The Ben Mulroney Show - A smoky day - breathe easy! / A Canadian think tank targeted by foreign agents

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

GUEST:    Dr. Brian Crowley /  Madonald Laurier Institute Managring Director GUEST:  Kevin Vuong / Former MP  /  independent contributor to MLI  If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Care for your skin, like you care for the game. Dove Men Plus Care is an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, 2026, and has just dropped their new limited edition,

deodorant and antipersprint collection, for 72-hour sweat and odor protection, Helping you stay fresh from kickoff to the final whistle. Visit dove.com slash CA slash E.N. slash men dash care to shop now. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. And if you live anywhere near where I am recording this show and broadcasting from, then you woke up and you've been walking around the city of Toronto

and indeed parts of northwestern Ontario, parts of Kingston and London, Massachusetts, Boston, Quebec, Michigan. in Minnesota, and you have been feeling like you're living a real-life blade runner. There has been a patina of red and burnt orange throughout the cities and the towns that I just described. Because there are 185 active wildland fires, 148 in northwestern Ontario. 69 of them not under control. I woke up today and it didn't, it didn't click. Guys, it didn't click.

Amy, I did not click until my son told me, I tell my sons every day. I said, tell me, at the end of the every day, I was like, tell me something that you learned about the world today. And that's the beginning of our dinner conversation. And today, my son informed me of all of these wildfires. And he did so at like eight this morning. Oh, you didn't know. I didn't know.

And he said, so did I learn my thing about the world today? I said, well, if you can learn a little more, just, I mean, that's a factoid. you got to give me a little more. But yes, you're almost done. You can go back to bed. But yeah, this is, this was not apparently. No, I didn't, I didn't know either until I started driving. And I was like, what's going on? That's so gloomy out. And according to IQ air, Toronto has the worst air quality in the world today. It was so bad. It's like smoking a cigarette.

Yeah, well, I looked outside and I was like, why is it so dark? My wife said, oh, it looks, it's going to rain. And I look at the far, there's no rain today. Rain would have been wonderful. Yeah. Would have been wonder. There's no rain. It's just, and it's a strange light, right? It's not like it's the sun's going down.

There's this sort of, it's even. It's post-apocalyptic. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is a very, very, very odd feeling. And of course, there's some Americans who are very upset about the air quality that we are giving him. Blame Canada. Well, I think, look, you know, yesterday, the city of Toronto,

was dealing with a lot of gun violence. And while we do not know for sure, we know that most of this gun violence happens because the guns that come across the border. So I'll make you a deal, my friends in the United States. We will get our air quality under control if you can help us figure out how to keep your guns where you want them and away from where we don't want them.

I think that's a fair trade, as my sons would say. Well, you know what? It's a good thing as well that this didn't happen during FIFA. Yeah. Because can you imagine if one of the games had been played? today. I mean, there is a game playing played today, but not in Toronto. They would have had to cancel. They canceled the fan festival.

The Fan Fest World Cup broadcast from Nathan Phillips Square. But listen, we got to talk about the gambling of it all. Like, I don't know about you. I don't gamble. I'm dumb enough with my money that I do not need a structure, an incentivized structure to watch the money leave my account. What do you spend your money on? Oh, I just think of something fun, something dumb, something stupid. Like, there's always something, right? Everyone's got their thing.

Yeah. But for me, but what is it for you? No, there's little of it now because I don't have that much. But back in the day, I mean, I was the idiot when I signed my first contract with CTV.

I bought my whole family flat screen TVs. No. Yeah, I did. So they could watch E Talk? And my brother's like, I can afford my own TV then. I was like, I was just being nice. And I appreciate it.

I can afford my own TV. They all said it too. And now I look at all. I mean, I look at all of them. They're doing. So much better than I am. It's been consistent growth in their lives. Some of them experienced explosive growth.

And I, in media, it's the up and the down, but a general downward trend. Anyways, like I said, I don't need gambling in my life. And I'm glad I don't have that itch to scratch. However, Takashi 6-9. You know Takashi 6-9? No idea. The rapper. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

I mean, the rapper, I put that in air quotes. He's got probably more tattoo than clear skin. Yes, and he's got, I think, the word 6-9, the number six nine on his forehead. Cool. This is a man who decided very early on. He was not going to be working in corporate America. But anyway, he went to prison.

I think he was a snitch. I think that was a big thing. He was in jail at the same time as the Venezuelan... Maduro. Right. Well, anyway, so he's out now. He's out now, and this is the first time

I've seen him in a long. He was a small little sprightly fellow. He's... Life's good to... Like, you can tell, he's... sporting the X-Ls now. He's doing a lot better. He's partnered with this guy who's doing these videos with this guy. Steve will do it. Steve will do it. And this guy's, this guy's a YouTuber with like gambling focus content. Takashi 6-9 yesterday had, he was, he was very forthright,

very confident in his prediction for yesterday's match, France versus Spain. Audio one. That's right there. Put your house on France 100%. Listen, France is going to win, bro. Just put everything you own on France. 100%. Like, yo bro, I'll do whatever Steve tells me to do if France doesn't win.

No, I'm better in France. So right now, I have like around 400,000 on France to advance. Okay, and then he goes, then he goes to the match, right? Shall we remind, sadly, you know, people who didn't watch or don't care? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

they did, but he kept talking about it. And granted, it looks like he's got some sort of promotion with this website or this app. And he goes in, he's, I've never lost a bet in the quarterfinals. I know what I'm talking about. I'm putting all my money down and he clicked on it. And I don't know how much money to Cashy Six-Nine had or has, but he's got less today. Uh-oh. That's for sure.

And that other guy does as well. The other guy's a YouTuber who does gambling focus content. He does big bests. And he was like, this is the bet that's going to get me back to even. Oh, poor, poor Steve will do it. Steve's, I don't know what Steve's going to do, but Steve's not having a good day. He's not getting back to even. Yeah, Steve's, whatever he will do, it was not winning.

Maybe he'll put all his money on, I don't know what, who's the underdog today, England or Argentina? George. Argentine and Argentina. So he'll be like, oh, messy for sure. Well, we'll have to listen. The match is on here, and I'll be able to tell because, as I've said, I said, I got two FIFA heads. here and these two. And sometimes I will watch them in a corner of my eye go absolutely nuts. And I think it's because I've said something fantastic. And I look over. They're not even looking

at me. They're looking at the screen. But it's exciting. It's definitely exciting. Meanwhile, I love it. I love it when life imitates art. And there is a Michigan representative named Haley Stevens. And Republicans are trolling her hard. And they're, I'm I'm going to play for you a little bit of Haley Stevens. And then I'm going to play for you of something that she made us think of. Let's listen to a little bit of Republican or representative Haley Stevens. And you better believe I'm going to be doing with a little bit of joy, a little bit of enthusiasm, a little bit of energy, and a little bit of stick it to them. Because that's the Michigan way.

That's the Michigan way. So who does that, we don't usually care about these American ones, these American politicians. Just the way she talked. Amy, who do you think that sounds like? Well, Chris Farley. Yay. Well done. It's exactly. It's Matt Foley. It's Matt Foley. I love her.

And then finally, before we go to break, it's lovely when everything that was old is new again. Allie G, sort of the original creation of Sasha Barron Cohen. To be honest, his brother, Prince Ari, it mowsly, 1400 squid because I was his dealer at Eton so if you could ask him kindly to Venmo me or pay me in cash the complaint we had is you turning around and offering children behind you things that you shouldn't be doing what was that offering them offered that you said Robin them cigarettes no that ain't true we ain't got no drugs that was him

so he was at Wimbled dressed up as Ali G. And he had his jacket looked like it was a Wimbledon jacket, except it was a marijuana jacket. And like the logo was of a cannabis plant. And I guess you would assume everybody knows that this is a character. Especially in England. Well, the police came and kicked him out.

Like you would think in his home, they would know that this was all a joke. but even, I guess the police are too busy doing other things to watch Ali. I mean, it's Wimbledon. I love that. Listen, we're going to come back with a very serious story. The McDonnell-Loree Institute had their entire website, not compromised, but copied for insidious reasons. We're going to talk to somebody from the McDonald-Loree Institute right after the break.

This is, I think, an important story as it relates to our national security. Don't go anywhere. Hi, I'm Jane Koston, former writer and podcaster for places like The New York Times, The Atlantic, and National Review. And now I'm here to hang out with you. Five days a week on what a day, Crooked's Daily News podcast. That's right. Now who's respected on both sides? Okay, yeah, it's not me.

It's probably still just Dolly Parton. Moving on. These days, it's hard to separate what matters from all the noise, especially when the noise somehow also feels like it's made out of knives? That's why every weekday, the team and I scour the headlines to bring you the stories that matter most to the way you live. in just 20 minutes. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. If you're a regular listener of the show, then you know that we routinely lean on the good people at the McDonald-Lorier Institute. It's a Canadian think tank. And they come on this show when they have findings, when we need to make sense of an issue or of anything, right?

This is what the think tanks are there for, and that's what we're very thankful to the people there. They found out from the police and from intelligence services that their website was cloned by a group linked to a hostile foreign intelligence service. To what end and why? We don't know. So let's ask our friends at the McDonald-Lorea Institute. Dr. Brian Crowley is joining us.

He's the managing director. Dr. Thank you for being here. Oh, Ben, so thank you so much for the invitation. This is such an important issue. And I'm so glad that we're able to bring it to the attention of Canadian. Yeah, and listen, I'm sure that there are aspects of this that are sensitive and therefore you can't tell us everything. We're going to ask all the questions. We'll see where we land.

But this is, I think we've got to get this on people's radar. So talk to me about what, like talk to me about that first interaction with the intelligence services that told you this happened. Sure. Well, so we heard from some people in the intelligence and law enforcement world in Canada that our website had been mirrored or cloned or whatever word you like to use using a fake URL and a website address that is only one letter different from our real website. And they said, And this is being done by a foreign intelligence service for the purpose of drawing people in to reveal secrets that they might not otherwise do. And I'm very happy to talk about, you know, the strategy that they're using here. Yes, please.

But I just have to be a little discreet about this, Ben, because, you know, the people who reveal this to us, you know, they rely on their ability to be able to work, as it were, in the shadows a little bit. not to reveal their sources and their techniques and so on. So in exchange for them telling me about this website and an attempt to defraud people, I promised them that I would be just a little discreet about exactly what I would say about what I was told. Well, of course, because I'm curious to get some clarity on the following thing. You know, I've gone to your website.

I've read findings. I've read reports. And so I'm curious to learn how some foreign actor leverage this site that I use for information. It was like one way information. I'm curious to learn how they thought they could leverage it with a back and forth with people. Yeah.

So first of all, Ben, it's very important that we established that this was not a question of phishing. It's not like you go onto our website and you click on a link and all of a sudden they take control of your computer or something. That's not the issue here. What's going on is that these foreign intelligence services, they're looking to find confidential and even secret information. And one of the first questions that they're going to ask themselves in the modern world is,

how can we use the internet to do that, rather than sending spies into other countries? And the answer that they've come up with is, is they use phony versions of legitimate websites. Ours is one, but you know, LinkedIn is another, and there are a number of others I could mention, and they use them to research people, you know, some people put on their LinkedIn profile, I have security clearance. Well, that's like catnip to a foreign intelligence service, right? So they can find out a lot about you. Second, what they can do is they can say, you know what, look, we represent a very prestigious,

well-known think tank, in this case the McDonnell-Lory Institute, and we have seen your work and we're terribly impressed by it, and we'd be willing to give you some contracts, do a little research for us, and then, you know, we'll promote you, and, you know, Canadians want to hear all about all your ideas and so on. And people get quite flattered by this, Ben, and they say, hey, well, there's a few bucks in it for me and I do a little research. But then you see once you take the bait, they then start to reel you in and the next time they say, well, you know, we love to publish something more of yours, but we need to be able to show that we're giving people new information that

hasn't been seen before. And they just pull you in inch by inch until you're... So, you're revealing secret information. So let me say, so they used, they used this fake website, if I understand. correctly, almost as a calling card. And they would, so they would separately reach out to people, say, go to this, go to this website, because we'd like to publish some information that, like, we'd like to publish a study that you do, or we'd like to talk to you and put that on our website. Is that, is that what they're saying? And then they would use this fake website to, to fake promote somebody. Exactly. Now, Ben, I'm not making this up. You know, the Five Eyes Alliance,

which is the five intelligence services, the National Intelligence Services, to which Canada belongs. So Five Eyes are New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the UK, and the United States. The Five Eyes Alliance, in a very rare action, just a few weeks ago, warned people about the Chinese intelligence service specifically using sites like LinkedIn for exactly this purpose. And so while I can't say for sure that the cloning of our website was done by the Chinese intelligence service,

because it could be the Russians, could be the North Koreans, could be the Iranians, could be the Chinese. But what I can say is that the Five Eyes Alliance has thought this was a serious enough danger that they sort of broke cover, if I can put it that way, and issued a public statement warning people to be aware of the possibility that this this was happening. And people were being were being sucked in. Like specific to the threat of this fake MLI website. Well, now the the five eyes announcement didn't refer specifically to our website. What we were told was it was in the context of the five eyes. examination of this danger that they discovered the clone website for my institute.

Yeah. So again, I just want to go through like the, this, this, this, uh, dark workflow. So somebody, somebody on their only, on their LinkedIn would say, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a researcher who's got, uh, security clearance in, and here is my domain expertise. And then somebody from this fake, MLI website would reach out to them and say, well, we'd very much like to talk to you. We'd like to learn more about what you know. And then so they'd learn something and say, well, that's great. We want to publish you. So we're going to need stuff that other people don't have.

And by that way, they would gain egress into that person's background and learn things that they're not supposed to know. Exactly. So, you know, Ben, like you could get a website, sorry, you could get an email that purports to from us. And if you look at the email address, unless you're very careful, you'd say, oh, seems to be legit, seems to come from them. And in this website or in this message, we say, you know, yes, exactly what you described then. You know, look, you're a recently retired civil servant, you know a lot. People would benefit from hearing your thoughts. And you know a lot of stuff.

and let's make sure that people know what you know because you're such an important person. Well, Dr. We're going to take a quick break here. But when we come back, I really want to sort of, I want to expand this. Because you, McDonald-Lurier has been, you've been targeted before. And so I want to talk about sort of what's happened in the past. And then maybe we can delve a little bit deeper into what has thus happened in this case. And hopefully we can put some information out there to give some people, sort of the information they need to not fall for this sort of trick.

So don't go anywhere. I've got more on this crazy story with McDonald-Loria Institute with Dr. Brian Crowley when we come back. This episode is brought to you by Activya. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal. Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one family doctor-recommended probiotic yogurt brand. Choose Activia.

Feel good from the inside out. Visit Activia.ca for more details. Welcome back to the show and very glad to continue my conversation with Dr. Brian Crowley. He's the managing director of the McDonald-Lorea Institute. It's a think tank based in Ottawa. And he and his team learned that their entire website had been cloned or copied or duplicated in an effort to bring people in to.

to this fake website and learn information and secrets that they were not entitled to. Doctor, thank you for sticking around. Take me back to the moment where you were told this happened. What was your initial feeling? Were you, did you feel like, did you feel unsafe? Were you worried? Were you concerned? Or is this par for the course for the work that you do? Well, all of the above, Ben, look, I was very deeply concerned.

I mean, we're in the business of talking about difficult things that need to be discussed. So, you know, that's kind of, that goes with the territory. But this was different in the sense that it was trading on our reputation in order to attract and compromise innocent people who would be, you know, conned through the use of our reputation. And I didn't want that happening. Well, and this, to me, it's interesting because they've, you know, Russia tried to take down your site once. You've been sanctioned by the Kremlin, blacklisted by Beijing. And, but this isn't that.

They've tried to take you down. I assume you've got robust cybersecurity. This is actually them placing themselves just next to you, right? So they're actually not even affecting you. This probably went on for a significant amount of time and you were unaware. I couldn't, I mean, I say I couldn't have known. If I had discovered it would have been completely by accident. This, you know, in a way, one of my reactions was, I thought this was kind of a backhanded compliment.

You know, this foreign intelligence service said, okay, how do I go about convincing people who might otherwise be suspicious to cooperate with me? and I'll kind of draw them in to get them to reveal more and more secrets. Oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to steal the name and the reputation of a well-known Canadian institution and use that cover to penetrate people's defenses because that's exactly the strategy that you're using. And so, you know, in a way this was saying, and who should we use? And the answer they came up with was the McDonald-Laurian Institute. Okay, I thought, hey, even foreign intelligence services think we're doing important work.

As I always say to Canadians, when I tell them about the work of the institute and say, gee, McDonald-Lore Institute, I've never heard of that. I say, well, Vladimir Putin, as you know, because, you know, if I could just use that example, you know, back when the Kremlin started to push back against all these foreign commentators who were criticizing Russia for the invasion of Crimea and later invasion of the rest of Ukraine, et cetera, et cetera. The Kremlin started to issue orders saying, well, you know, we're blacklisting these senior fellows at these institutes and so on. And I'm proud to say that at the McDonnell-Lurie Institute, we held the world record for the number of senior fellows sanctioned by the Kremlin.

More of our senior fellows were sanctioned than any other think tank in the world, in the world. So, I mean, I'm proud of this. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I have to I go in this, I try to play this out in my head. So you hear from the security forces out there and the security institutes that this has happened. Is it safe to believe that the people who are looking to protect Canadians, maybe let this thing exist for a while so that they could, I don't know, do a reverse, like use this website and they let it operate. It's no longer operate.

But they let it stay online so that they could perhaps pose as one of these people in order to gain entry into this world and figure out who's behind it? Well, you're asking me about something that I have no knowledge of, Ben. I don't know what the security and the law enforcement people might have done when they got their hands on this knowledge. I like to think that they wouldn't play with the reputation of, you know, law-biting reputable organization like ours because, you know, using it in the way you've described would put us and people who responded to, you know, inquiries allegedly from us, they would put it, they would put them at risk. So I like to think that we were one of the first calls they made. Do we, do you know if, and did they make you aware of the possibility,

Did anyone, any of these innocent people who were just trying to work with the McDonnell-Lory Institute, do we know if any innocent people did get caught up in this? Again, I have not been told that anyone was captured. I think that this was part of that larger effort by the Five Eyes. Once they realized that this strategy was being pursued by foreign intelligence services, They started to look around to see who in their national territory might be vulnerable or might have been compromised in this way. And I think it was as part of that effort to see whether this was, in fact, happening in Canada that they discovered, in fact, it was happening. And so, but they did not tell me at any rate whether they had discovered any specific individuals.

I like to think that we've caught it early and that no one was harmed. But that doesn't mean that they couldn't have been. And it doesn't mean that, you know, have we not got on this and taken action against it, that people wouldn't have been harmed. And that was my greatest fear. Dr. given the fact that you have found, the MLI has found itself in the crosshairs of some fairly important bad actors on the world stage. I have to believe you've got very robust cybersecurity, correct? We have the best that we can find.

But though this, while this is not an attack on MLI, this is, this is a, it feels to me like this, maybe you, you contact. to your cybersecurity people and say, hey, on top of doing what you do, we've now noticed this new kind of threat. Is there any way that you can protect us to make sure that nobody out there is doing this in the future? Because I have to believe that if they've done this to MLI, they've done this for, I don't know, the finance department website of a government around the world. Or who knows? The version of the CRA in France, right? It feels to me like this is something that a cybersecurity company that would be defending a company like MLI, they can add this on their to do list from now on.

Yeah, they can be. I have to say, I mean, I'm no expert on this, but I have to say that if your life is like mine, you're constantly being solicited by people who are misrepresenting themselves in a fraudulent way to try and get me to reveal my banking details and my own. investment account number or you know who I've got my my cable service with I mean there's there is so much room for bad actors to manipulate you in the modern world of you know internet and email and websites and on I think it's kind of hard to be a hundred percent sure that you've got impenetrable defenses against smart people who are trying to hurt you.

I think that eternal vigilance is the only possible response. You have to be smarter than they are. Well, Dr. Brian Crowley, managing director of the McDonald-Lorea Institute, thank you very much for joining us and telling us as much as you possibly can. And I'm thankful that we have security forces at play who are able to highlight this. and hopefully nip it in the bud so that innocent people didn't get caught up in this nefarious drag net. We appreciate your time today. Thank you so much, Ben.

And when we come back, we're going to be joined by a great friend of the show. He's also an independent contributor to the McDonald-Loreate Institute, former MP, and somebody who has made it a point to stand up against foreign interference on all fronts. We're joined by Kevin Vaughn after the break. Don't go anywhere. This is The Ben Mulroney Show. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat.

That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big.

Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters, July 31st. Well, imagine being an MP who was a vociferous opponent and outspoken opponent to foreign interference. And then you leave the public sector. You get in a private sector and you join the McDonald-Loree Institute as an independent contributor, only to find out that potentially your new boss and the company that you're working for may have been a victim of foreign interference. Please welcome to the show, Kevin Vong. Kevin, welcome. Thanks for having me, Ben.

So you talk to me about when you heard this news of this cloning of the MLI website for nefarious purposes. As soon as I heard about it, my first thought is this isn't some amateur scam artists, you know, cloning an entire website, especially something like MLI, which has the volume of content and expertise that our think tank has. is something that a professional would do. And what it does is exploits, I think, the simplest thing. This isn't some advanced new tech. It's, listen, we're all human.

We make typos sometimes when we're putting in a web address. But what they wanted to do was they wanted to steal and exploit the credibility of probably Canada's leading think tank. I can tell you, Ben, when I was a member of parliament, I cited MLI's content. and its expert research in my debates in the House of Commons. So imagine if one of my former colleagues wanted to reach out to the McDonnell-Lory Institute, accidentally typed it in wrong and left out one of the D's, and had tried to connect because this is entirely cloned to duplicate page, right? They reach out to the contact just like anyone would do.

But instead of going to the real expert and going to a real think tank, it's going to one of our foreign adversaries. And they start feeding them the wrong information. Do you have a sense, I mean, because listen, you've been on top of this from, you know, busing students to vote at a liberal nomination meeting to the Chinese consulate, to the China's United Front Operations, Hamas, you name it.

You were on top of this when you were in the House of Commons. In your expert opinion, do you have a sense of who would have the capabilities of doing this? would have an interest in doing this? So I think this follows a particular playbook and a playbook that has been used by four of the top, I think, foreign adversaries for Canada and anyone who really believes in Western civilization. The first, of course, is a Chinese Communist Party.

The second are the Russians. The third is North Korea and the fourth is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Oh, so yeah. The top four. Yeah. Exactly, right. And what they have an interest in, of course, is in addition to sewing division and hate, as we've seen on the streets of Toronto across Canada and the West, is also getting access to our secrets.

You know, at MLI, for example, I'm proud to be a senior fellow. I'm a former parliamentarian, but there's also former military leaders, retired generals and admirals, people who have connections with retired intelligence officials, right? And of course, everyone is prepped and trained to keep an eye out to ensure that we're being as secure as we are. But again, we're human. People make mistakes. But it's not just senior people, Ben. Imagine you are an early analyst, you know, early in your career at the Department of National Defense or Foreign Affairs or whatever.

You get an email from a respected Canadian thing tank. And they're offering you, hey, a paid contract, write a short confidential report. We're just trying to understand more about Arctic. defense, right? You're flattered. You feel legitimized. You know, if I was younger in my career, I'd be like, man, this is awesome. Yeah, yeah. But there's not a thing tank. It's a foreign spy service. No, you're absolutely right now. I'm very pleased that our, well, some some version of the security forces identified this and, and, and, and, and, and, and allowed the, you know, the actual MLI to, to be made aware of this. But, you know, you've been very vocal that,

ultimately the people who can do things about this on our parliamentarians our House of Commons our government don't necessarily take the steps necessary to keep us safe um what is your assessment today of the the Mark Carney government in terms of you know these these types of attempts to weaken us from within I I wish they I could say that they've been better um what I'll point to Ben is in the 44th Parliament, which I had the privilege of serving in, we passed new laws and legislation related to foreign interference, including to establish a foreign agent registry. This is passed back in 2024. Yeah.

And we're now sitting here in 26, over two years later, and we still don't have a foreign agent registry. The most basic of disclosures. Why not? We don't have. That's a very good question because it's already received royal sand. So it's already law. What it requires is cabinet, is the federal government to, you know, they've appointed a commissioner.

What is the public safety minister doing and what the holdup is? I don't know. And I am having trouble coming up with any real legitimate reason why. Because it's, I mean, knowledge is power, right? and knowing who we're talking to is, it seems like, a responsible course of action. I like to say on this show often,

we as a country don't take the things seriously that need to be taken seriously. And I don't want to say it lightly, but is this one of those situations where I could say that? I think so. Listen, foreign interference has so many different aspects to it. But fundamentally, it's an attack on our democracy.

It's attack on our institutions. And it's been literal, direct attacks on Canadians. We've we've had members of the Chinese of the Hong Kong of the Iranian diaspora that have been intimidated. There is a you may remember a Simon Fraser University professor of Iranian heritage was murdered by people who allegedly have ties to Islamic Republic of Iran. We've we've had other dissidents who have been intimidated illegal Chinese police stations on our own Canadian soil. Right. And we've we've had other dissidents who have been intimidated illegal Chinese police stations on our own Canadian soil, right? And one of the first things that I think is the best disinfecting.

You've heard it. I know you've said it yourself is sunlight. Yeah. Right? That's why MLI is going public with this. Yes. Yes. The think tank is not naming the specific foreign state. And that's out of respect to our law enforcement intelligence agencies. I think it's a reasonable ask. Yeah. We don't want to compromise the important work that they do to keep us safe. Yeah. However, part of it is, leaning into it. It's just like me and other parliamentarians around the world that have been falsely accused of horrendous things like sexual assault, embezzlement, all things meant to try to destroy our name and reputation. What do we all have in common? Oh, it just so happens that we're very vocal critics of the Chinese Communist Party. We're very wide-eyed and vocal about the threat they

present to a democracy, just like their partners in Iran, in Russia and North Korea. Yeah, this is, this is, it's kind of surprising because I don't know how you protect against something like this. It's education, it's awareness, right? So I think I'm alive seeking the first important step. I was listening to your interview with our think tanks, managing director. And, you know, Brian Lee Crowley brought up a very important point about the five eyes. You know, this is the intelligence. These are the spy agencies of our five countries, you know, Canada, US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

They operate in the shadows, and yet they stepped out and went in public and for a secretive bunch, said in public a very important morning. And they actually named the Chinese Communist Party, right, and how they're exploiting social media. And I think that's why it's been so hard for Canadians. Listen, it challenges our sensibilities. We're good people. We don't do evil things. It's hard for us to believe that people would use social media, which, you know, I, I, we use to connect with our friends or family, whatever, for nefarious means.

But that's what they're doing. And we need to educate people on that. And our government need to give also the tools to shine a light further, things like the foreign agent registry. Well, Kevin Vong, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Always great to talk to you. And you take good care of that young family of yours.

Thank you, my friend. Thanks for covering this important story.