13.340All roads lead to Rome and all growth in Ontario.
01:28:17.320All issues have to get resolved after the Trump tariffs get resolved.
01:28:21.900And in that way, if he positioned himself as the guy to deal with Trump, then by default, he's also the guy who can deal with everything else.
01:28:31.300So I would agree with that assessment.
01:28:33.240And I think that his leadership in dealing with Trump over the past few months has been quite noticeable.
01:28:39.120But I also want to build upon something that Warren said earlier.
01:28:42.940So obviously Ford has governed as progressive conservative, but at the same time, he's been able to effectively blame the Trudeau liberals for certain problems which mostly fall under provincial jurisdiction.
01:28:54.580And so interestingly enough, he's been able to court centrist voters in some ways while at the same time play towards the conservative base when needed to.
01:29:03.280And, you know, my jam right now, of course, is crime and drugs.
01:29:06.620And this is where this is seen quite powerfully, where we have, of course, an addiction problem, a crime problem.
01:29:13.640And many of the solutions here are under provincial jurisdiction.
01:29:17.780For example, supervised injection sites.
01:29:20.480That's something which the province generally controls or safer supply.
01:29:23.540And Ford has been able to effectively blame the federal liberals for these issues while basically doing nothing to solve this and has therefore been able to avoid a lot of flack here.
01:30:07.060And what I saw last night in Doug Ford's acceptance speech and Marit Stiles' speech gave me hope that these two parties, representing the lion's share of all, representing the official opposition and the government, can work together.
01:30:23.760They said all the right things yesterday, both of them.
01:30:26.480They, in fact, they were echoes and mirrors of each other.
01:30:29.900What did you think when you heard both of those speeches?
01:30:32.260Yeah, I thought that Marit's speech was perfect.
01:30:38.560It accentuated the points where we need to stand together about Trump as Ontarians, as Canadians, but also said, you know, I'm disappointed with the result because I wanted to defeat him.
01:30:50.000I'm going to hold him to account and I'm going to defeat him next time.
01:31:11.780And, you know, and I think I think we just I would I'd like to take a little bit of exception to the idea that this was all, you know, the Trump.
01:31:18.460That is definitely the framing that the PCs wanted to get out there.
01:31:22.280But if you look at federal polling, you'll see clearly that Trump's tariffs are very close to the top, if not the top.
01:31:30.580But if you look at provincial polling, that's not true.
01:31:33.420People understand it's primarily going to be the federal government that deals with Trump.
01:31:37.740And if provincial governments deal with health care and education, they can do something about affordability and housing, those sort of things.
01:31:43.880Those were the issues that were over and over.
01:31:47.960And I used a fair bit of polling through my company on this in this campaign.
01:31:51.640Those were the issues that people said when we when people were offered Trump's tariffs as an option to name as top priority.
01:31:59.300It was well down the list. So the record of Doug Ford did not get effectively prosecuted by either Mart or Bonnie Crombie.
01:32:10.780And that was because of the deflection onto Trump, partly, but also because, you know, they had their own challenges that they were trying to overcome.
01:32:22.780Crombie not having a seat, having, you know, this terrible vote inefficiency problem, et cetera, et cetera.
01:32:27.920And frankly, you know, Doug selected her to be the opponent and then, you know, turned her very negative with his advertising campaign, knowing that really she wasn't the primary threat, as we saw last night.
01:32:42.300Adam, I want to look at the NDP and the liberals as two sides of the same coin or polar opposites, if you will.
01:32:49.120On one side, you've got Marit Stiles gets 18 percent of the vote, becomes the leader of the opposition and Bonnie Crombie's liberals get 30 percent of the vote and just barely eke into official party status.
01:33:03.340This to that that to me is such a telling tale of these two parties.
01:33:08.560Well, I mean, so what this would suggest is that the Ontario NDP, their support is very concentrated in northern Ontario and in a few cities, and that works for them right now.
01:33:20.340But that means it'll be very difficult for them to grow their seat count going forward because they're not competitive in many ridings across Ontario, whereas Bonnie Crombie.
01:33:29.380Obviously, obviously, her inefficient vote has turned out very poorly for her right now.
01:33:34.380But what that means is that she only needs to increase her overall vote share by a few percentage points to start seeing a large number of seats flip over.
01:33:43.140Essentially, Doug Ford's control of the government right now is is fairly fragile in the same way that the federal level, you know, the Trudeau liberals had a fairly fragile mandate because they were operating on voter efficiency rather than having a commanding lead in the polls.
01:33:59.380Obviously, obviously, in Ontario, with the forward government having a 10 percent lead, it's a slightly different situation.
01:34:05.700But I think that right now the future looks quite good for Crombie so long she can continue banning the vote.
01:34:11.980We have to remember that she grew the liberals vote share by 25 percent.
01:34:16.940She went up from 24 percent to 30 percent.
01:34:19.440And that's that's not that's something that shouldn't be discounted.
01:34:22.060I think on the whole, they did quite well this election.
01:34:26.960And we're going to talk about whether or not they can look at the election result as a net positive or there are just too many negatives to say we did as well as we wanted to do.
01:34:37.020So we're going to Warren, when we come back, I'm going to get your take on Bonnie Crombie on the state of the Liberal Party and where they go from here.
01:34:45.600So much, much more with our political panel when we return, including including where in the world is Mark Carney.
01:34:54.920That's next on The Ben Mulroney Show across the Chorus Radio Network.
01:34:58.180Welcome back to The Ben Mulroney Show and welcome back our political panel, Adam Zivo, Tom Parkin and Warren Kinsella.
01:35:05.360Warren, I want to give you 40 seconds to tie a bow on the fate of the Liberal Party.
01:35:10.720Some good stuff came out of yesterday, some gains, but some some pretty embarrassing things or some some structural issues, you could call them three elections in a row where they finish in third place.
01:36:03.720And so, you know, they need to they need to deal with that and figure out how to build.
01:36:10.080But the problem they've got, the biggest problem is their leader did not win her seat in a part of the GTA where she had been easily reelected as mayor for a decade.