00:38:40.840And I sit there saying, where has the government been over the past 10 years as this crisis has been building to the point that we find ourselves in, as they say in French, dans jus?
00:38:53.320Yeah, I think, you know, Harper backed off because of the seniors lobby.
00:38:59.320Seniors would be disproportionately affected by eliminating mail delivery.
00:39:06.320And like, honestly, and I say full disclosure, so I've been a lawyer who's represented Cup W and I've been a chief of staff who helped run Canada Post.
00:42:14.820And like, you know, this is one of the consequences of what Mark Carney and France and England did is it is emboldened Hamas and it is made Israel even more inflexible.
00:42:26.820And then, you know, saying, well, the hell with this, what's the point of compromising?
00:42:31.120I'm going to expand my settlements in the West Bank.
00:43:08.580That's what's happened when Mark Carney and some of these other world leaders have decided to take this stand and embolden Hamas so that they feel that they can, you know, proclaim this kind of thing and expect people are going to believe them.
00:43:20.540Do you think and this this wasn't part of our notes, but I know that we've all been following this.
00:43:24.560You know, when Donald Trump signals that this could present a roadblock in our trade renegotiations, is that him throwing something into the conversation that doesn't belong?
00:43:35.240You know, Canada's foreign policy should should should that play a role in our renegotiation or did Mark Carney play this in an irresponsible way where he should have been cognizant of the values of our American partners as it relates to Israel and flew in the face of it knowing so.
00:43:55.600I mean, you know, for the longest time, you know, we stood by our allies, you know, we we stood by Israel and and we we had unified positions with the United States and Donald Trump can have been more clear on where he stands and where the United States and who the United States supports in this in this dispute in this attack on on Israel.
00:44:13.260So I think when our largest trading partner who we are in the midst of a trade war with, who we desperately our economy desperately needs us to resolve this because we are not going to fix this overnight, we are not going to start having, you know, as much as as you know, Mark Carney said, you know, our relationship with the United States was, you know, was dead, you know, as we knew it that, you know, that can't be the case moving forward without significant economic pain for Canadians of all stripes for the next decade.
00:44:40.720You know, we need to resolve this with the United States and, you know, doing what we've done towards a former ally who our strongest ally is in support of, I think absolutely has has long term harm for the country and our ability to reach a deal with the United States.
00:44:55.540Warren, when you saw Donald Trump's truth social saying, oh, look, look what they've done.
00:45:00.060They've made it very hard now to get a trade renegotiation done.
00:45:04.760Did you think, my gosh, he's he's he's he's conflating two things or why didn't Mark Carney see this coming?
00:45:12.920The latter, like, you know, I mean, Donald Trump is a jerk, in my opinion, and he's up and down like a toilet seat.
00:45:18.600But he saw that with you with his Ukrainian pronouncement this week.
00:45:22.440You needed whiplash after you heard that one.
00:45:24.600But but but but, you know, if I were Carney and I saw that truth social post, I bet you he was saying to myself, you know, I should have gone to Nina and and or I should have picked up the phone and at least called Marco Rubio to say, hey, look, we're serious.
00:45:47.340No. And so, you know, we've seen that Trump is willing to use flimsy pretexts like fentanyl or, you know, the dairy industry to come after us.
00:45:56.800Well, it's almost predictable he was going to use this, too.
00:45:59.680So, yeah, they should have picked up the phone and done done a bit of legwork to make sure that they had some cover.
00:46:06.160They went ahead and did what they did.
00:46:07.940You know, that's that's a really good point.
00:46:09.300I mean, we we we disputed the validity of his claims on fentanyl, and yet we gave him a fentanyl czar.
00:46:16.200We we told him that our issues at the border actually were technically their issues.
00:46:20.860And and we we promised to beef everything up to to placate him.
00:46:24.660It feels like this could be another one of those scenarios where we're either going to have to walk back this position or going to have to temper it or mitigate it.
00:46:33.380None of which is a good look for an independent, sovereign nation like Canada.
00:46:37.720And yet it seems like we've done his work for him.
00:46:40.560We don't have time to get into that next, but we've got lots to get to after the break.
00:46:46.200Including Danielle Smith telling her ministers in new mandate letters to relentlessly defend the rights of gun owners.
00:46:53.680So we're going to talk about that next when we come back with our This Week in Politics panel on The Ben Mulroney Show.
00:46:59.460You're listening to The Ben Mulroney Show.
00:47:01.360Welcome back to The Ben Mulroney Show.
00:47:02.820Welcome back to Chris Chapin and Warren Kinsella who make up our Friday This Week in Politics panel.
00:47:07.760Guys, thanks so much for sticking with us.
00:47:09.220What do you make of Danielle Smith giving new mandate letters to her ministers saying part of their responsibilities is to defend gun owners rights to self-defense relentlessly?
00:47:21.620Chris, is this a bridge too far or is this a natural reaction that a conservative in Alberta would have to say this new gun buyback program that's going to cost us money that we do not have?
00:47:36.020That is not going to that as the Minister of Public Safety said himself, it costs too much money, isn't going to solve crime.
00:47:44.080Yeah, I mean, is any bit any one of us surprised that Danielle Smith and the UCP are moving forward with this kind of a an announcement?
00:47:52.840I mean, listen, a mandate letter can mean a lot.
00:47:55.480A mandate letter can be nothing more than, you know, in my opinion these days, just a political communications tool.
00:48:01.000You know, if mandate letters were overly serious, Mark Carney would have more than one for each one of his ministers, you know, instead of just one sole direction he's given his government.
00:48:08.540So I think this is just, you know, good political communications and good politics for Danielle Smith and the UCP.
00:48:16.080Gun rights are taken way differently and way more seriously in Western Canada and specifically Alberta.
00:48:22.600And I think just, you know, the timing and how poorly the federal government's bungled this and left the minister out, you know, frankly, in my opinion, just out to dry on this issue, given the mess he made of it himself.
00:48:35.060I'm not surprised that Alberta is seizing on this opportunity to try to really hammer home the importance of gun rights in Western Canada.
00:48:41.800And by doing so, continuing the conversation of just how ridiculous I think this buyback program truly is.
00:48:47.180It's going to cost Canadians a fortune.
00:48:49.000And to the minister's own admission, it's not going to do absolutely anything to address the real root crime.
00:48:54.060We know the guns that are causing, you know, homicides on our streets are not the guns of law abiding, you know, hunters and gun owners.
00:49:01.520So I think, you know, I don't know what the end result of Danielle Smith's, you know, mandate letters will actually, you know, turn into.
00:49:10.060I'm not sure a whole lot, but I think it's good politics for them for sure.
00:49:25.360You know, and I say as a gun owner and as an Albertan, when you're having a rainy day and you're Danielle Smith and she's been having a rainy day because this Alberta healthcare scandal is not going away.
00:49:36.360It was back on the front pages in Alberta again this week.
00:49:46.640It's a winner for any conservative politician.
00:49:48.560And, uh, get the liberals back on their heels.
00:49:51.860And I've talked to members of the liberal caucus who kind of agree that this minister is just, you know, stepped on one rake after another and that he needs to be moved out.
00:50:02.660So, um, I don't, I'm not a fan of hers at all, but I don't blame her at all for taking a swipe at this one.
00:50:09.080It's, it's a politic and, uh, she's being political.
00:50:12.580Well, let, let's move back to the premier of Ontario where he took a few stabs, a few jabs rather, uh, at, uh, the minister of justice, the attorney general, uh, he, he said, uh, in, in, in, with the context of the letter that was sent to the Supreme court seeking the circumscribed provincial rights, uh, to use the notwithstanding clause, uh, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, who has, there's no love lost between him and Pierre Polyev.
00:50:38.820He started sounding an awful lot like Pierre Polyev, uh, saying, this is a guy who ruined hell, uh, uh, ruined immigration.
00:51:11.700But I think, you know, if you look at the track record of premier Ford, he also knows a good opportunity when he sees it.
00:51:16.900Um, and I mean, I think for him specifically, you know, as, as a premier, that's probably used the notwithstanding clause more often and definitely under the greatest level of scrutiny than probably any premier in the history of this country.
00:51:28.560Um, I'm not surprised that he wants to push back against it.
00:51:31.640I think he and many other premiers in the province or in the country saw what Mark Carney did as a significant overreach from, from their perspective.
00:51:38.980Uh, I think it speaks volumes to, you know, the difference between governing and, and being a banker or operating in a Bay Street office.
00:51:46.560I mean, you, you open up these opportunities for the provinces to, to snipe back at you.
00:51:51.900They're going to take it, whether that's gun rates in Alberta or, or the notwithstanding clause for premier Ford in Ontario.
00:51:57.180So, uh, I mean, I think there's some out there that somehow forget that premier Ford is in fact a conservative and quite conservative and, and sometimes mistake that he might, uh, you know, sound a lot like Pierre Polyev.
00:52:07.820But that's because I think in this case, they're, you know, they're both taking very principled conservative stance when it comes to this issue.
00:52:13.100And if you can score a few points, uh, taking a shot or two at, uh, Minister Fraser, I don't think they're going to pass up that opportunity.
00:52:21.740Well, we talked about this last week and, um, I just recalled the advice I learned at my, the knee of my boss, Sean Cretien, is it's Monday and we're not going to talk about the constitution today.
00:52:33.160And it's Tuesday and we're not going to talk about the constitution today and repeat and rinse and repeat over and over.
00:52:38.800Don't talk about the constitution because it's all downside and no upside.
00:52:42.880So that's why, like I said to you guys last week, I don't understand the politics of the carny guys doing it as a lawyer.
00:53:08.840And I mean, there's an entire generation of, of kids who don't, do not remember, uh, the, the ladies or early nineties and, and, and yet, uh, but I think they've got intergenerational trauma or something because they probably react the same way their parents did.
00:53:24.440They couldn't find section 33 with a guide dog.
00:53:27.340They don't care and like, neither does anybody else.
00:53:35.780Well, uh, we don't have a lot of time left for this, but you know, there was a story that took place in Toronto, but it could be taking place in any city.
00:53:43.000We exposed a drop in center in Toronto for having a harm reduction site sign on their front door.
00:53:47.840And the area in question, Queen and Bathurst had a supervised consumption site.
00:53:52.320And the question, uh, that, that I have is you've got a city like, like Toronto that seems to be flouting the rules and going against the direction of the Ontario government that said, no, you're not allowed doing these things again.
00:54:05.420And they found a workaround and in, in, in a battle between a city that thinks it's right.
00:54:10.980And a government that if they wanted to, uh, could take complete control over the city of Toronto.
00:54:16.160How do you think something like this should happen?
00:54:20.580Well, I mean, I think the, the prop or the city should follow the, the province's guidance and the direction they are a creation of this, the province, but you know, we just finished the conversation, Ben.
00:54:30.180It's, you know, if, if the province wants to, this is the kind of thing that they will bring in, you know, something like the notwithstanding clause.
00:54:36.040If they feel like they're, you know, if this eventually gets challenged in the courts, which I, I suspect there's definitely a pathway that, that many want to take the province to the courts on.
00:54:44.720That's how this is ultimately going to get resolved.
00:54:46.920Uh, you know, they, they, it is their right to, to, you know, respond to and take the direction of the provincial government on this.
00:54:53.700And, you know, I could see that happening here, uh, Warren.
00:54:55.840I could see the, the city said no more, uh, handing out needles within, you know, uh, called whatever amount of distance it is to the school.
00:55:03.380Well, they find a worker, she finds a workaround.
00:55:06.060If the, if the province then comes in and does what they're, they're constitutionally allowed to do and take control over the file, I could see the city taking the court and I could see the court saying that, you know, deciding with the city as they have on bike lanes, as they have on a number of issues.
00:55:20.280And where do, what does that say about the use of the notwithstanding clause, uh, after that, what does that say about, uh, the overreach of our judicial system, which I, I, I, I, I don't think has reached any within close to a, a crisis, but I do think it's of, of concern.
00:55:34.480Well, there you, I'm the lawyer, but there's the two of you talking by lawyers.
00:55:42.180The problem is this, how has this problem grown to the point where Belleville is now in a state of emergency again, Barry just declared a state of emergency.
00:56:10.220Like as soon as you take it, you're hooked.
00:56:12.520And so these people can come up with programs and plans and sue each other as much as they want until they deal with.
00:56:19.000And actually Donald Trump's right in this regard, until you deal with the fentanyl problem, all the lawyers in the world and all the social scientists in the world ain't going to solve it.
00:56:28.800We need to solve that problem because that's what's caused this crisis in towns large and small across Canada.