The Ben Mulroney Show - Canadian airports hacked by pro-hamas group/The Dark Poutine podcast

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

GUEST:   Mike Browne/ Host of the Dark Poutine podcast 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 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. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be. Politics, conflict, uncertainty. It's a lot to carry. And for many men, there's this expectation to stay calm, stay in control. and not talk about how it's affecting you. But the truth is, you're allowed to feel overwhelmed. You're allowed to say, I'm not okay right now. And trust me, I have been there.

Whether it's the state of the world, stress at home, or just feeling like you've got to have it all together and have all the answers. You don't have to hold it in. Better help is here to help with the world's largest network of licensed therapists. They've already supported over 5 million people. You can connect with a therapist online from wherever you are.

No wait list, no office visits. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch any time. It's time to put your mental health on the agenda. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Mulruni today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Mulruni. Canada's oil sands produce the energy the world needs, but it's the benefits that flow to all parts of our country,

like hundreds of thousands of jobs in oil and gas and along the supply chain and revenue to invest in roads, bridges, our national defense, and more. You see, we're building more than a strong oil sands sector. We're helping to. build a stronger Canada. We're Pathways Alliance, six of Canada's largest oil sands companies working together to help grow Canada's economy. Learn more at Pathwaysalliance.ca. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show, and we want to play a little bit of DeAngelo for you.

If you were a child of the product of the 90s, let's say it doesn't matter when you were born. I was born in 1976. Then DeAngelo was part of the soundtrack of your teen years and your early 20s of R&B legend. Passed away last night at the age of 51 of cancer. That's way too early for anyone. But the fact that he has left us with so many great songs and a soundtrack from a big part of our lives.

We thank him and we will remember him. All right. Let's go back to the conversation that we were having before the break earlier in the show. I should say, well, I should say, welcome to Ben Mulrini Show. I haven't done that yet. Welcome to Ben Mulroney Show Thursday, October 16th. Colonna Airport, as well as a number of other small airports across Canada and some in the United States were hacked, hacked. Let's play a message that was played by, that was

when the AV system was co-opted by people who call themselves hackers, they are terrorists. They took over the AV sound systems in the areas of these airports that are before security. All right, that's enough of that. That's the Qasam anthem and the voice of Abu Abida, who's a Muslim commander. And anyway, if that wasn't designed to strike fear, I don't know what is. It was, it also displayed and broadcast anti-Israel and anti-Trump messages.

Israel lost the war. Hamas won the war, honorably. You are a pig Donald Trump, along with doctored images of Hamas fight. and Benjamin Netanyahu. And so we spoke about that before the break with a security expert, cyber security expert and CISIS, former CESIS agent, Phil Gerski, to get his sense of what this meant.

And let's listen to the first bit of that conversation, understanding why they did what they did in spreading hate. First of all, this is an incredible cyber attack. So the first, you know, you talk about the last line of defense, right? What kind of cyber defense do they have in place to stop this from happening? So that had to be looked at, what wasn't done. And more importantly, why would you target these small airports? Is it because the cyber defense is redeemed to be a little less strenuous there?

What does it happen at Pearson or Montreal or Vancouver? And what it shows is this is exactly what terrorist groups like Hamas and Hamas is a listed entity here in Canada are trying to do. They're trying to get their propaganda in our faces and trying to spread fear and terror amongst Canadians. So it's an awful event. And if you've got to figure out why did this happen? And so that's probably the conversation that's happening this morning. I asked Phil to put himself in the shoes of so the people that run Canada's biggest airports this morning.

But the mere fact that they found an in, they found a weakness in the system to do this. And then you said people are milling about trying to go get to their aircraft and they're seeing this propaganda spread is a really bad sign. So I think a lot of fingers are being pointed and rightfully so as to who dropped the ball in this one. Yeah. it's uh now fortunately it was a small attack it was from what we're hearing the hackers exploited third party cloud software vulnerability at the five airports and you know i did ask the question i said you know did they exploit them a because they're small airports and did they exploit this aspect of the airport because the security is obviously weaker on that side when you don't have

access to the planes you know this is where anybody can just walk into the airport perhaps that's why they did it. But I did ask, you know, could there have been a longer, longer term play by these terrorists? Go back to 9-11. Where was the flight school training that was carried out by those people in place like Minnesota off the beaten path? I'm not saying that Calona and Windsor and Victoria precursors. There's something, you know, but I know you're not saying that, but we have to, we have to plan for it. You can't, you plan for the worst and hope for the best. 100% and this is why they would have like I said initially maybe these airports weren't quite as secure as the major ones in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, maybe they were testing this out as a possibility. So yeah, that has to be taken into consideration. Why do they target these three specific airports? How do they determine the vulnerabilities and are they planning something better? So yeah, I'm confident in my colleagues and thesis in the RC&P that they're on top of this. Obviously, it is a potential threat and they'll do what they can to try to prevent anything more from happening. I mean, I think it's a threat. I don't think it's a potential threat. It's a threat. They've They threatened us.

That's what happened here. And, you know, I keep going back to just the everyday traveler, everyday Canadians. I'm just, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I can speak for a lot of people. I'm sick and tired of having life interrupted by people with their pet projects and their pet passion projects. And what's important to them has to be important to me.

And they're going to foist it on me any way they can. And now we're crossing the line into making people feel actively trying to make people feel unsafe. You can argue that the protests that have taken over this country for over two years are not designed explicitly to make people feel unsafe. You can argue that they have a knock-on effect of making people unsafe. I would say to that I would argue the second that these protests started walking into the places where Jews live, that was explicitly done to make people feel.

unsafe. This particular cyber attack was designed to make people feel unsafe in a place where they must trust the institutions that run them to keep them safe. Getting onto a plane since 9-11 has always carried an element of fear to it. Now, in a lot of cases, people don't feel that fear. It's in the back of their mind. But there's nobody who goes into an airport today and is not constantly reminded that devices and mechanisms and technology has been put into place. And protocols have been put into place and personnel have been put into place to make us feel safe and to actually keep us safe, not just make us feel safe, but to keep us safe.

This was designed to shoot a hole in that fear and in that safety, right? This was designed to say, we can get you, we can get you, and we're going to come for you. And that to me is terrifying. And it is something that we as a, I hope our airport security, I hope our national security apparatus takes this exceptionally seriously. I hope that we make a huge example of these people when we arrest them. I hope that by the time they're arrested, I hope that by the time they go to trial, I hope that by the time they are convicted of whatever they are convicted of,

we have changed our laws where we can make an example out of these people. And in an effort to deter anybody else from messing with our airports and making Canadian citizens feel unsafe, we throw the book at these damn people and we find a hole called a prison and we throw them into that hole and they never get out. I want, I need, I need somebody to say these things matter. And here's how we're going to show you they matter by taking the people who would be so cavalier with our safety and make a mockery of it. I want these, I would like to live in a world where there's a problem. possibility that these people are named, shamed, prosecuted, and put into a prison never to

see daylight again. So we want to talk to people about that, but we also want to talk to people, open up the phones for this, some relatively breaking news. We've been waiting for this for a while for bail reform. Yes, Mark Carney has announced his government will introduce bail reform legislation next week to amend the criminal code. You'll remember that last week, the Tories put forth Bill C242, or maybe 262. I can't remember.

But it's the Jail Not Bail Act. It got voted down. But on the heels of that, we were promised by the government, don't worry, we're going to put forth our own proposals in our own bill. And it'll be even more comprehensive than that one. And the Tories are going to love it. That's what they said. And I take them at their word. So this is the first news on that front.

The reform is going to target. rules for serious and violent offenders. Here are some of the key proposal changes. Reverse onus bail. Yes. Expanded for more offenses accused. The accused must prove why they should be released. I got to see that.

Consecutive sentencing allowing for multiple convictions. Nice. You do two crimes at once. You serve those penalties consecutively, not concurrently. Conditional sentences serving time in the community restricted to certain sexual offenses. I'm going to need details on that. and new penalties introduced for organized retail theft. So these are the high-level things.

I like all that stuff. I'm hoping there's more, but we'll be discussing as that information comes. Let's open up the phone lunch at airports have tighter security. The tightest security, in fact, anywhere. Does this give you pause while flying? We want to hear from you. Don't go anywhere. Ben Mulroney's show continues.

Welcome back. to the Ben Mulroney show. We're talking airports. We're talking safety at airports and we're talking about how you would feel if you were about to board a plane and all of a sudden through the audiovisual network at the airport, you started hearing chants of militant Islamic commanders speaking in a language you don't understand and words on screens saying, Israel lost the war, Hamas won it, you're all pigs, really aggressive stuff, essentially letting you know that a certain type of person had hacked the system. Would you feel safe? And what are we supposed to do next? We're joined now. And we want to hear from you. Give us a call. We want to hear from you. Would you feel safe getting on a plane if you'd heard that? Would you have faith in the security at the airport? Let's start with Phil. Phil, thanks so much for calling. Hi, Ben. How are you? I'm well, thanks.

Yeah, I've flown a lot. I was telling your producer. I've flown a lot, and I used to fly L.L., which is Israeli airline. And I wouldn't get on that plane at all. The fact, mere fact that that happened, and it's all tied into this pro-Palestinian nonsense that's been going on for the past two years. I'm surprised that something hasn't happened yet. And I'm really, really concerned that that's just.

something's afoot, and I'm not sure what it is, but I think we all need to be on, have our radars on, so to speak, and have our head on a swivel. This is uncalled for, not only that, but we've been asking for this, and what I mean by that is that we've ignored all the signs, the telltale signs of things that have been going on. And not only that, but when I used to fly out of Pearson, when Alal was flying, they somehow got kicked out of, of Pearson, you know, and they had the best security. Yeah. Because I worked as a contractor when I was working on part of the airport, and there were

so many blind spots, so you could see, like, where the conveyor belts go. Yeah. And with Al-L, they always had security personnel always around, you know, but they would add their own LL layer of security to any airport in which they operated, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I flew one time to go to Israel, and they asked my daughter, when's the last time she had her bat mitzvah.

And we got through in like five minutes. Like they didn't question my wife or myself because they can read to you. They can read personalities. Yeah. You know, and so. Well, you know, what I think is, look, I often say on this show that as a nation, there are certain serious issues that we are very unserious about. Yes.

When it comes to this, you know, I'm willing, I'm willing to not lay that claim at the feet of, you know, our leaders because they are smaller airports. This happened beyond the security perimeter. And so now it's up to us to react, and it's how we react that I think is going to be very telling. But the one observation I will make is I think a lot of people in power in this country have had blinders on for two years that allowing this movement to grow unfettered and unchallenged, to simply say, oh, This is, you know, these people are expressing anger and they are in support of the Palestinian people and not recognize that within that movement, there are, in fact, clusters of threats. And you are, because, but if you didn't see the movement as a threat unto itself, you're not going to, this will come as a surprise today to you.

And I think there has been a naivete about certain leaders in this country. who have, who just decided on day one, there's nothing to see here. And now we're seeing what happens when you allow those seeds to find purchase in the land. They are growing. They are growing into toxic, they have toxic roots in the ground. And we now have the harder, we now have the harder job of uprooting these, these, these, these terrible plants from our, from our soil. And it would have been a heck of a lot easier if we'd caught them when they were seeds. Exactly.

I agree. And that's the thing. You know, we also declared Karni did a Palestinian state. And so wasn't it not long after that that his bank account was hacked. And now we have this incident that takes place. And so it's a license. It's a license to continue on and carry on that they're going unfettered, unchecked. If you say something, it's an homophobia.

It's all these other nonsense that they go on with. So, yeah, I, like I said, I'm really concerned. I've been a lot of time in Israel and starting to see this kind of stuff. And everybody on the security services, R-CMP, everybody should have their radar on, like I said before, because something is afoot. I'm not sure what it is, but the signs are there. Yeah, well, thank you, Phil. I appreciate the call. And, you know, we have to have these honest conversations.

We have to, like, we have to have these conversations, unafraid of hurting people's feelings. Like, I'm sorry, your feelings in these. And your feelings of being offended that I might have said something about the pro-Palestinian movement. Like, I'm not sorry. Like, there are in a movement that big, and you do have numbers on your side, there are very good people. And there are people who are in it for as they see the right reasons. And then there are some terrible actors, some terrible actors who have taken advantage of this moment to shepherd forth their own agenda. which includes the dismantling of this country

and the values that we espouse. Like, they've said as much. We hear them chanting. We're coming for Canada. We're, death to the IDF, death to Canada, death to the UK. They have said as much. So I am not an idiot and I'm not going to pretend that I didn't hear that coming from one of these marches.

Am I tarring everyone there with the same brush? No, because unlike a lot of the people at those, marches, I recognize that people are nuanced and people are different. So give us a call here at the Ben Mulroney Show. We'd love to hear from you and get your thoughts on this matter. Yeah, like I said, I'm not, I'm not upset with the government. I'm not upset with our security forces and the security apparatus that had a weakness exposed in this moment. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not here demanding that somebody lose their job at all. These are smaller airports. They have smaller budgets, they have more, less sophisticated cyber security. So I'm not upset about that.

I don't like that it happened. I don't like that it happened, but I, I, I, to me, it's, it's, it's, it's, when you have a country this big, you're going to have flaws in the system. How we deal with it, that's going to matter. However, there is a larger issue, as I just said to fill. We are, we're living in a, in a time where threats were visible. They were exposing themselves with their words and their deeds and what they were saying online. And if you didn't view that as anything

but free speech or the natural outcrop of anger over what they saw happening on the other side of the world, you weren't going to view it as a threat. Well, a threat it is and a threat has been exposed. John, welcome to the show. Ben, I have to applaud you for the stand you're taking. Thank you. Thank you.

I want to say, I've seen three or four of these protests in person. They're now starting to come to my neighborhood at Maine and Danforth every Tuesday, between five and seven. And they were there a couple of nights ago, and they had no business being there. Was this the protest? The first time I talked about it was when they want to take over, they want to clog the entrances and exits to the subway line? Yeah. What they do is they congregate outside in the main intersections right by the subway.

So you've got Maine, you've got Broadview, you've got all the stops on the East-West line. I've taken a good look at these people. Now, in and amongst the core people that are doing this are some really mean-looking bad people. They're all masked up with Kaffaias. They're looking at me with disdain as I walk by. I'm watching this carefully, and I'm not comfortable with it. And the time now is to shut it down.

It doesn't need to be happening anymore. Well, thank you very much, my friend. I appreciate it. We've got time for one more. Let's say how to Jane. Jane, don't have a lot of time, so please make your point. Yes, hi.

So I just wanted to say that I agree with everything you said, except that I do believe people should lose their job because whoever was sitting at the hell passed up that day or those days leading up to this and you never happen. You can't have a false good. Oh, we've lost you there, Jane. Thank you so much.

Look, the reason I'm willing to give Grace here is I don't know what their budgets are. I have no idea how much money they had to have for cybersecurity on the other side of the security zone. And so, yeah, I just, I don't know enough to be able to say you didn't do your job. But thanks to everyone for calling in. All right, we're going to take a break. And when we come back, the True Crime podcast you should be listening to is coming to the chorus radio network. Don't go anywhere.

by better help. If you've been following the news, like really following it, you know how exhausting it can be. Politics, conflict, uncertainty. It's a lot to carry. And for many men, there's this expectation to stay calm, stay in control, and not talk about how it's affecting you. But the truth is, you're allowed to feel overwhelmed. You're allowed to say, I'm not okay right now. And trust me, I have been there. Whether it's the state of the world, stress at home, or just feeling like you've got to have it all together and have all the answers. You don't have to hold it in. BetterHelp is here to help with the world's largest network of licensed therapists. They've already supported over 5 million people. You can connect with a therapist

online from wherever you are. No wait list, no office visits. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch any time. It's time to put your mental health on the agenda. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Mulruni today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Mulruni. At the Nissan All In Clear Out, there's nothing more chill than financing an award-winning Nissan for just zero percent. Enjoy the soothing relaxation of zero stress, zero worries, zero indecision. Hurry in, because once they're gone, there will be zero left.

During the Nissan All In Clear Out, get zero percent financing plus up to $500 bonus on some of our best-selling models. You have zero reasons to wait. Conditions apply. See your local Nissan dealer today. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you so much for joining us really excited about this next conversation. It's a programming note for the Chorus Radio Network. We're launching a new program for our talk radio audiences.

Crime time, the two hours of uninterrupted true crime shows. We're going to be delivering the best crime, true crime podcast from our Curiouscast library and bring them to listeners on the Chorus Talk stations. hosted and curated by Mike Brown, the host of Canada's most respected true crime podcast, Dark Putine. And joining us now is Mike Brown. Mike, welcome to this show and congratulations. Hi, thanks, Ben. That's awesome.

I mean, listen, I love that. Yes. I love my sponsors without them. We can't do this show. But you got to love the fact that like the podcast, the podcasting is free to go as long or as short as you want. given two hours of uninterrupted time across the chorus talk stations is quite the prize. It really is. I'm so blown away. I've been with Curiouscast, the podcasting network for, oh my gosh, it's coming up on seven years now. And they approached me with this idea. And I

thought, man, this is a dream come true for me. Yeah, you're going to be able to find people who've never listened to a podcast before. That's a, it's, it's a heck of, it's a heck of a thing. I mean, people tend to think that what, you know, doing radio is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, quite substantial, quite significant. So is it happening at the same time everywhere across the country? No, there's going to be different times for each show. So there in Toronto, it's Fridays 9 to 11 and Sundays 9 to 11.

In London on 980 CFPL, it's 9 to 11 on Sundays. And Winnipeg, it's on Saturdays 12. 12 to 2 a.m. And Sunday 10 to 12 and Calgary. So people can go to their local radio station website and find that information. Okay, so what are people, so what

stories are people going to be treated to on day one? On day one, we're going to hear about the untold stories of John Lennon's murder. And that comes to us from uncharted crime and mayhem in the music industry from, I'm sure you know, Alan Cross.

Yes, indeed. I love Alan Cross. He is a national treasure, Alan Cross. He really is. What do you attribute the enthusiasm and the passion that so many people have for consuming these stories of true crime? That's something that I've been sort of pondering myself for some time. I know for me, I got into it because I had something happened to me.

when I was a youngster that wasn't good and essentially a man tried to abduct me when I was 11 years old. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So I've been interested in crime and what makes these kind of folks tick ever since. And I kind of approach it from a unique perspective in that we We on Dark Poutine talk about the community and the families affected, the victim. We focused more on the victim than the actual crime and the criminal. Well, there's also people, but before podcasting there was Dateline, right? And Dateline was the true crime source. Like if someone had an itch to scratch, that's where you found it.

Now there are so many wonderful places that take it just as seriously. that you can find on podcasting. And now the fact that it's coming to radio, I mean, you know, I think the goal of this is to tell us many people about our talk radio stations becoming weekly destinations for true crime. And this, we know how popular the category is. And it's a chance, I think, for us to capitalize on the genre,

bring it to our listeners, probably listeners, like I said, who have not been, who love true crime and just don't know how to access it. in the podcast world, and so I think it's a fantastic, fantastic opportunity for everyone to enjoy this topic and this genre. So I want to thank you, Mike, Mike Brown, the host of Dark Putine. By the way, how can people find Dark Putine? DarkPuteen.com or wherever you stream your audio of Spotify, Apple, podcasts, everywhere. Well, and now we add Curator to your title. Thank you so much, Mike Brown. We appreciate

Appreciate it. All the best to you. And congratulations. Thanks again, Ben. bridges, our national defense, and more. You see, we're building more than a strong oil sands sector. We're helping to build a stronger Canada. We're Pathways Alliance, six of Canada's largest oil sands companies working together to help grow Canada's economy. Learn more at pathwaysalliance.ca.