The Ben Mulroney Show - Calgary YouTuber Charged With Threatening PM Mark Carney

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

On this episode of 'The Ben Mulroney Show,' Ben welcomes Mubin Shaikh, a Counterterrorism Expert & Former Operative With CSIS & the RCMP. They discuss the seriousness of making threats against the Prime Minister. 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

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we have your playbook. Ozone, well played. Discover free sports tips, casino games, and poker guides at Ozone.net. Images on social media this week, the past couple of days, They've been making the rounds. They've been a little bit of a head scratcher for some people.

The Prime Minister of Canada has been in Toronto for his investment summit. And he has been in what I think is probably the most significant sort of police escort that I've ever seen for a Canadian prime minister. There was one video today, and I counted. There were 23 cars and SUVs as well as motorcycles, and I'm not counting, that were in this thing. And, you know, I didn't know why. Now, it might have been a caravan. There might have been a bunch of ministers in it. I have no idea.

But it was, probably bigger than what my dad had back in the day. But the 1980s ain't that 2026. But it might have something to do with stories like this one. A 31-year-old Calgary man's been charged after he allegedly made a threat on the prime minister, Mark Carney's life. And so to talk about that to know what we're dealing with in this world, how dangerous it is for the prime minister. and what we can do to keep Prime Minister of any political stripe.

I want to be clear about that safe. We're joined by Mubin Shakey's a counterterrorism expert and former operative with CISIS and the RCCMP. Mubin, first of all, thank you for your service and thank you for joining us. Well, thank you for having me. Yeah, I don't know if you saw these videos, but this, I've never seen a prime ministerial

sort of cavalcade of RCMP and police as significant as the one I saw yesterday and today. But I have to believe that they don't do that for show. That is done because there are threats and the prime minister needs to be protected. Yeah, and kind of what you were saying in the beginning, I'm just wondering what kind of meeting he was going to or because there probably could be other individuals

also in that convoy. Yeah. That may not even be publicly acknowledged. Okay. So the larger one is probably not normal. But as you indicate, you know, the 2020s are quite a different time. Yeah, look, back in the day when it was just when it was us, I remember being pulled out of school a couple of times because there had been a threat against somebody.

We never got the details. I'd know if it was my mom or my dad or a threat against a building. And we were taken to a secure location and they fed us French fries and gravy and we as kids loved it. But that was it. today, I have to believe the threats can be coming from anywhere and they're far more sophisticated. Like, I don't know what this, what this 31-year-old Calgary man said. But when you read this story, what does your expertise in counterterrorism and work at CIS tell you that I wouldn't be able to glean from this? Well, I think most people don't know what the service and the RCMP do in this, in this world.

obviously just keeping abreast of security-related threats to the government of Canada is definitely something the service does. And a very specific function that the RC&P has is, of course, the prime ministerial security and all the details related to that. But, you know, it's interesting with this case because I was even tracking during the Trudeau years, you know, threats against the NPM Trudeau. and even before that, the threats against the NPM Harper. And there were a significant number of threats, actually, against both of them.

I mean, maybe Carney's still relatively new. And if he does stay, you know, however many years longer, we may see just more examples of this. But it is a little bit of an outlier because, you know, just the way that our politics have been going. and obviously because of what's happening with our neighbors to the south, there's been a little bit of kind of unity around that position and the politics in Canada as far as Canada is concerned. And so maybe that's one of the reasons why threats against Carney are lower. But give it some time, I'm sure we're going to find some more people.

If people read this story, they might have seen a series of words together than never heard before. What is the RCMP's integrated national security enforcement team, inset? Because I've never heard of that before. Yeah, the inset is like, I hate to use an American analogy on a Canadian show, but like it's a JTTF, which is a joint terrorism task force. So in the U.S., the FBI is the federal police in Canada, the RCNP is the federal police. And when they need to investigate in other jurisdictions, provincial level, regional

municipal, they will second from, or they will have seconded from other police services, investigators, analysts, other support personnel to basically sit on the same team as the RCMP's terrorism enforcement team to conduct their investigations and operations. So it's like the Avengers. You're bringing the best from all the different teams together. Great, great analogy. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Let's live in a world where, and if it's not this guy, it's somebody else who utters threats. If it's found to be credible and if it's found to be real and actionable, what kind of punishment could somebody face for making these kinds of threats?

Yeah, it's obviously going to be on a case-by-case basis to determine, you know, there's one thing to communicate threats, which is a criminal offense in and of itself. You don't really need to have any capability, any know-how, any pathway behaviors. But as you start to see a little bit more involvement, more behavioral involvement, meaning taking steps to either obtain a weapon, to maybe conduct surveillance of a place, maybe try to get plans from wherever, then it becomes a little bit more serious. And then can and could include, of course, imprisonment. At what point does this get kicked up to the level of inset?

Like if somebody posts, if someone watches a video of the prime minister and writes something stupid, are all of those things, if one says, God, God, I hate this guy, I wish he was dead. Does that trigger something? Or is that, does that not reach the level of something that needs to be investigated? Yeah, you can imagine there are sentinels out there kind of monitoring the space. And they do look for this sort of stuff, especially when there's heightened down. activity around Prime Minister's official duties.

They are going to be looking to see if those kinds of statements are being made. It's possible that, you know, an off-the-cuff statement like that, as we might perceive it as, oh, he was just, you know, saying something stupid.

It's possible that, I mean, one of them might kind of fall through and fall away and might not be seen. But you should not assume that. I mean, you should assume that they're all going to be seen. Somebody is going to. to take a look at all of them and decide that, okay, what do we do here? Because if the, if the threat's

been communicated, that in and of itself is sufficient to lay a criminal charge. And sometimes laying that charge also serves as a deterrence of course. For other people to realize that, you know, there are some things that you just can't say online. Moobin, I think a lot of people out there who worry about privacy and, you know, Big Brother does generally, is everything monitoring, is everything monitored online or is online monitored for specific things? Because that's two different scenarios. Yeah, there's definitely a specific monitoring that's done by, you know, the intelligence service, law enforcement, where it's obviously, you know, you're targeting certain networks and certain groups. That's one thing. We don't have, you know, blanket wide net surveillance in that regard. But I mean,

And anybody, look, let's be real, like in today's society, there's no privacy online. While everybody worries about, you know, Big Brother or the government, we're giving away our information willingly and openly to private corporations. People are, you know, blabbing away on social media platforms just, you know, signaling to everyone what they believe, what their political views, religious views, what they had for breakfast, who they had breakfast with, you know, what location they ate at. So in this day and age, don't assume that anything is private. Even these so-called encryption platforms, I mean, if you believe that they're all encrypted,

well, you know, I got a bridge to sell you. Moobin Shake, counterism expert, former operative with CIS and the RCMP. Just real quick, one word answer. Would you suggest to this person and anybody who finds themselves in a similar position to just lawyer up because it's going to be a long trip before they see freedom. Oh, yes. Yeah. Two words.

Two words. Hey, moving. I appreciate it. We'd love to have you back sometime. Thanks for having me.