The Ben Mulroney Show - All it takes is $3,600 and a web browser to make $3 million worth of fentanyl

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Ontario takes the lead in the G7 when it comes to Nuclear Energy with Guest: Stephen Lecce, Ontario Energy Minister -All it takes is $3,600 and a web browser to make $3 million worth of fentanyl with Guest: Maurice Tamman, Reporter and Editor for Reuters, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his investigative series, Fentanyl Express -The Medical Center bringing Resilience, innovation and hope with Guest: Professor Yitshak Kreiss, Director of Sheba Medical Center. Specializing in the Treatment of emergency victims in wars and disaster situations If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And you know, Canada, I always has this reputation, at least in my own head, at getting in its own way and squandering whatever lead it might have in an industry, allowing another country to come in and own way and squandering whatever lead it might have in an industry, allowing another country to come in and lap it and take advantage of whatever work Canada had done. And then next thing you know, we're on the outside looking in. Well, that's why I'm so excited to have this next conversation with the Ontario Energy Minister, Steven Lecce, because we had had a leadership position in the nuclear reactor

space and it looks like with this announcement, we're going to maintain that. So please welcome to the show, Minister Stephen Lecce. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much, I'm going to be back. All right. So this is this is a very big deal. Why don't you tell the listeners of the show what you're announcing? So this is when we talk about nation building announcements, and we keep hearing this from politicians and we got to do big things. This is the big thing that this province, our government is initiating

today. A plan to build small modular reactors. These are essentially new miniaturized nuclear reactors. They produce enough power each for 300,000 homes for 65 years. This province and our country is literally the leader in the world in building the G7, the industrialized world's first small modular reactor. And today we gave the green light, we started construction, we're going to open up these SMRs, a full fleet that's going to create 18,000 construction jobs and 3,600 permanent jobs over the 65 years. So what we're essentially doing today is we're saying yes to Canadian jobs, Canadian steel,

Canadian aluminum, Canadian metal, all the equipment, 80 cents to the dollar, 80% of everything we build is being made with made in Ontario. So we're really leading the way. And you're right. We've always been a leader in nuclear, this is just a massive step up. Okay, so, so the announcement that I read was that the government or the province is starting with four SMRs. But, but, but explain to me what this is going to look like down the line is this? Are we as a as a province going to be building a fleet of these things and selling them around the world? Like what's the plan?

So the advantage for Ontario is we know we need power, we need 75% more power in the province. So we're building four, that's 300 a piece, that's 1200 megawatts of power, enough power for 1.2 million Ontario homes. That's going to be secured by 2035. The first is going to come online connected to the grid by 2030. So that's an amazing speed and we've really been leading the way to first movers advantage. But to your point, I'm just building out energy, independence and security for Ontario. It's for the country and the world. We're building small-modge reactor fleets in Saskatchewan, Alberta, New Brunswick. We have agreements for exports

in Poland, as well as Czech Republic, Estonia. You may pick up a lot of Eastern European nations who are looking to end their reliance on Vladimir Putin's natural gas by having clean electricity sources. So here we are selling our SMRs around the world. We own the IP, we get royalties on everything we sell, we are using Canadian, Ontario materials and components. Like I signed a billion agreement in Cambridge where we're building out much of the SMRs for Europe. So the materials is Canadian, the workforce is Canadian, the royalties come back to Ontario taxpayers. I mean, this is an incredible example. You know, the first mover's advantage,

we have to take a little bit of risk, but a massive economic reward. And I'm thinking about, you know, think about like, you know, you see unemployment rising, given the insanity of what's happening in America, 11 trillion dollars wiped off the, from investments, like what can we do?

What can we do, Ben, to safeguard our country from these shocks that we don't control? Well, we can level up and we can invest in ourselves to be strong, self-reliant, sovereign economy. And so this is the announcement today. I think it's just a really powerful example of Canada leading the way. And it's honestly, I couldn't be more proud to stand with the workers. Those folks, it's not just work for them, Ben. It's work for their children. It's 65 years of work. So Minister, allay the fears of some of our listeners,

who when they hear nuclear reactor, their mind immediately goes to, say, Three Mile Island or Chernobyl. The fact is, SMRs are not your grandfather's nuclear reactor. But explain the difference. Explain the leap in technology and explain the safety that comes with these these reactors. Well, first off, we have a absolutely strong, fabulous track record of building, operating,

maintaining and refurbishing nuclear power and material safely and reliably for over half a century. I mean, our grandparents made these original investments that are reaping long-term dividends for Ontario. You know, the strongest safety regime exists in the country, in the world, in Canada, you know, and so we're very proud and we're very, frankly frankly prepared to make sure that that track record continues. But what I'd also want to emphasize, you know, when it comes to the issue of reliability is that we need base load power, meaning we need to have power that is 24 7, always running.

So I looked at, you know, what are the alternatives? What's the financial risk? If we don't do this, then what can we do? Well, we looked at the alternative. We had the independent electricity systems operator look at the alternative and what they said is, it would mean we would need to build enough solar and wind, the equivalent to the size of one third of the GTA

in landmass, cost 25% more. But think about it, just for the battery, would have to be a third of the GTA, like 260 times more than the small modular footprints. So land scarcity, scarcity, cost, liability issues. So we looked at a variety of those risks, financial, when it comes to energy, et cetera, and it's clear. This technology is leading edge.

It is the most modern tech adopted on earth. Here we are leading the way, leaning in to clean, reliable, affordable nuclear power. Ontario is a nuclear nation, a nuclear powerhouse. Canada is too.

We have the uranium in Saskatchewan, the technology of Ontario. This is a beautiful story of us harvesting our economic resource potential. So, you know, be assured these investments are safe. They are reliable and they're clean. I mean, we're displacing the equivalent event of like 600,000 vehicles from the road.

Yeah. By doing this. I mean, I remember. This is safe. This is better air. This is cleaner air. I remember years ago watching a 60 minute special on how clean the technology was, the nuclear technology was in France that went all in on on nuclear I think in the 50s or 60s and and and they have a spotless track record and it's in Europe it's technically

viewed as a green technology and and so if we can bring some of that to Canada I think we'll all be better off. Minister Lecce congratulations on behalf of everyone here on this great announcement. I stand behind you on this and I want to see more of this not just in Ontario but across Canada so we appreciate you coming onto the show to to let our listeners know about it. We're just getting started, but appreciate this. All right. Thank you so much. All right. I want to talk about Jesse Waters on Fox. Now, if you know who that guy is, you know that he's an S-Disturber. You know that he says everything tongue in cheek. And if you take him seriously, it's just going to anger you.

Well, William Shatner was on the show and he got the memo. Let's listen to William Shatner with a very insightful take on Mark Carney and Donald Trump. I'm going to say to Carney, do a real estate deal. Make a counter offer. Let's offer Canada, offer to the United States to be the 11th province. Think of the joy and it's the best thing. Here you have a friendly group of people saying come on over, it's cleaner, there's plenty of power, there's some lovely people who want to work with you. Be our eleventh province.

You know he should have said that. But no. He should have said that and that would have brought the house down. Well, of course. I mean, everybody's so serious about what is an unserious offer. Yeah, it is an unserious offer. But then Jesse Waters goes back because he wasn't going to win that part of the argument. He compared this negotiation to something. I kind of well, let's just listen. But let's just put it to you in a different term. Let me ask you this. Joe Biden proposed to his wife seven times, six nos. But finally, Jill said yes. Isn't it about persistence? You know, Carney says, you know, it's not for sale. Trump says never say never. I know with I mean, at a certain point, persistence becomes insulting.

Well, maybe that's what Dr. Jill thought. But eventually, when Joe got on his knees the seventh time, she said, yes. Well, I guess she, you know, she took the last insult. Listen, it's a spurious fight. It's two noble countries side by side. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I'm telling you, William Shatner did a great job there. I think it was great and very insightful.

Hi, I'm Donna Friesen from Global National. Life moves fast these days and we want to make it even easier for you to get the news you need. That's why you can now get global national every day as a podcast the biggest stories of the day with analysis from award-winning global news journalists new episodes drop every day So take this as your personal invitation to join us on the global national podcast you can find it on Apple podcasts Spotify Amazon music and wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. And I'm so fascinated to have this next conversation.

We are speaking with Maurice Tammann, reporter and editor for Reuters, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his investigative series called Fentanyl Express. And we're going to focus on part one of that of that series. Because the I let's bring him in Maurice, welcome to the show. And congratulations on the award. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's kind of a mixed feeling. I mean, you're writing about great tragedy, ultimately, and then being patted on the back for doing so. Yes, but you're doing so. I mean, to do so in a way that brings eyeballs and consciousness to a story that, to a scourge that requires it is, I think, the success.

And you did something that in the hands of other journalists might have looked sensational, and sensationalist I should say. I'm thinking specifically of Vice News. Vice would have done this 10 years ago without a doubt. You bought everything you needed to make $3 million worth of fentanyl and all it took was $3,600 and a web browser.

So that is a heck of a headline. Tell me how you did it the Reuters way. Well, first of all, I got a cash advance on my express card and bought a bunch of Bitcoin. And then we went initially we went onto the dark web and started searching for places that would be selling precursor chemicals. And those are the chemicals that when combined in a particular way would result in fentanyl. The most important one being peridines, which are a particular type of chemical that is used in the synthesis of fentanyl. But anyway, we went on the dark web. We found this place, this marketplace

called BreakingBad.com. That's a bit on the nose. Yes, and I think the administrator of the site goes by Heisenberg. So yeah, he's not subtle about this. No. And we found a few outfits that were advertising on the marketplace to sell these precursors. Now I should say that at the end of the reporting process, they claim

that they don't endorse or sell opioids, synthetic opioids like fentanyl. But we bought stuff from people we found on the site. And then subsequent to that, we went and found that they were advertised everywhere. And they were on Google ads even, where you'd see a picture of a pile of powder, the name of a westernized seller, a westernized name and usually a WhatsApp or a signal telephone number and you just reach out and start chit chatting. They never asked any questions about who we were. They were perfectly happy to send it either to the states in this case we send it mostly to the city just on the other side of the Hudson River from New York and to our office in Mexico City and it showed up in small

packages just as they said it would we were able to track it with a tracking number that gave us and then we picked it up and took it to various places to be tested. And sure enough, in most cases, it turned out to be exactly what they said it was. We always hear about the we always hear in Canada, as it relates to the fentanyl crisis that it's, you know, what comes from China into Canada are the precursor ingredients, I guess, they're going to call it something like that. And they come here and they're cooked into fentanyl.

Is that what you receive, those precursor ingredients? That's correct. And I should say, you know, initially, we thought that these chemicals were coming, we're going straight to the labs in Mexico from China. That was our assumption. As it turns out that because of a variety of laws in this country and regular customs regulations, a lot of the chemicals, these precursor chemicals, which is what we bought, are coming into the States first and then being, I guess, smuggled back across the border into Mexico where they're

synthesized into fentanyl, and then of course shipped back into the States where they're sold on the streets. I think the interesting part of that is that these cartels, obviously, these are, say what you will about everything and how they business these that there are They're an intelligent group of people as good situations and adapt Quickly and they saw an opportunity in the way the u.s Manages their import structure and by the way how it watches the border, right? So if you're a u.s. Customs agent, you're looking south and saying, okay What's coming into the US from Mexico that might be a threat to us, whatever it might be.

Yeah. Are any of those? North? Yeah. Are any of those ingredients, those precursor chemicals, are they in and of themselves dangerous and or illegal? Well, it's a bit of a whack-a-mole situation. So some of them are sometimes called listed chemicals,

and others are called scheduled chemicals. These are terms of art used in the regulatory structure of chemical controls and drug controls. And episodically, you know, through the regulatory process, certain precursors are scheduled or listed and that comes with additional requirements and legal, what you can do legally in terms of buying them. The problem is that, you know, this is basic, relatively simple organic chemistry. And so, in fact, in one case, we were trying to buy one chemical and the person said, no, I got something better for you.

Let me send you this. And they sent us this other chemical with very specific instructions. And by doing so, they sold something that was completely unregulated. In fact, that particular package came into the States, was opened by customs, resealed, and sent back along its way to Jersey City.

You know, these are smart cookies that took that chemical to a lab in Horsham, Pennsylvania. And they tested it, and sure enough, it was exactly what they said it was and the instructions, the specific instructions that it gave us to convert it into one of the precursors we needed, what we would need to make fentanyl were spot on and would have worked perfectly fine. Now, what comes out of that process as they go through this exercise of changing, you know, subtly changing what precursors to use analogs of, they're not pure fentanyl, they might be called my methyl, all metal, ethyl, whatever, fentanyl. The drug user on the streets not going to know the differences. Certainly the addictive process

is no different. Now, so we got caught up in the 3600 turns into 3 million, but how long what what sort of a labor intensive process is it compare it to what we all know you reference Breaking Bad and Heisenberg compare the creation of fentanyl to to the making of meth. Well, I mean, I'm not an expert on math. I'm not an expert on math. I'm not an expert on anything, I'm just a journalist. But what I would say is that, you know, making math is an intense process. It requires temperature and it requires a much larger quantity of chemicals to produce a quantity of a drug that would be sellable and usable.

Whereas fentanyl does not require cooking in any way. There's no temperature. It's just mixing and sitting and mixing and sitting. When you think about it, one kilo of peridine, which is the core essential chemical. Plus a mixture of a few other chemicals can produce about 1.2 kilos of fentanyl, right? When you think about how much fentanyl is required, a couple of grains is enough to get somebody high, you know, a little more than that is enough to kill you.

Do the multiplication on that, and you realize that, you know, you don't need drums of that. And you realize that, you know, you don't need drums of chemicals like you do with meth and what you need is just a shoe box or less, half a shoe box size of chemicals. And Bob's your uncle, you give yourself millions of dollars of profit. Maurice, we're going to leave it there. But thank you so much. Congratulations on the Pulitzer. Congratulations on such an important work being recognized.

People can check it out at roiders.com. Maurice Hammond, thank you so much for your work and for being here on The Ben Mulroney Show. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. Welcome back to The Ben Mulroney Show. And about this time last year, I was introduced to a medical center and a philanthropic initiative

that I was able to host here in the city of Toronto. I'm going to be hosting the event tonight as well. It's called Friends of the Sheba Medical Center event, a gala. And I learned so much about the Sheba Medical Center. For the past few years, it has been ranked as one of the top 10 hospitals in the world. And it is in Israel. And it is a place where people of all faiths can be restored and brought back to life.

And it's a tremendous organization, a tremendous institution. I'm very proud that I'm part of the fundraising effort because we need places like this all over the world. And I'm very pleased to be welcoming to the show Professor Yesak Kriis, the director of Sheba Medical Center, specializing in the treatment of emergency victims in wars and disaster situations.

Professor, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Hi, good morning. Good morning, Ben. Good morning to the audience. We're in the nice city of Toronto. Thank you so much for being here. Now, I have yet to visit. I have every intention of coming to Israel and seeing the Sheba Medical Center with my own eyes. I've gone on YouTube to appreciate it. I was told I was told by by people last year until you see it you will not appreciate just how truly massive This medical center is it is it is huge, isn't it?

Yes, we say you have to feel she bar in order to understand What he stands for? We are the largest hospital misery the largest also in the Middle East With 11,000 people working at Sheba, with all the centers of excellence. In Israeli scale, we are very large one. We are also ranked last year in the top of the number eight world best hospitals. So in order to know about it, you should come visit and see them. Oh, I definitely will. I definitely will. It's with every hospital, be it in the United States, in Canada, in Israel, you know, there's the funding

that you can depend on and then there's the funding that comes from events like the one that we're gonna be at tonight. What is the new goal for Sheba? What are you looking to build or build out or build on? We are very much focused today on two major things. One is that we keep on saving lives of civilians and soldiers.

We also focusing on rehabilitation, returning them back to life. We are focusing on being prepared to accept the returning hostages. This is all our efforts related to the war. We also look at the future and we'll design a better future for Israel, for the region and for the world.

So we invest a lot in AI medicine, in artificial intelligence and medicine, and in promoting science in several of the topics that we lead the world in. With the changing face of warfare, you know, new weapons produce new ways to hurt people. Does that change how you treat the soldiers and how you treat the victims, the innocent victims of war? I have to assume there are new injuries

today that didn't exist a few years ago. Exactly. One of the major things that we've seen in the last world is that many of the civilians were hurt when the animal terrorists were armed against unarmed civilians. And when armed against unarmed happens, it causes a lot of severe damages to the body that we are now focusing on treating. So after saving the lives, we have to rehabilitate them and deal with the mental and physical rehabilitation. We also are developing new technologies in the battlefield and new technologies for trauma care. And we are, today we have very good outcomes in that. And we share that with our colleagues in the world.

That's right. I remember last year at the Friends of Sheba event, there was, they were showing the vision for, I believe it's a, was it a eucalyptus garden, or some sort of garden that designed to help with the mental health portion of recovery, right? Right. All right. Yes because of

Post-traumatic one of the major challenges of the for the civilians and soldiers in Israel. We learned that There's a there must to be there have to we have to be other modalities to treat those patients or those people that suffer from them. And one of the modalities is what we call holistic or integrative medicine. So we are now developing a new forest at Sheba and it's going to be the first hospital in the world that will have a holistic therapeutic forest inside it. It's very interesting and very promising in treating trauma care. Well, and that's one of the fascinating things that I've learned about Shiba is

you're not just pushing the bounds of medicine, but you're pushing the bounds of the definitions of what it means to heal somebody. It's not just making sure that the wound is closed. It's to make sure that the body and the mind are back to a place where they can live the fullest expression of their lives. I'm very much looking forward, Professor, to seeing you this evening. I want to thank you for making the trip to Toronto, and I hope we make it worth your while. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ben. And see you tonight. We have a lot to do with share with our Canadian and the hospitals and the health care in front of for the future, for a better future for the world. Indeed. This has been Professor Yitzhak Krietz, the director of Sheba Medical Center. To celebrate the days of our lives, 60th anniversary, W Network and StacTV invite you to enter for a chance to win the ultimate fan experience.

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