0:00

is the Ben Mulroney Show and

0:02

thank you so much for sticking

0:04

with us. I will admit that

0:06

when Donald Trump declassified the remaining

0:08

JFK files, the assassination of President

0:10

John F. Kennedy files, it

0:12

didn't ping on my radar. I just,

0:14

I didn't care enough to say, oh,

0:16

now we're going to know the truth.

0:19

I was however surprised when after they

0:21

were declassified, I didn't see

0:23

a whole lot of news coming from

0:25

it. And it's only later

0:27

on that I read that it's because

0:29

there wasn't much news to be

0:31

made, that by and large what people

0:33

believe, the story that had been

0:35

put out there was the story of

0:38

what happened. And I guess a

0:40

lot of people were hoping there would

0:42

be a smoking gun link in

0:44

the mob and a second shooter and

0:46

the Cubans and Russia, all of

0:48

that stuff. It wasn't in there. Because

0:52

sometimes the simplest answer is

0:54

the correct one. And

0:56

so now we're finding, I guess

0:58

maybe because that one's been put

1:00

to bed, there are some politicians

1:02

in Washington that are looking for

1:04

a new conspiracy to get behind

1:06

because Senator Ron Johnson says that there

1:08

are a lot of questions

1:11

now about 9 -11. Well,

1:13

let's start with building seven. Again,

1:15

I don't know if you can find

1:17

structural engineers other than the ones that

1:19

have the corrupt investigation inside NIST. that

1:22

would say that that thing didn't come down

1:24

in any other way than a controlled

1:26

demolition. I mean, you just look

1:28

at that. You talk about molten

1:30

steel. Again, you listen

1:32

to the documentary Bravo 7. There's

1:36

an awful lot of questions. Who

1:38

ordered the removal

1:40

and the destruction of all that

1:42

evidence? Totally contrary to any

1:44

other firefighting investigation procedures. I mean,

1:46

who ordered that? Who was in

1:49

charge? I think there's some basic

1:51

information. Where's all the documentation from

1:53

this investigation? No, there are a

1:55

host of questions that I want and I

1:57

will be asking quite honestly now that my

1:59

eyes have been opened up. All right.

2:01

So Senator Ron Johnson suggests that

2:03

more congressional hearings into 9 11 need

2:05

to happen. He's spreading this. theory

2:08

that may be conspiratorial. Somebody who knows

2:10

the difference between fact and fiction

2:12

and conspiracy is our next guest, Nathan

2:14

Radke, the co -host of the Conspiracy

2:16

Theory podcast, The Uncover Up. Welcome

2:18

back to the show, Nathan. Well, thanks

2:20

for having me on. Okay, I

2:23

would like to take an approach on

2:25

this story that is, you know,

2:27

with a smile on my face. Because

2:29

if I don't, if I take

2:31

this really seriously, then I'm going to

2:33

go down a path where I'm

2:35

going to say something like Senator Ron

2:38

Johnson in peddling this stuff is

2:40

besmirching the memories of the people who

2:42

died that day. But I don't

2:44

want to go there. So let's have

2:46

a little bit of fun with

2:48

this. What is going on? I

2:52

mean, what's going on ultimately is

2:54

that politicians are often tempted to tap

2:56

into this sort of conspiratorial energy. And

2:59

it seems to, you know, motivate their base to

3:01

get some a lot of press. And

3:03

they often think that they can control it and

3:05

use it for their own purposes. But

3:07

that's never what ends up happening.

3:09

Yeah, that paranoid conspiratorial energy, it

3:11

only consumes and destroys. And

3:14

it's a very cynical move sometimes

3:16

by politicians, unless, of course, It's entirely

3:18

possible that he genuinely believes this.

3:20

Well, let's assume that he does. Let's

3:22

let's assume he's a good faith

3:24

actor. But before we get there, like,

3:26

I mean, I remember when the

3:28

9 11 Commission put forth their report,

3:30

it was like, I don't know,

3:32

thousands of pages in that big blue

3:34

book. What is I

3:36

thought there was a there

3:38

is a consensus, right, that

3:40

we believe. We believe that

3:42

the story that is public

3:44

is the story most people

3:46

believe, right? Well, these

3:48

days, that's true. I mean,

3:50

back in 2005, the

3:53

Iraq invasion was a few years old. The

3:55

insurgency was getting stronger. It was becoming

3:57

clear that the war wasn't going to be the quick and easy

3:59

operation that had been promised. And so

4:01

back then, a lot of people were questioning

4:03

the motivation and justification for that invasion. The

4:06

documentary Loose Change had been released online. at

4:08

a time when many people had the ability

4:10

to burn DVDs and pass them on to

4:12

friends. And while that

4:14

doc was riddled with factual inaccuracies

4:16

and unfounded speculation, it was

4:18

extremely widely distributed, influential, and it

4:20

caused a lot of people to

4:23

ask questions about the official story

4:25

of September 11th. And it's understandable

4:27

that people had questions about something

4:29

that terrible and destructive. There

4:31

were a lot of odd elements to that official

4:33

story, like the links between the Bush and

4:35

Bin Laden families. or the way that Building 7

4:37

collapsed, even though it hadn't been hit by

4:39

a plane. And people had

4:41

questions about why fighters hadn't been able to

4:43

intercept the hijacked airliners. There

4:45

were things in the videos that looked suspicious,

4:48

like puffs of smoke emerging from tower

4:50

windows that collapsed, or what appeared to be

4:52

molten metal. And there had

4:54

even been examples of the American

4:56

government lying in the past about attacks,

4:58

things like the 1964 Gulf of

5:00

Tonkin incident. We've been a

5:02

proposed plan from the Department of Defense

5:04

in the early 60s titled Northwoods

5:06

to launch false flag style attacks on

5:08

American interests to justify an invasion

5:10

to Cuba So it's good to have

5:13

questions. Yeah, it helps keep the

5:15

government more transparent prevents them from getting

5:17

away from nonsense But if you

5:19

have questions, you have to be willing

5:21

to listen to the answers Yeah,

5:23

and there are answers to these questions

5:25

that people have about 9 -11 That

5:27

don't require there to be an

5:29

inside job or explosive placed in the

5:31

towers or anything like that And

5:33

look, I have to assume that even

5:36

on the conspiracy side, there isn't

5:38

a consensus on what actually happened, what

5:40

they believe happened. There must be

5:42

myriad conspiracies, each one of

5:44

them mutually exclusive from the

5:46

other. Well, and the problem

5:48

is, as time has passed, and I can't

5:50

believe it's been almost 25 years, this

5:53

has allowed more and more ridiculous

5:55

hypotheses to creep in. What's the most

5:57

ridiculous one you've heard? Oh, that

5:59

the airplanes were holograms and didn't exist

6:01

at all. Are

6:04

you kidding? No, I'm serious. And

6:06

I've spoken to people who said, I mean,

6:08

maybe this is even more ridiculous, that the

6:10

World Trade Center towers never existed to begin

6:12

with. This is the problem when something starts

6:14

to recede into the past. It makes it

6:16

possible for people to come up with more

6:18

and more ridiculous explanations. My goodness. And

6:21

do you think that if If

6:23

we have congressional hearings, what are

6:25

they going to focus on? Because

6:27

you could focus on any number

6:29

of things here. You could focus

6:32

on, like Ron Johnson talked about,

6:34

the collapse of building seven. Or

6:36

you could go to the hijackers

6:38

themselves, because I heard one guy

6:40

a few days ago say that

6:42

Israel was involved in 9 -11.

6:44

I mean, there are so

6:46

many strings. Once you start pulling at the strings,

6:49

you never stop. I mean,

6:51

and that's why it's so important to

6:53

have a historical context for so many people.

6:55

When this awful thing happened, it appeared

6:57

like it came out of nowhere. It just

6:59

came out of the blue sky. But

7:02

I mean, the more people learn, for example,

7:04

but the history of what happened during Cold

7:06

War in Afghanistan, the less

7:08

they tend to believe in these and

7:10

the inside job hypothesis. And

7:12

of course, nothing that we learn is going

7:14

to justify the mass murder that happened on 9

7:16

11. But it can help us understand it,

7:19

which is a very different thing than justifying it.

7:21

I don't understand these people who go down

7:23

this rabbit hole. And when they

7:25

do so, like I said, they are denying

7:27

the pain and suffering of people who died

7:29

that day and whose families carry that pain

7:31

with them to this day. Well,

7:33

and again, it's that pain

7:35

and trauma that I think often

7:37

leads people to conspiracy theories. Because

7:40

otherwise, things seem so out of control.

7:42

Whereas a conspiracy theory, if you thought

7:44

your own government was in charge of

7:46

it, in a really weird way that's

7:48

almost a little bit soothing, almost

7:50

a little bit calming. Because

7:52

then rather than this sort of outside

7:54

force that was able to pull

7:57

off this terrible thing, it's your own

7:59

government that was behind it. And

8:01

we're almost happier when there's somebody who

8:03

is near to us that is

8:05

still in charge of things, even when

8:07

it's as ridiculous as this. Nathan,

8:10

is there one thing that conspiracy

8:12

theorists have in common? The

8:14

theories can be different, but is there

8:16

one thing that links all conspiracy theorists? Well,

8:19

I think the one thing that links all

8:21

conspiracy theorists is that we could all be

8:23

conspiracy theorists. We have the natural tendency to

8:25

seek out explanations. We have the

8:27

natural tendencies to find patterns. And

8:30

so any one of us can

8:32

be sort of tempted into a conspiracy

8:34

theory. It's why it's so important

8:36

that we always have proper historical context

8:38

and that we teach media literacy

8:40

and critical thinking because I've spoken to

8:42

so many people at parties or

8:44

at school or wherever where they talk

8:47

about a friend or a family

8:49

member who got sucked into some kind

8:51

of deep, dark rabbit hole. And

8:53

it is a thing that can happen to

8:55

any of us, particularly when we feel like

8:57

we're not in control of the situation we're

8:59

in. Very quickly, in a couple of sentences,

9:01

is there one conspiracy theory that you actually

9:03

believe? Well, there's many. The

9:06

CIA had a mind control project called MKUltra.

9:08

Oh, I thought that was real. It

9:10

is true. Yeah, that's a true one. I

9:12

believe it because it is accurate and it

9:14

is history. There have been some conspiracies that

9:16

have occurred. And that's, again, why it's so

9:19

important that we're able to sort the difference

9:21

between the two because some of the ridiculous

9:23

ones, like the Americans planning on nuking the

9:25

moon, are all so accurate. Nathan, thank you

9:27

so much for joining us. Enjoy the rest

9:29

of your week. You too. Thanks for having

9:31

me on. Welcome back

9:33

to the Ben Mulrooney Show. And,

9:36

you know, this election feels very

9:38

close. It just does. I know

9:40

that the Tories their vote is

9:42

far less efficient than the liberals

9:44

so they have to do far

9:46

better in terms of raw numbers

9:48

just to get the same number

9:50

of seats as the liberals I

9:52

know that the the bloc vote

9:54

has seemingly collapsed in Quebec the

9:56

NDP vote has seemingly collapsed across

9:58

the country which means everyone seems

10:01

to be coalescing behind

10:03

the Tories and the Liberals. And depending

10:05

on what day it is and what

10:07

part of the country and what poll

10:09

you're looking at, one's up or the

10:11

other's up. So this is shaping up

10:13

to be one of the closest head -to

10:15

-head races in the history of Canadian

10:17

politics. All the more reason

10:19

to bring back to the

10:21

show Craig Baird, the host of

10:23

Canadian History X, to talk

10:25

about the last closest election in

10:27

Canadian history. Craig, welcome to

10:30

the show. Thanks for having

10:32

me. So let's get in the way back machine

10:34

and take us all the way back to the election

10:36

of 1972 Yeah, 1972

10:38

was a very unique election. We

10:40

were coming about four years after

10:42

1968 where you had Trudeau Mania

10:44

and the Liberals had a majority

10:46

government but by 1972 that had

10:48

kind of started to wane and

10:50

the economy wasn't doing great So

10:52

people were starting to look for

10:54

some sort of change and they

10:56

were looking towards the progressive conservatives

10:58

in Robert Stanfield who would lead

11:00

the party through the second the

11:02

his second election and by 1972

11:04

you had things like the October

11:07

crisis that happened in October 1970

11:09

that hurt the liberals in places

11:11

like Quebec. And then meanwhile, Robert

11:13

Stanfield, you know, the progressive conservatives

11:15

had the campaign of a progressive conservative

11:17

government will do better. And

11:19

the liberals had a campaign where it was

11:21

the land is strong and the campaign message. Let's

11:24

stick with those slogans for just

11:26

a second. A progressive

11:28

conservative government will do better. That's

11:30

really not shooting for the stars, is it? It

11:33

really isn't, but it was better than

11:36

the Liberals. The land is strong because

11:38

they mostly just had pictures of Canada

11:40

in their campaigns and on television. And

11:42

many consider it to be one of

11:44

the worst campaigns in Canadian history just

11:46

because of how inefficient it really was.

11:48

Listen, I'm going to editorialize for a

11:50

second. You don't have to, but that's

11:52

Perfectly in keeping with the Liberal Party

11:54

if it's their campaign was nothing but

11:57

pictures of Canada while the Liberal Party

11:59

sees itself as Canada So that's very

12:01

in keeping with how they see themselves.

12:03

Anyway, go on my friend And then

12:05

the NDP they were still led by

12:07

or they were led by Tommy Douglas

12:09

until 1970 and then he was replaced

12:11

by David Lewis So going into the

12:13

election one big change was that the

12:16

voting age had been lowered to 18

12:18

so you had a lot of new

12:20

people But you also didn't have

12:22

a TV debate. You had the first TV debate

12:24

in 1968. It was a very boring affair.

12:26

Nobody liked it, and it wouldn't return until, I

12:28

believe, 1980. So it would

12:30

be a while. But this election was

12:32

incredibly close. The Liberals won with

12:34

109 seats, and the Progressive Conservatives had

12:36

107 seats. So it was a

12:38

very, very close election. The NDP actually

12:40

did very well. They took a

12:42

lot of the seats from the Liberals

12:44

when they had 31 seats, and

12:46

that would be their best to that

12:48

point until the late 1980s. Ed

12:51

Broadman, but it was a very close election.

12:53

Obviously, the government only lasted a couple years

12:55

before it went into another election in 1974.

12:58

So, yeah, well, that's what happens. Typically,

13:00

in Canada, minorities don't last that

13:02

long. mean, we just came out of

13:04

a very long, the longest minority

13:06

in Canadian history. And

13:08

so, yeah, I think people like

13:10

minorities because they can pull the plug

13:12

somewhere between nine and 18 months. Typically,

13:16

that is what it is. Yeah. And

13:18

with this one, it was the NDP that

13:20

was kind of helping the liberals stay

13:22

in power until they fell in a budget

13:24

vote in 1974. And then the liberals

13:26

actually got a majority in that government in

13:28

that election. And I know you said

13:30

that the liberal campaign was viewed as one

13:32

of the worst of all time, but

13:34

they had a slumping economy. They had the

13:37

War Measures Act. They had a whole

13:39

bunch of... They had baggage, right? So how

13:41

is it that they still managed to... the

13:43

Tories. You would think that it feels

13:46

like it might have been a change

13:48

election, and yet it really wasn't. Well,

13:51

the Tories did very well, again, in

13:53

Western Canada, but they didn't do as

13:55

well in Eastern Canada. The Liberals were

13:57

able to win Ontario. A good chunk

13:59

of Quebec, the Social Credit Party, actually

14:01

won a bit there as well. So

14:03

it was just, it was very split

14:05

between the two parts of the country.

14:07

And, you know, if the A few

14:09

votes had just gone a different way.

14:11

Robert Stanfield would have easily won that

14:13

election, and it was incredibly close. I

14:15

don't think we've ever had an election

14:17

that close before. All right. Well, we're

14:19

going to pivot from the performance in

14:21

the theater of politics to the performance

14:23

in theater of theater. I

14:27

understand that hindsight is

14:29

20 -20, so we can

14:31

look back at the performance

14:33

of Godspell in Toronto

14:36

in 1972, knowing what

14:38

we know today. But back then,

14:40

it was a cast made up of unknowns

14:42

who one day all became knowns. Talk

14:44

to us about that. Yeah,

14:46

if when people ask me, you know,

14:48

when would you like to travel

14:51

back in time to I have various

14:53

places I would like to go

14:55

but one is to see a God

14:57

Spell performance in Toronto 1972 because

14:59

it was just an unbelievable cast of

15:01

unknowns people like Eugene Levy Martin

15:03

Short, Andrew Martin, Dave Thomas, Gilda Radner,

15:05

Victor Garber. I mean, it was

15:07

so stacked with talent that Catherine O

15:09

'Hara actually auditioned for God Spell and

15:11

didn't get apart. So it just

15:14

shows you how much talent there was

15:16

in this. And Paul Schaefer was

15:18

the show's musical director. He

15:20

was yeah, he'd actually come just to

15:22

play the piano for some of his friends

15:24

who were auditioning But they really liked

15:26

him so they actually made him the show's

15:28

musical director and then Howard Shore was

15:30

there and he was playing saxophone and then

15:33

he would go on to win three

15:35

Academy Awards for scoring the Lord of the

15:37

Rings trilogy like it's just So he

15:39

won three Oscars for the Lord of the

15:41

Rings Paul Schaefer in my mind the

15:43

high watermark in his career was not David

15:45

Letterman It's the fact that he wrote

15:47

the song. It's reigning men Exactly.

15:50

Yeah, this casting crew, I mean, they

15:52

went on to earn four orders of

15:54

Canada, 10 Emmys, five Tonys, three Oscars,

15:56

three Golden Globes, seven Grammys, and three

15:58

stars on Canada's Walk of Fame. And

16:00

at the time, nobody knew who they

16:02

were. They were just a bunch of

16:04

unknowns on stage and nobody knew what

16:06

they were seeing in front of them.

16:08

All right. Well, let's listen to a

16:10

little bit above your episode on Godspell.

16:12

News traveled fast across Toronto that the

16:14

production was coming. Every actor

16:16

in the city wanted a role in

16:18

over 500 auditioned for the 10 roles. During

16:22

the first week of March, various

16:24

auditions were held and, with each one

16:26

the number of potential performers slowly

16:28

decreased, until the final

16:30

callback. Eugene Levy

16:32

was one of those eagerly waiting news of

16:34

a role. Originally from Hamilton,

16:36

he never thought he would get far in the

16:38

audition process. When he entered, he

16:40

saw six people go in before him and

16:42

each one sang the song Aquarius from the

16:44

musical Hair. He didn't know the lyrics, but

16:47

listened to the chorus of each singer to

16:49

learn the words. He walked in,

16:51

gave his performance in front of the directors,

16:53

and as he hit the high note,

16:55

they stopped him and said, all right, that's

16:57

fine, thank you very much. But

16:59

it turns out the directors weren't looking for

17:02

polish. What they wanted was raw

17:04

talent, and Levy had a

17:06

lot of it. Absolutely

17:08

incredible. Who was the director

17:10

of this play? It

17:12

was actually created by Stephen Schwartz, and

17:14

so it was directed by, I believe,

17:16

him and some other people who came

17:18

in to kind of put on it,

17:20

because it was put on various performances

17:22

in the United States and then Toronto

17:25

and London. So it kind of went

17:27

all over the place. Every place had

17:29

its own cast and crew and all

17:31

of that. Yeah, but it's still fent.

17:33

I mean, I can't even understand how

17:35

they identified the talent that they put

17:37

on stage. so early on and how

17:39

those stars went on to become bonafide

17:41

stars around the world. I mean, I

17:44

would love to pick the brain of

17:46

that director and say, what did you

17:48

see in Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Andrew

17:50

Martin, Dave Thomas, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber.

17:52

That's a TED talk right there. Absolutely

17:55

like it was somebody who if they were

17:57

a scout for hockey they essentially picked a

17:59

team of Hall of Famers You know on

18:01

the first try like there was so much

18:03

talent in Toronto at the time it was

18:05

a hub for Performances and such that there

18:07

was just so much to choose from that

18:09

you just chose the best of the best

18:11

for this Yeah, that's that's that's like getting

18:13

you know seven first -round draft picks and

18:15

every single one that you pick in one

18:17

year Makes it to the Hall of Fame Oh,

18:21

absolutely. And that's one reason why when

18:23

it premiered in 1972, it was only

18:25

supposed to run for a few weeks.

18:27

It actually ran till August 1973 for

18:29

what was then a record 488 performances.

18:32

Did all of them stick around for the entire thing?

18:35

Most did Victor Garber who people would know

18:37

from alias and Titanic and all these other

18:39

shows he actually played Jesus and he was

18:41

so good at it that they actually had

18:43

him go and play Jesus in the movie

18:45

that was made so he left a little

18:48

bit later and then Eugene Levy actually played

18:50

Jesus and he had to be shirtless and

18:52

asked him if he would shave his chest

18:54

and he said absolutely not. I'm not doing

18:56

that. Hey Craig Barrett how can people find

18:58

the show? I can find it

19:00

on all podcast platforms and you can listen

19:02

on the Chorus Radio Network every weekend. Just

19:04

check your local times. Craig Baird, the host

19:06

of Canadian History X, always love having you

19:08

on the show, my friend. Thanks

19:10

for having me. Want

19:13

to transform your space and your

19:15

Sundays? Well, Home Network is giving

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