Ezra Levant joins David Menzies to expose Doug Ford’s LCBO alcohol bans—$1B wasted on unsold U.S. liquor, including $132.47 markup on Booker’s bourbon—while China’s products remain despite human rights abuses and pandemic origins. Ford’s 2026 D’Ago delisting threatens 160 jobs in Amherstburg’s struggling economy, yet Canadian-made Crown Royal stays banned. Former Marineland trainer Phil DeMer reveals belugas suffer in squalid captivity, with hyperchlorinated water causing chemical burns, while the park’s lawyer prioritizes assets over welfare. Captivity’s cruelty—separation, shortened lives, and profit-driven neglect—undermines Ford’s selective moral stances, proving monopolies and animal exploitation alike fail under political whims. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, what are the political booze rules in the province of Ontario in terms of what gets on the shelf and what gets taken off?
Well, it's kind of like that Meryl Street movie.
It's complicated.
It's Friday, October 10th, 2025.
I'm David Menzies and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious boobug.
You know, for a guy who says he doesn't drink alcohol, Ontario Premier Doug Ford seems downright obsessed over booze, doesn't he?
It all began with a weird obsession going back some seven years ago in which Ford promised on the campaign trail that Ontarians would be able to buy a can of beer for a dollar.
Buck of beer, buck of beer, buck of beer, Ford promised.
I'd buy that for a dollar.
Yeah, and how did that turn out?
Well, I think buck a beer in Ontario lasted for all of two weeks.
Then the price soared.
Gee, today you can't even buy swill like Bud Light for a buck.
Even to a guy like me, that's cold.
But really, given all the problems facing Ontarians then and now, you know, like unemployment, a record deficit in debt, school boards being infiltrated by Marxists and Islamists, and so much more, were Ontarians ever really all that obsessed about getting a can of suds for a loony?
Give me a break already.
But from promising cheaper alcohol products, Ford these days is all about banning certain booze from the shelves of his bloated booze monopoly.
That would be the liquor control board of Ontario.
Oh, but make no mistake, the LCBO is indeed all about control.
Ontario isn't Alberta, which has enjoyed a fully privatized system since 1994.
That was the right move then.
It's the right move now, of course.
I mean, there is a role when it comes to the government and alcohol, and that role is to tax and regulate the product, not to warehouse and retail the stuff.
Still, with Ford going on a booze banning jihad, one wonders if the LCBO will have any liquor left to control in the months ahead.
And disturbingly, the booze banning has nothing to do with quality control or sales figures and everything to do with political grandstanding.
This trend kicked off in 2022 when Ford ordered the LCBO to yank Russian vodka off the shelves.
This was due to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
Three years later, well, knock me down with a feather.
These two nations are still at war.
Golly, Ford wasn't able to intimidate Vladimir Putin to sue for peace?
Shockers.
But at least Ford scored a PR photo op.
And Doug Ford loves photo ops almost as much as he loves his cherished cherry cheesecake.
That, my friends, is the Premier's Cheesecake.
Friends, stay safe, stay healthy.
And these are some of the fun things you can do when you're self-isolating.
Oh, I haven't had one of these in years.
Yeah, what a fun thing to do when being quarantined.
Sit around all day eating garbage.
But these days, Ford orchestrating booze banning photo ops as opposed to, oh, I don't know, doing something tangible, it's getting a tad boring, wouldn't you say?
Case in point, earlier this year, all U.S. liquor products ranging from California wines to Kentucky bourbons were also pulled from LCBO shelves as a result of the ongoing tariff tiff between the U.S. and Canada.
But let's think about this for a moment, shall we?
What was taking $1 billion worth of bought and paid for inventory off the shelves of the LCBO?
What was it supposed to achieve?
These products are now taking up space in a warehouse somewhere, which is being paid for by Ontario's ever-beleaguered taxpayers, of course.
Thanks, Dougie.
Whatever happened to your old, albeit brilliant slogan, respect for taxpayers?
I mean, even if you agree with banning U.S. booze, why not sell off the existing inventory?
Advising customers that when this stuff is gone, it's gone.
Oh yeah, what am I saying?
That would eradicate that stupid photo op of LCBO staffers yanking U.S. hooch off the shelves.
So take that, Donald Trump.
You know, this is the very reason why monopolies, especially government-run monopolies, are both odious and egregious.
Indeed, selectively playing politics and banning certain booze thanks to country of origin is an example of an abusive monopoly.
And because the provincial government owns and operates the LCBO monopoly, all this booze canceling qualifies as abuse of regulatory authority.
Someone really ought to sue.
And please, don't tell me that if I love Kentucky bourbon so much, I can just take a day trip and cross the border to say New York State or Michigan and pick up a bottle in the US of A. There's just one hitch to that strategy, cost.
Remember when I went to a Detroit liquor store last month, folks?
Like a rube, I actually declared my bottle of Booker's bourbon at the Detroit-Windsor border crossing.
Spoiler alert, I found out that honesty is not the best policy.
Check it out.
Now, as you can see, this is the bourbon of choice when I come to the U.S., Bookers.
It's expensive.
It's $120 U.S., but you can't get this at the LCBO because of Doug Ford's photo op of removing all American booze from the LCBO.
In fact, you can't get even the cheapest bourbon because anything from Kentucky, anything from California, that is product non-grata.
So I'm going to do the honest thing.
I'm going to declare this at the border.
Wonder what the penalty will be in terms of taxation, tariff, customs, however you want to call it.
Now, here's the other thing.
This is Zin.
Yes, it contains nicotine, but certainly not as much nicotine as what's allowed for sale in Canada.
And by the way, there's been recent studies showing that Zin, the consumption of which helps those with Parkinson's disease, but Health Canada does not approve this.
So what does that mean?
Is it more than paying a customs fee?
Is it actually getting this confiscated?
Even though Tobacco Classic is sold in Canada, we're going to see when we cross the border about an hour from now.
Well, folks, we just emerged from the Detroit-Windsor tunnel and we told the truth that we had a bottle of bourbon and a package of Zin.
Oh, did we pay a price?
Let's start with the Zinn.
As you can see, this is me consenting to voluntary confiscation of the Zin.
The other option was to go back to the United States and use it there or give it away there.
But given that it's a $6.99 item, well, you would pay more in the toll to do that.
So I had no choice but to give it away.
And by the way, they told me they're going to destroy it.
And the reason is that Zin is six milligrams of nicotine.
The limit is four milligrams of nicotine.
Now, you can get higher nicotine in Canada, but by prescription.
So you see, it's the federal government hand in hand with big pharma.
Big Pharma wants its cut.
It doesn't want you getting the high nicotine product from the convenience store or the liquor store.
So there you have it.
Crown Royal Closure Controversy00:09:45
Here is what the taxman wanted for declaring the bourbon.
We'll start with $6.57 in duty.
Oh, that's not bad.
But wait.
Then we have the GST HST component.
That's $22.45.
And oh, well, you hear this one.
The provincial liquor markup fee, $103.45.
So the grand total, $132.47.
So let's pretend we're in a chronology where the U.S. and Canadian dollar are on par.
I paid more in provincial markups, GST, HST, and duty than what I paid for the actual bottle, $132.47 versus $120.
So I guess at the end of the day, I want to meet the jokers who coined the phrases, honesty is the best policy and crime doesn't pay.
And as for you, Premier Ford, you forced me into this position.
You won't allow me to buy a bottle of bourbon at your crown liquor monopoly.
You know what?
To quote Mike Elbows Up Myers, you really are a fat bastard.
Yeah, I won't be making that mistake ever again.
But now comes word that Doug Ford isn't quite done yet with the booze banning.
And the latest threatened booze ban is really the most illogical one of all.
You see, Ford is threatening to delist all D'Ago products from the LCBO come February.
D'Ago owns Crown Royal and the Crown Royal bottling facility in Amherstburg, Ontario, which is near Windsor, is slated to close early next year.
D'Ago, it should be noted, is a booze behemoth.
In the fiscal year ending in June 2025, it had more than US$20 billion in revenue.
But when the Amherzberg plant is shuttered, 160 workers will be given their pink slips.
This will be a debilitating blow for this town of 25,000.
By the way, how is this even happening?
I mean, isn't this why Mark Captain Canuck Carney, Ford's newest best boyfriend in Ottawa, was elected in April?
He was going to save the day and end the tariff dispute and make Canada great again or something like that.
However, it looks like elbows up has been replaced with knees down, but never mind.
For its part, D'Ago says the closure of the plant has nothing to do with the ongoing tariff TIF.
Marsha McIntosh, D'Ago's president of North America Supply, said the following in a statement, quote, this was a difficult decision, but one that is crucial to improving the efficiency and resiliency of our supply chain network, end quote.
Now, I did reach out to DAGO's media relations department for further comment, but I never heard back.
I also paid a visit to the Crown Royal plant last month, but employees told me they had been instructed not to speak to the media.
Naturally, the upcoming closure did not go unnoticed by Premier Ford.
And shockers, you guessed it, Ford staged a photo op, this time pouring a large bottle of Crown Royal down the drain.
So, you know something?
I found a bottle, and I don't even drink of Crown Oil, right?
I see that Crown Royal.
I saw it at home.
So this is what I think about Crown Oil.
That's what they could do.
And I think everyone else should do the same thing.
Start supporting companies that make whiskey here by Ontario people.
That's what we need to do is support each other.
You know, something to make this even come out quicker because it's not coming out.
I know Mayor Berry wants to lie on the floor right now.
No plan, but no.
I wish we could get this coming out quicker, but I'll stand here and tell it for.
Nice.
What's more, a blustery Ford threatened to play hardball with DAGO should the closure go through as scheduled, which is to say all DAGO products would be delisted from LCBO stores.
That's a big deal.
In addition to Crown Royal, D'Ago produces more than 200 brands of booze, including Johnny Walker Scotch, Captain Morrig Rum, Tangary Gin, Bailey's Irish Cream, and Guinness Beer.
Ford says the LCBO is D'Ago's biggest customer with sales of its products at the LCBO amounting to more than $740 million per year.
So far, the company has not reversed course and intends to close the Amherstberg facility in February as planned.
Now, I'm of two minds about Ford's strategy here, folks.
The announced closure is, of course, horrible news for this town.
And I very much feel for the Crown Royal employees who will be out of a job in the months ahead if the closure indeed goes through.
Windsor already has a staggering 11.2% unemployment rate.
Where will these workers find jobs?
But by the same token, in the bigger picture, I wonder just what are the rules when it comes to those alcohol products that get delisted in Ontario, not due to lack of demand, but rather due to politics.
Well, let's start with Crown Royal, which is as Canadian as you can get.
Crown Royal whiskey is distilled and aged in Gimling, Manitoba.
There's also a bottling facility in Valleyfield, Quebec.
As well, the ingredients in Crown Royal, such as corn, rye, and barley, are grown in Western Canada by Canadian farmers.
Also, the Canadian headquarters and the warehouse operations of DAGO are situated in the Toronto area.
So, if Ford goes through with his threat, this is going to affect everyone from farmers in the prairies to bottlers in Quebec.
Last time I checked, those folks were still carrying Canadian passports.
Oh, and here's another thing.
Last time I surfed the LCBO's website, it was stocking some 176 products from China, 176.
But why?
China has an egregious human rights record.
China is conducting a genocide of its Uighur people.
China has delivered a debilitating hit on Canuck canola farmers by slapping Canadian canola seed with a 78.5% tariff, not to mention a 100% duty on canola oil, meal, and peas.
And let us never, ever forget that the People's Republic of China was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed millions of people and cost the world's economy untold trillions of dollars.
So why does this communist dictatorship get a free pass at the LCBO?
Why the hell are we doing business with these people when we don't need to?
If Ting Cao beer is pulled from the shelves, well, too bad, so sad.
Pick up a six pack of Labatte Blue or choose from hundreds of other brands that are domestically produced.
You know, products that are bottled in Canada with Canadian ingredients and made by Canadian workers.
Now, I did reach out to the Ontario Ministry of Finance, which oversees the LCBO.
But like all ministries in Ontario under Ford these days, they are under a gag order and will not comment to the independent media.
Pathetic.
Gee, maybe we need to rebrand this province as the Democratic People's Republic of Ontario and perhaps get Doug Ford fitted for a crown.
At least that would amount to some truth in advertising.
Then again, perhaps Doug Ford, like his former Ontario-based best buddy, Justin Trudeau, also has a level of admiration for China, end quote.
Or maybe, just maybe, China makes the world's finest cherry cheesecake.
If that's the case, you think Doug Ford is going to rock that boat?
But the booze brew ha-ha in Ontario tells you all you need to know about the Ford PCs.
They are all sizzle and no steak.
They certainly aren't conservative.
Whales and Captivity Options00:09:26
It's disgraceful.
It's sad.
It's nonsensical.
It's self-defeating.
And in the meantime, I'm praying every day that Ontario doesn't end up getting into some sort of stupid dispute with Scotland.
Because if Doug Ford declares to yank scotch from LCBO shelves, well, in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, of course, you know, this means war.
It's amazing shows and friendship codes.
Everyone loves Marineland.
You'll be spinning, diving, and soaring high.
I wore a colour to ride, we'll buy you to the sky.
Now you know what you say when you leave here today.
Everyone loves Marineland.
Yes, that was then, and this is now, if you were to revise the theme song for the now defunct park known as Marineland and Game Farm, I would say everybody hates Marineland would be more appropriate.
And a new low was reached earlier this week with Marineland basically telling the government that either pay up or we're going to kill off the remaining stock of beluga whales.
It's unbelievable.
Once upon a time, Marineland was a thriving theme park, but now they're selling off the land.
They're selling off the thrill rides and they were trying to sell off their marine mammal stock, namely sending the belugas to a similar park in China until the federal government put the kibosh on that.
So where do we go from here?
Well, folks, joining me now is Phil DeMer.
He is a former trainer of whales at Marineland in Niagara Falls, and he is now a whistleblower and very much a thorn in the side of the people who are operating this now defunct park.
Phil, thank you so much.
Welcome to the Ezra Levent Show.
Thanks for having me.
Well, Phil, first of all, let's begin with the, you know, the decision by the federal government where they blocked Marineland from sending these whales to China.
Now, a lot of people are saying if you do so, you're committing those whales to a death sentence or at least misery in those apparently polluted and cramped tanks.
But others are saying that was the right call because it'll just be more of the same in China.
Where do you weigh in, my friend?
I think in the balance of things, the decision to send them to China would have been responsible.
The facilities in China are, for the most part, way newer.
In fact, many brand new.
The specific facility called Chime Long Ocean Kingdom in China, where Marineland was intent on sending the belugas, they have some of the world's largest tanks, and the quality of the water is really good.
And obviously, the life support systems are up to date, etc.
The minister ultimately made the decision because in the spirit of the law that we passed in 2019 called Bill S203, it basically ends marine mammal captivity in Canada with the caveat that exporting the animals can only be approved if it's the interest if it's in the interest of the animal.
As well in that law was a breeding ban.
Now, in China, they continue to do performances.
So, you know, trainers will enter the water, et cetera, with the beluga whales.
And as well, they breed whales.
So she really sort of hung the bulk of her rationale on the idea of stopping that.
But the reality for these whales is the only options for them is sideways.
So it's another tank at another place.
Again, I stress that most places have better conditions than Marineland, but a question of the animal law oversight and enforcement comes into play in those considerations.
That said, when you've got 30 whales to deal with and only so many facilities in the U.S. and only so many facilities around the world that can take them, by eliminating some of the better facilities in the world, you really narrow the options to not much better.
So much is left to be seen on where this goes, but I think that's a decision that's going to be revisited.
So, Phil, assuming the government doesn't flip-flop on this decision, as you said, there are options.
What are the options?
For example, I understand there are some sanctuaries out there.
Is that viable?
There are not sanctuaries out there.
There are proposed ideas.
There are theories.
None are operational.
One tried in Iceland, but unfortunately it wasn't working out.
And so it's taken more steps back than forward.
And the proposed one in Nova Scotia is merely a theory.
They do not have the landowner's approval.
So call them a painting on the wall and a fancy presentations, but there's no viability, no realistic chance of sending them anywhere.
That's a proposal of that nature.
And frankly, that would take years and years and years and years.
And many of those sanctuaries have already been claiming that they would be ready for years and years and years and years.
And using the Nova Scotia sanctuary proposal as an example, they started saying in 2019 that they would be ready the following year to get animals.
Well, 30 whales of just about 30 whales have died in that time, and there's been exactly zero progress.
So as many whales have died since the proposal of this sanctuary idea, then there are remaining.
And there's been zero progress on that front.
So really, when I stress that the only options remaining are sideways and perhaps north in the sense of being a little bit better, is that there are facilities in the U.S. There's six of them that still have belugas in captivity.
They don't do performances, so it's for the most part display only.
And I don't want to be quoted, but I don't think they're breeding them.
I know that SeaWorld has an in-house policy that they stop breeding their orcas.
I can't be certain that that's extended to their beluga whales, but I've not heard of a beluga whale born in the U.S. recently in a long time.
Now, one of the issues with the U.S. is they don't want to do business with Marineland because they had only years ago sent five beluga whales to Mystic Aquarium, three of which died within weeks and months of that facility receiving them because they were sick animals.
Another one was on death store, but recovered.
And a number of years ago, Marineland also had to sue SeaWorld to get back one of their loner orcas.
So in the U.S., Marineland has a rather tarnished corporate name, so no one really wants to affiliate.
But I do see a scenario where if the government does seize the animals, maybe those facilities will come to the table to discuss caretaking those animals or taking them and adhering to the spirit of the Canadian law, which is not to breed them or use them for entertainment.
And maybe some of those whales can find themselves a home in the U.S.
But outside of that, there's not much more.
Phil, I'm sure you hear this chorus of voices that are saying, well, for goodness sakes, just release them back into the wild.
I'm not a marine biologist expert by any stretch, but I'm assuming an animal like a beluga whale, years in captivity, being fed hand to mouth, this free willy fantasy, if you will, it just isn't viable, that that would indeed be a death sentence for these belugas as well.
What say you, my friend?
Side of doing it really, really responsibly, which is which would be very arduous, very expensive.
It would require infrastructure and et cetera, et cetera.
It's not something in the interest of the animals.
Those animals need to remain under human care.
And again, even if we were to take approximate steps in trying to re-release into the wild, it would take years and years and years.
And not all the animals would be candidates.
Not all of them would be successful at it.
For context, two of the remaining beluga whales at Marineland were actually captured from the wild.
The rest have been born in captivity.
So they've only ever known captivity.
Captivity has compromised them, not only in their instincts, but in their physical being.
They are different whales now with different sets of needs.
And if we're going to accommodate those needs, they need to remain under human care.
Phil, what do you make of that, I thought, shocking announcement by Marineland where they said to the government, pay us, because these whales, it costs a million or two to feed them every month.
Pay us or we kill them.
Marineland Extortion00:15:27
It was basically A, extortion.
And B, I understand that if you're going to euthanize an endangered animal, unless it's very sick or injured, that is illegal.
I understand belugas are on the endangered list.
So is Marineland suggesting they're going to break the law?
So Marineland, as I'd stressed in prior conversations with you, is full of bluster.
This is another one of Andrew Burns's specialties.
So I've just endured 13 years of litigation against them in trying to get a walrus removed from Marineland, and it was much of the same.
It's much of the same bluster.
At the end of the day, Marineland sits on 700 acres of prime real estate.
There's tons of money here to fuel the trust fund, which is going to go to the heirs.
Marineland is simply very upset because it was a lucrative deal to China.
They wanted that money.
They didn't get it.
And so now because they didn't get their way, they're stomping their fee.
So this is just another one of Andrew Burns's means of operation.
It's how he's always operated.
It's threats.
It's bluster.
It's building fences.
It's putting up fights.
It's filing lawsuits, but it's rarely actually ever addressing the criticisms or the issues at hand.
And Phil, can you tell our audience briefly who is Andrew Burns?
I understand he's a lawyer that got involved with the estate of the original Marineland founders.
But what is his agenda?
We have reached out to him, by the way, in our coverage.
He doesn't return our calls or answer our emails.
So can you give our audience a little description of who Mr. Burns is?
So Burnsy came across my radar when I was sued by Marineland.
My girlfriend was sued.
A number of us were sued.
A number of whistleblowers, Marineland whistleblowers specifically were sued.
And this is how we came to learn of Andrew Burns.
So his job, he's known as what you call a cleaner.
So people with reputation and lots of money, when they engage in activities that seem to that have the risk of tarnishing that public reputation, then Andrew Burns enters the scene and he's a cleaner.
He's there to get rid of your problems and sort of clean that up.
And so he's been brought up, he's been brought in as a cleaner for Marineland.
And again, this started back in 2012.
And over the course of the 13 years, Marineland, of course, became defunct.
You know, poor management decisions, just general poor decisions as a whole, ignoring critics and suing them rather than actually listening to what it is that we had to say.
And now Andrew Burns' interest with the fact that the owner's dead, the owner's wife died, the firstborn was dead.
And now there's only an adopted son and that son's daughters that remain as heirs.
His job is to do what he can to protect the trust.
While, I mean, I hate to say it, but evidently patting his own pockets as well.
And really, Phil, is that what this is all about?
It's about the almighty dollar because to go to those U.S. facilities to give the whales to them, that's what it means.
They give the whales there.
I understand they don't buy whales.
They don't have the resources to buy whales.
I don't even know what the going price of beluga whales are these days.
And is there a reluctance by the likes of Mr. Burns to simply give up these whales?
Because I imagine there's some people that just look at them as commodities, much like the land at Marineland, much like the thrill rides that they're now selling off.
That's right.
They're an asset.
They have value.
But there's a risk to that asset, being that if they aren't sold for top dollar, there's, you know, there's the risk of the costs of keeping them.
So that's what's going on here.
This is a money issue.
Again, Marineland has inordinate amounts of values in the land that they sit on.
Andrew Burns' role is to preserve that value.
And because this deal that would otherwise have been lucrative for Marineland fell through, he's angry.
He's angry.
So he wants to blame everyone but Marineland.
Unbelievable.
And folks, I should tell you that my cameraman Lincoln Jay and I, we did go out to Marineland to try to get answers.
It looks like there's a gag order on their employees here.
Check it out.
Do you work at Marineland?
Okay, is there anyone here that can talk to us, sir?
Nobody will talk to you.
And what happened after our report aired?
Well, they erected a giant fence around the Marineland parking lot.
So you could never get that close.
However, fences don't thwart drones.
And we had drone photography of Phil, what I consider to be squalid conditions.
The water didn't look clean.
The tanks are certainly too small, I think.
And again, I'm not a Marine Mammal expert, but they look too small to contain these whales.
And, you know, the longer this goes on, I mean, when we first visited it, it was in July.
Here we are in October.
I think these animals are suffering and it's just not right.
If I'm to ask you to look into your crystal ball, proverbably, what is going to happen to the belugas, the dolphins, the seals, the bears, the elk, the deer, all these animals that still remain in this abandoned park?
My guess is the marine mammals will be spared.
They will be sent and shared amongst a number of facilities around the world.
That'll be that resolved.
There's not going to be any euthanasia as a cost savings measure of any healthy animals.
That's an absolute last resort and only in the case of dire medical problems.
So that's not happening.
The dolphins certainly are not.
You don't hear Marineland talking about euthanizing the dolphins because the dolphins have a far more popular brand, the public, and there would be a far greater response than that of the belugas.
So they're very tactical in the way that they in the way that they used sort of their threats.
But I can't vouch that the bears won't be euthanized.
I certainly can't vouch that the deer won't be.
I can't vouch that the bison haven't already been because they've disappeared and we can't get a sense exactly of where they've gone.
So the land animals are certainly in trouble, but why they're still there is a bit of a mystery.
If it's costing money to feed them as well.
So the whole of it is a bit of a mystery on exactly what's going on back there and just to the extent of what it is that their plans are with the array of animals they have.
But I do stress that when it comes to marine mammals, there's just too much demand.
And I think the fallout is such that anyone that has anything to do with any harm to these animals, and implicitly, if anyone does it participates in the euthanasia, that's a cloud that will follow every single individual veterinarian employee or anyone that has any hand in doing that for the remainder of their lives.
That's a solemn promise, not just from myself, but from the inside of their own souls.
So none of that's going to happen.
I'm always trying to rest people assured of that.
Don't buy the bluster, but you know, they are in an awful predicament.
And so what becomes is on everyone's mind.
But we certainly hope that in the end it is in the interest of the animals.
And Phil, you know, I discussed this with you when I met you outside Marineland for our follow-up report.
You know, I hadn't been to Marineland in decades, but as a child, I remember going there.
It was a rite of passage if you're going to Niagara Falls along with the cheesy haunted houses on Clifton Hill and, of course, the Magnificent Falls themselves.
And, you know, it was a fun experience.
But I guess, is there more of a realization that this is really an act of cruelty to these majestic animals that despite those beautifully produced ads, you know, that ran in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, that it really was not a good experience for the animals.
You trained whales there.
Can you give us some insight into why maybe this is just wrong, not just for Marineland, but for all the sea world-like parts around the world to continue to do this?
Well, there was a time, as you stated, when there was the Marineland jingle in everyone's hearts and minds.
You know, I heard it 14 times a day while I worked there, but most Ontarians sort of feel the same way when they turned on the TV.
But that industry controlled the message.
They told us why Marineland had to exist.
They told us all the positive effects on the animals.
The animals look like they're smiling.
They look happy when they're jumping, et cetera.
Well-produced commercial goes a long ways.
Well-produced propaganda does.
It wasn't until the internet sort of made its way into the collective conscience.
It wasn't until cell phones had cameras that people were suddenly all journalists in a way.
And, you know, once you started putting drones up, especially and offering a vantage point and started talking to whistleblowers, you know, people like myself, former trainers in the documentary Blackfish, it sort of sealed the fate of these facilities because we know now that they were operating entirely under a guise of education and it was all lies and deceptions.
The animals that we've come to learn in all of this do not thrive in captivity.
In fact, their lives are cut in half or less.
We know that when you separate animals from their natural environment, it compromises them when you take them away from their family.
And, you know, especially in the case of whales who are social animals that lived their entire lifetimes with their families, these are really, really, really damaging practices that we've engaged in.
The level of cruelty, I think, is still off the map off the chart for our actual understanding.
But I think there'll come a day when we look back at this and we'll consider ourselves quite brutal for the practice.
How sad.
And, you know, these are sentient, intelligent animals.
So it's heartbreaking to hear that.
Phil, tell us about yourself.
You were a trainer of these whales in Marineland.
What was it that made you go from a trainer at Marineland to a whistleblower?
So when I started, to be fair, it wasn't really my objective to be an animal trainer.
It wasn't high in my interest on the list of to-do lists in my life.
But I did have an attractive diploma in audio engineering and multimedia post-production.
And they have, as you know, quite a production, including sound and lights, et cetera.
So I got my job sort of by accident.
You know, I had a scuba license at the time.
So, you know, all of a sudden they saw me as someone that could, you know, work with the animals, but also work with the sound, work with the stage, the show production, as well as, you know, do some of the daily grind, such as cleaning up the tanks, et cetera.
So I went in there ignorant, not knowing what to expect.
I expected that a place like Marineland that is as celebrated as it was back in 2000 when I started, that the people that I would be working for knew what they were talking about.
I assumed I'd be going to a place that knew what they were doing.
But frankly, what I found, even especially on day one, was everything was largely improvised.
The facilities were awful.
The animals, I was gutted on day one of what it actually was.
But I stress that I'm a company guy.
I admit a level of ignorance in that I didn't exactly know what I was doing there.
Everyone else seemed to be jumping around with a certain step in their certain kick in their step.
And so I just fell in line and just went for it, right?
This is the job.
This is what's expected.
And this is how it goes.
Over the course of my many years, you go from scrubbing buckets to getting a little closer to the decision making.
You now work closer to management, et cetera.
I started designing the shows for that matter, training the animals, training the trainers to train the animals, training the trainers to perform in the shows, doing the soundtracks for the shows.
And eventually I was having to make decisions in the interest of the animals, be their voice.
And so you start sitting in boardroom meetings, et cetera, and you're offering perspective of what the animals need and everything's being shot down, et cetera, in the interest of profit or whatever.
You sort of get a better sense of the way things are.
Well, in the year prior to my quitting, we had a water disinfection unit break.
It's an ozone generator.
And so the chemical ozone works in conjunction with chlorine.
So it mitigates its use.
So you don't have to use as much chlorine if you're using a healthy combination of the two.
Well, as you can attest, just as anyone else has ever been in the hyperchlorinated pool, the effects of high chlorine are awful.
Well, if you're a marine mammal, it's significantly worse because there's no reprieve from that water whatsoever.
So in 2011, we had a disinfect or a breakdown in the water disinfection unit.
The ozone generator broke.
And because Marineland only operated six months out of the year, we used to close during the winter, there was complacency in actually fixing the issue.
And the more we complained as trainers and maintenance employees and veterinarians, the more defiant the owner became.
Mornings I would show up to work and there would be a pungent smell of chlorine as if someone dumped a barrel the night before.
And as soon as I saw the animals, I knew that, in fact, this was the case.
You know, I witnessed animals whose eyes were bleeding.
I witnessed a male sea lion bark in such pain and his eyeball projected out of its eye socket due to the wear of the damage that the chlorine did.
I watched dolphin skin slough off in chunks, sea lion's fur come off, walruses, they had inflamed chemical burns.
It was a real veritable nightmare to work there.
And it occurred to me that so long as I stay quiet or protect Marineland in that I'm not getting anything done in-house, I got to go fight outside these walls.
And that's what was my inspiration: I got to try to put a stop to the suffering.
I quit in that immediate, in the immediate response, Marineland dumped the water.
Finally, it took months for that to happen.
It took me to quit my job for that to happen.
But to be fair, from that moment on, obviously, my relationship with Marineland was not great.
And my being a, you know, knowing the inside and out of that place, I kept a close eye on them.
And here we are 13 years later.
You know, they sued me for millions of dollars for my advocacy.
Of course, they sued me for plotting to steal a walrus.
Was there, that's right.
And so, you know, much of Marineland's bluster that they're existing in now, the whole like, hey, we'll kill these whales if you don't give us money.
I endured that for 13 years.
But in the end, Marineland was forced to move those walruses.
And I suspect that at the end of all of this blustery campaign of Marineland, they'll be forced to move their marine mammals as well.
Well, Phil, that's certainly heartbreaking information you're giving us regarding the chlorine issues and the effect on the animals' lives.
And I think you've adroitly outlined the whole issue of Marineland.
Marineland's Forced Relocation00:02:13
We're just running out of racetrack.
So one last question.
I think it might be the most important question.
It's the chronology moving forward.
These whales, as far as I can tell from our own drone footage, it seems they spend the entire day just swimming in circles in cramped containers, perhaps water that isn't as clean as it should be.
If there is going to be a transfer of these belugas to those U.S. facilities and there won't be a cash transaction, of course, when will this be done?
Because Marineland hasn't opened its doors since last summer, correct?
Again, there's a permitting process that requires, you know, some due diligence and approvals, et cetera, at the federal level.
There needs to be a lot of conversations with those facilities, which I don't know that they're necessarily being engaged just yet.
I know the government, provincial and federal and Marineland, all had to sit down a couple of days ago to consider things.
I know that the heat's being turned down on the rhetoric, so you won't be hearing of any more of these threats, that's for sure.
But timeline-wise, those animals are going to be there for a while yet.
Every scenario that exists in terms of a resolve for them still requires them to be in there for longer than I'd certainly hope.
But, you know, the reality is, even if we were to jump on trying to find a resolve right now, there's going to be months into years that those animals could very well still be there.
Unbelievable, Phil.
And in the meantime, as you said, in the days, weeks, months ahead, these animals continue to suffer in, well, inappropriate conditions.
Let's leave it at that.
Phil, I want to thank you so much for making time with us.
If you hear anything about any move that Marineland is going to make, we'd love to hear from you.
And I know you've paid a price.
They've gone after you lawfare-wise to try to sue you into silence, but you're not bending the knee.