The Ben Mulroney Show - Gun-for-hire plot exposed / tech talk with Carmi Levy

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

GUEST:  Phil Gurski / former CSIS analyst / CEO of Borealis GUEST:  Carmi  Levy/Tech Journalist 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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Old Navy's drapeed denim wide leg. Normally we like to start by talking a little bit about what's been going on in our lives, humanizing this show, reminding you that the people that you're listening to or watching on YouTube are people like you. But people like you need to hear this story. This story was broken by the Toronto Star. and I'd like you to park your concern that this is a Toronto-specific story that doesn't concern you. This is a story of national importance, and it's going to dovetail into the next story that our jaws were on the ground for yesterday.

A Toronto area teen has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and 13 firearm offenses. We also learned that he spent months as a paid shooter. He was hired to kill people. Want to remind, let me repeat that. A teenager in this country was paid for months to go around wherever he was told and kill people for what he describes as influential adults in the towing industry. and they supplied him guns and ordered retaliatory attacks. And in order for him to get paid, he also says he had to film the murders. And in July of 2024, he executed a tow truck operator by the name of Sulakshan Selvazingham

and shot him nine times in Scarborough, once in the head. After being instructed, as I said, to film the killing and deliver the fun. final shot in the head. He and other young people then burn the getaway car. They got rid of a license plate, burn the getaway car, demonstrating that, like, they may be youths, but they behave like hardened criminals. Like that is to keep your cool after you murder somebody to the point that you

know, because they drove a distance. If I, to be able to be able to, to do that and then have the wherewithal to drive somewhere and take the steps to hide your crime. That takes a special type of temperament that I don't know that a lot of young kids have. So the court heard that he was already a veteran contract killer and he'd been linked to shootings at, well, he'll listen to this one, in May and June of 2024, while still in high school and acting on the instructions of the same adults that told him to kill that guy,

the team carried out numerous shootings of businesses tied to the towing industry. In a single evening, he shot up two cinemas in Richmond Hill and Toronto, along with a jewelry store in Toronto. After that, he crashed a stolen car through a chain barrier before abandoning it in a hydro field in Scarborough. The crown is not seeking an adult. sentence. And he's an adult now.

He wasn't an adult when he was arrested. And that's the reason. These adults would find these kids, would communicate with them over encrypted apps like Signal and WhatsApp. And then they would hire them and in order for them to get paid, they would have to show proof of murder or proof of shooting. Let's listen to the Toronto Police Service Chief Myron Demkew about these encrypted apps and who's paying for all of this?

Through encrypted messaging apps, young people are hired to carry out attacks against various targets. And in order to get paid, they're required to film their attacks. Who is paying for this? This is what we are trying to determine, including by working with our RCMP and FBI colleagues. Right. So this is a cross-border cooperation between intelligence gathering and law enforcement. I got some questions about this marketplace that's been established over these encrypted apps. Intrepid and I have had a conversation earlier.

How do these people find these kids? And how do these kids know that the person they're talking to is in fact somebody who can be trusted in this really insidious, seedy world? Like if some random person approached me on an encrypted app and said, hey, I'd like you to kill somebody for me. Even if that was something I did, I don't know that person. So how is trust established? How is contact first established? I think that's a really important part of the conversation.

But this is a huge story because in my entire history of sitting in this chair and talking about stories like this, I have never spoken about a single criminal for hire, shooter for hire, gun for hire story. And we got two of them in two days, which means it is an absolute certainty that they are all part of the same thing. So to go back to the story I was telling you about before from yesterday. This is how big this is. The U.S. consulate shooting update, you'll remember that in Toronto a few months ago, somebody shot up the U.S. consulate. Well, that investigation was ongoing. And now Toronto police are saying that a network of young criminals for hire is behind dozens of GTA shootings,

including, as we said, pardon me? Yeah, well, let's listen to the second clip. Then this is by, this is by the police chief. During the operation last week, we recovered two firearms, a 9mm handgun and a 45 caliber handgun, both of which originated. in the United States of America. These details are important as this investigation involves at least six shooting incidents in the greater Toronto area linked to a 9mm handgun and at least 21 shooting incidents in the greater Toronto area linked to a 45 caliber firearm.

This is an ongoing investigation and we are still doing ballistic testing and more arrests and charges could come at a later date. Let's add that up. Yeah, so 21 shootings from one gun, right? Which is, yeah, yeah, six shootings from one and 21 from another. So 27 separate incidents from two guns. This is dozens of GTA shootings. And let's not forget, well, like top of the list that we're talking, U.S. consulate

and places of worship synagogues. And as part of this investigation, you'll remember that Constable Mark Pinozado, who was on duty trying to deliver a warrant, was killed in one of these raids. So we've got a dead cop. We've got massive amounts of shootings with guns that came from the United States and knowledge that the genesis of this is happening on encrypted apps where, Bad people are hiring kids in most, not most, lots of cases, to perpetrate these insanely violent crimes. But here's what's so disturbing. We don't know how many kids.

We know that, remember we were going through the numbers. There was like the 19 year old, an 18 year old. There's all these, they're all around 1918. There's a bunch of them. But then they also, and they said it very clearly, they don't know who's paying the kids. They don't know how many people, if they're different groups, because you have this stuff all happening. But then you also have the tow truck stuff where the teen just admitted because that's two years old.

That's two years. So this has been going on for a while. Look, I'm going to say this before we go to break. There's a lot. I'm really happy the cops are uncovering this. But can we finally admit that we have not, we took our eye off the ball? You got ineffective gun legislation with the liberal government touting how safe we are because they've taken away legal gun owners' rights to own guns. This stuff is happening. You got weak border controls. It's allowing these guns to come across the border in the first place. We don't know if these criminals are American. They could be.

It's sort of implied that there's an American element because we're working with the FBI. Exactly. Okay. You got lenient bail and sentencing regimes where there's no incentive not to do the crime. And then, of course, you've got this outdated youth justice framework where criminals have discovered the cheat code of all. cheat codes. Let's involve these young people in the most heinous violent crimes and they're

going to get off because this society believes that if you're below 18, you can be rehabilitated and spending time in prison is not the best use of your time. Let's throw another wrinkle into this. Ideological motivation. What is it? Yeah, well, we don't know. In some

we heard there may be a terrorist angle to it. That was a few days ago. We don't want that to get lost. So we're going to be talking about all of that with Phil Gersky, former Cesis Analyst, the CEO of Borealis, to make sense of this intersection of violence and crime and youth, because this is not a good look for our country. So let's make sense of it next on the Ben Mulrudey show.

All right. If you are just joining us, we are trying to get the nation up to speed on a very complex web of criminal behavior within the greater Toronto area that involves potential terrorism, Youth criminal justice, guns for hire, dead cops, 12-year-olds using cars as battling rams. It's dizzying, and that's why to make sense of all of this, we're joined by a great friend of the show

and somebody who has seen enough that he can maybe turn down the pace of the information and make sense of it for us. Please welcome Phil Gerski, former CIS analyst and CEO of Borealis. Phil, I've never seen a story like this. Maybe you have. Tell us what sticks out to you. Okay, well, first of all, Ben, it's great to talk to you again. And this story, as you said, has a lot of layers to it. I think for me, and this is the question I think that all Canadians want answer.

Okay, we've got kids being hired, like you said, they've carried out shootings, you know, use cars as weapons kind of thing. And it's been on this message. It's been out there for about the past 24 hours. or maybe longer, but these are kind of kids for hire, right? So they're taking a couple hundred bucks or whatever it is to carry out this thing. The question that I have, and I'm sure you have, and most Canadians have, is, well, who's the banker here? Yeah.

Who's paying these kids? What's the motive? Is it simply gangbangers? Could be. Could be criminal organizations. Is it states? And, of course, the state everyone has on their mind is Iran. If it's Iran, that's a whole different ball of wax because now we're talking about state-sponsored.

at minimum criminality in Canada. And as you said, possibly state-sponsored terrorism in Canada. That's what I'm wondering about. Yeah, we should remind people that yesterday the news came out that there was a wiretap in America where a known criminal with ties to terrorism was caught on this wiretap talking about these very crimes in Toronto where they had hired someone to shoot up the U.S. consulate

as well as what they called the Knesset. The Knesset is a euphemism. for synagogues. And so that's why this entire thing could be more than just the tow truck industry because it could potentially involve international terrorism. Absolutely. I want to point out first and foremost that it's great that we're working with the Bureau, the FBI.

They're good partners. You know, we're part of the Five Eyes Network, certainly in my career intelligence, more than three decades. We get along great. We share intelligence. So that's a good news story. The bad news story is that we're peeling back more and more layers of the onion here. And look at, you know, I was an Iranian analyst before I became a Jihadi analyst.

So I've been looking at Iran since 1984 and 1985. We've known about this for a long time, Ben, about Iranian activities here in Canada. And you know as well as I do, this thesis, my former employer has identified IRGC agencies here in Canada. And how many have been punted? How many have been told to leave? Yeah. Not many that I'm aware of. So it's not as that this is, yeah, this is a breaking story.

But it's not a breaking story in a sense that we've known about this for decades. Well, we've known about a big, listen, we don't know. There's a lot we don't know. So we don't want to turn the outrage up. But we do have to follow certain aspects of the story. And if, in fact, there is an aspect of this that is ideologically driven religious-based terrorism, then what do you make of this newsbreaking from our friends at Blacklock's reporter? Holly Donne reports newly classified, from your guys, CIS,

This 1992 CESIS memo predicted Islamic extremists would attempt to bypass security by filing refugee claims in Canada. The memo to the government of Canada said refugee claimants were extremely difficult to control. There's a bigger story that people can go to Blacklocks Reporter for. But I've said this many times, Phil. We are an unserious country when it comes to the most serious things. And this, like how many governments have punted the ball on this. sort of on this warning from the people we should be paying attention to. We entrust CESIS to give us the information we need.

And clearly, we didn't do anything with this. Look at the numbers of refugee claimants. Yeah, no, you make a lot of good point. So first of all, I want to congratulate my buddies at CIS for having warned. That's 34 years ago, that's a heck of a long time ago. It's probably older than you are for God. Oh, that's very nice to you to say, but no. But no, the message has been going up for a long time.

You know, we still see it, Ben, on the whole China file with foreign interference and repression of the community. We're not being listened to. So look, as the security services, as you say, are there for a reason. They got a mandate. They collect intelligence. They do investigations. They send the information up the line. They give advice on X, Y, or Z.

And if it doesn't get read, well, we've done our job. That the ball's in your court now. But, yeah, it is, you know, it points to a point you made. Yeah, and I share this as, you know, former CESAs directors, we have a piss poor, pardon the language, intelligence culture in this country. We have agencies doing their job, putting information up that's been vetted, that's been sourced properly, and it's not being acted upon. So you can't blame CIS in the R&P and other organizations.

No. They're doing their bid. It's the governments that aren't listening. Yeah, no, and we talked about that in the last segment. Before we heard this news that we've got, you know, we've got government after government doing a victory lap over keeping a, safe and yet the border is porous. We haven't given the people who are supposed to protect us at the border. We haven't given the manpower, the technology, the budgets, the culture to do that

very thing. So saying something doesn't make it true. Saying you're keeping us safe doesn't make it true. What I'm really struck by in this story is the breadth and the sophistication of this insidious sort of culture of gun for hire. I mean, if it's something that is going from the tow truck industry and swing all the way into potentially ideologically driven religious extremism, then my goodness, how big of a network is this? Yeah, it's a great question. And as you said earlier, I mean, it's really important.

There's a lot we don't know. We have more questions than answer to this point, but certainly based on my experience, it's pointing in that direction. The Americans, the rest of the guy in New York, he had ties to an Iranian-sponsored militia in a militia group in Western Europe. So I think we have to uncover those rocks.

I think we have to acknowledge that there's a distinct possibility of that. But then, end of the day, whether it's criminal or terrorism, doesn't matter. We're talking about people hiring kids to potentially kill people. And as you said, the police officer was killed in Toronto tragically last week. So, no, this is serious stuff. And I just wish that governments would take it more seriously and take the advice that the security services are giving them. One of the questions that Mike Droulet and I had earlier when we heard about this use of encryption, encrypted apps, I'm sorry, was it's like a chicken or egg thing.

Where does that communication start? Where do these influential and violent adults who want people killed, where do they find the kids? And then when the kids get contacted, how do they know who the people are who are talking to them? How do they know that they can trust this person to keep this conspiracy, keep it between them, and pay them when they do this most violent act? Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm going to go on a limb and say there's probably multiple layers here. So the original, you know, the brains of the outfit is going to be always unknown, right?

There'll be several steps removed when a person actually carries it out. There's probably one or two middlemen in the way. And so it's a matter of trust, right? So someone contacts you that you know, but they're actually in touch with somebody else who's in touch with somebody else. So the person making the hit, if I can make, you know, ordering the hit is not going to know to the 15-year-old kid that carries a gun down. University of Abb at 4 o'clock on Thursday morning. So they're going to be cutouts. And the reason they do this, Ben, is if it's a state doctor, and I must trust it, if we don't know yet, it's plausible liability.

That's not us. It's just some gangbanger in Toronto ordering this. Why are you associating us with that? You don't have any proof it's us. And that's where the encrypted apps come in. It's really hard for the security services to get into that stuff. And, you know, the more layers you put on, the more difficult it is to assign responsibility the end of the day. I tell you, I just have a bad feeling that are bad feeling for our security.

But I have a bad feeling that the powers that be in Ottawa are going to look at this. and say, okay, well, clearly we have to ban these encrypted apps, and we're going to find out that these kids were paid in crypto. So clearly we have to ban crypto, and that'll solve the problem, right? And that is the, I mean, it's not the last thing we need, but we certainly, we need adults in the room to look at these things rationally. Take a motion out of it. Stop worrying about being viewed by like a bad guy or tard and feathered

as somebody who doesn't appreciate diversity and recognize. Or call the racist, Ben, like I've been. We're losing youth to violence, and we are allowing people to operate as criminals. In a way, I never thought we'd see in this country. But this is the snapshot today. I'm sure we're going to get more reporting tomorrow. I congratulate all those who have been doing the investigating, and here's hoping our police services, wrap this up and roll up these criminals as quickly as possible.

Phil Gerski, thank you so much for joining us. Anytime, Ben. It's a pleasure. All right, we got lots of tech stories to get to. It's happened in Australia. It's happening in the UK. What is Canada trying to ban now? We'll talk about that next on the Ben Mulroney show.

This is the Ben Mulroney show. And there is a lot of tech talk out there. And look, I could make stuff up for you. And I could sound like I knew what I was talking about. But better yet, let's have somebody who actually knows what he's talking about. Join us. Please welcome to the conversation. Tech expert, bon vivant, and good friend of the show, Carmi Levy.

Welcome, my friend. Hi, Ben. So great to be with you. All right, let's talk about this. I mean, there's a trend around the world. It's not just Canada. We've got Australia. You've got the Brits.

I think France is working on limiting the trouble and the pain and the dangers of social media to kids. Yeah, we're finally, I think the world is finally waking up to the risk that social media platforms, as well as AI tools like chatbots, like JCPT, posed to kids. And it started with Australia. but it seems to have really spread like wildfire around the world since then. Everyone's sort of been watching the Australian experience and thinking we should be doing it too. And now Canada is getting on board basically saying we need to do the same thing.

But we also need to learn from the experience of other countries, see what they're not doing or what they're doing wrong, and hopefully fix some of those gaps, fill them in so that Canadian kids are better served and that they can lead safer, better digital lives. Yeah, we've seen in Australia that there really hasn't been a lot of, uptake. And I said before, if I'm picking between a government that's trying to keep kids off of social media or a kid who wants to get onto social media, the kid's going to find a way. Oh, absolutely.

You say no to a kid. They think, yes, I've got three of them. I know that. And that's exactly what's happening. And that's what's happening in Australia. Data shows that 70% of the kids who are targeted by their under 16 ban are still using the tools that they're supposed to. to be banned from. And this is six months after the law went into effect.

So it clearly leaks like a fib. Yeah. This expectation that they magically go dark is just absolutely ridiculous. And even if they are adhering to the law, let's say these are good kids and they're not using VPNs or stealing mom and dad's ID to get on. So what are they doing? They're shifting their time over to other tools.

They're using other social media apps that were not included in the ban. Or maybe they're spending more time talking back and forth with chat GPT, which as we know, its own risks into a young kid's life. So this is not technically making kids safer what it's doing. It's succeeding at raising the issue. We're paying attention to it now. We're talking about it.

We're working with our partners. So in that respect, a ban is a good thing. But on its own, practically on the ground, it's probably the most useless thing you can imagine because kids will be kids and they will simply figure out a way around it. Well, also because we let, you know, we left them to roam the Internet. with no checks and balances and no warnings, no guardrails for years. As a matter of fact, during the pandemic, we told them if you're going to hang out with your

friends, that's where you're going to do it. And so trying to then take away something that we gladly gave them is, it feels to me like it's us throwing our hands up and saying, all right, well, we really don't know how to fix this, so we're just going to ban it. And I far more prefer carrots than sticks in situations like this, incentives for these social media companies to do things on their own to make things safer as opposed to banning these kids who I think at this point have developed a right to be on social media. They certainly have because if you look at how they lead their lives, they are based on all of

these digital tools. So to expect them to just immediately remove themselves from these tools and just find some other way to live their digital lives, I think is probably a little too much of an expectation. We spent 20 years, you're right, doing nothing about it. You don't just switch on a dime in 2026. And so I think what bothers me about laws like this also is it forces the users, the victims of these tools to change their ways. Yeah. It doesn't force the tech.

The ban ends. The kids go back to it after a couple years. And the tools themselves are still as dangerous as corrosive, as toxic, as predatory as they've always been. And so I was kind of glad to see that the Canadian law, this is known as the Digital Safety Act, included provisions for them to actually change the design of the platform that if they introduced safety features that they could potentially they could apply to the exempt from this this removal from the platform so it changes the calculus a little bit it forces those who create the dangers to finally be accountable for it i do like that but again i have a real problem with the government

being that arbiter especially a government if i can editorialize and i'm not asking you to agree i'm just going to say it and then we're going to move on i mean this is a government government has banned virtually every type of gun in this country, and I don't feel that we're any more safe in the streets of big cities. So a ban of social media, I don't see that it's going to help. I see this as creating just a bigger bureaucracy. And sure enough, with this comes the establishment of a new regulator. A new regulator means new bureaucrats, more budgets, more money into a government that doesn't know how to stop spending. But again, that's just my perspective. We'll tie a little bow on it. We'll move on, shall we?

deal. Although for the record, I'm right there with you. And I'll continue to watch this as it plays out because Ottawa needs to continue to be held accountable regardless of who's in power. Yeah, well, also, I think the interesting thing is in the UK, they're banning all of these platforms, except for Blue Sky. I thought that was really interesting, except for the one that we like. Let's move on. But my kids aren't there. No one's there. No one's there except for some really, from what I've seen, some pretty mean-spirited people. But anyway. Okay, this next story, it's more of a smirk than anything else. The Trump Mobile, right, and one of these ventures that the Trump family started by leveraging the status of the White House is the phone is finally out.

The all gold phone is finally out. And it turns out when you open it up, the guts of it are from an HTC phone from two years ago. Yeah. So, you know, so yeah, it's the HTCU24 Pro. It's a 2024 model. You too can have it for the low, low price of $499 U.S. You can go to the website now and order one yourself and put down a $100 deposit on it. Or you could just go to any store in Canada or the U.S. And you could find the equivalent phone that HCC will sell, except it's two years newer. And you can get it for under $100 from those carriers. You're kidding. Not kidding at all. In fact, if you really want the gold, you know, the gold treatment on it, Canadian tire will be perfectly happy to buy some spray paint for $3.99. So this is the ultimate grift. You know, the fact that this is still even a thing. They claimed at one point it'd be, you know, made in the USA, but now apparently it's, you know, inspired by the USA because, of course, it's made using Chinese components assembled in Taiwan. So, no, this is not a smart decision. If you're a fan of Donald Trump, and yes, Some people are.

And if you want to make a stupid consumer decision, by all means the phones are shipping now after over a year of being delayed because Lord knows what was happening. Maybe they ran out of gold spray paint. I don't know. Well, you know, it's interesting. When you said that, I said, I could see a world where they, they were waiting to find a phone that they could get at a super discount. And, you know, and now they're at a place where this phone now, it's two years old, and HTC might have been sitting on a glut of them. and said, hey, we'll take them off your hands for pennies on the dollar. And then we're going to upcharge for it,

making the delta between what they bought it for and what they're selling it for, enormous. Yeah, and certainly there may be a percentage of the consumer population out there that doesn't do it some or good. It isn't looking at technical specs, you know, simply wants to have that brand on it and they're willing to pay a premium for it. And hey, I mean, that's capitalism. If you want to make that decision, go for it. but there are far better, faster phones out there.

And quite frankly, it's the service as well. You're not just buying the device. You're buying service from this Trump Mobile is also what's known as a mobile virtual network operator. And then they know they are a telephone company. So you're also paying them every month for that service. As you would have any wireless operator. You've got to trust that they'll know what they're doing going forward.

As far as I can tell, they've never provided wireless service to anyone before. I think I'll pass. Well, thank you very much, my friend. We do appreciate it. We will see you later. That was Carmi Levy, giving us all the tech talk. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney show. And very glad that our good friend, Carmi Levy, has stuck around because the tech stories, they just keep knocking on the door.

And I remember a few years ago, Carmi, Pokemon Go was all the rage. I was in Europe with some friends. And they were obsessed with this thing. And they were playing on the beat. It was everywhere. It was everywhere around the world Pokemon Go. And it never occurred to me in my most black mirror nightmares that that innocent, fun game could be used ultimately with tech military ramifications. But that's the world we're living in, I guess.

Yeah, I remember this. I mean, I believe it was the summer of 2016 and my kids were into this. And my wife and I thought, isn't this amazing? Like our kids are getting outside. They're interacting with their friends. we thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now there is news that so Niantic was the company that created Pokemon Go and associate, they're part of the Nintendo Empire.

A few years back, they spun out of Niantic, a company called Niantic Spatial, which is essentially a company that's designed to take the data that was collected from all of that Pokemon Go activity. So think you're walking around a city with your phone, you're taking pictures of locations, you're generating all sorts of data, you're creating basically a three-dimensional map of your entire area. So that information can be useful in a whole bunch of ways. And as it turns out, the antics spatial was able to develop a giant 3D map of all of the

world. And now they're using it to help military drones know where they are and know where they need to be, which I find both fascinating technically but horrifying in every other aspect. And of course, this wasn't known at the time. If I had known that my kids were going to be training military drones to kill people, I probably would have had a conversation with them 10 years ago. And here we are 10 years after the fact. And all of that data is now being used for this purpose.

It's another reminder for us to read the terms of service. Yeah. Because I'm willing to bet in there that at the time, they probably had some provisions that we will collect data, we will use it for all these purposes, and maybe some more that we can't specify. justify here. But if you click agree, you are agreeing to that and you're part of that. It's a contract. Too bad, no back. I got to wonder, though, is there a scenario, Karmie, where somebody could

pay an additional fee that would ensure that that data that they are contributing does not get used? I think that that could very well be where we're going. I mean, we already have a number of online free services. If we want to have better services, like, for example, you have a Gmail. account that you can get for free, but if you want more storage, if you want more AI features, you can pay for a Google premium account and there you go. And so conceivably, privacy could be one of those things that you get when you pay a little bit more. So maybe you'll share less information or, you know, when you get the Netflix premium account, you can ditch the ads, but it'll cost you, but you'll get that benefit back. I think it's only a matter of time before

that becomes a thing as well. Definitely something to watch for. Yeah, what does your, what does your privacy, how do you value your privacy? I guess that's That's the question. And would you be willing to pay for it? It's just unfortunate that we even have to pay for privacy in the first place. It's, I really wish we lived in a world where these companies were like, you know, we're going to be good privacy citizens and we're going to make sure that everyone's data is secured, that we don't use it in ways that are, you know, sort of make us feel a little bit wiggly and fuzzy.

Yeah. That, you know, that everything is upfront and transparent. But unfortunately, data is worth so much to every company that we deal with, that they're using all sorts of underhanded ways to get a hold of it, and it's something that we've got to keep our eyes open for as consumers. Hey, Carmi, why can't I wear my AirPods? Why is my cardiologist going to tell me I can't wear my AirPods? Because if you have a pacemaker, and I'm sure there are lots of people out there who do,

lots of folks in my family have them, defibrillators, they call them, it's a category of devices called cardiovascular implantable devices. They're electronic devices, and unfortunately, they are, susceptible or vulnerable to magnetic fields. And so AirPods do generate a very small magnetic field. And researchers have found that if they're really close or placed very closely to this cardiac implantable device, your pacemaker or defibrillator, it could cause it to go into what's called magnet-safe mode, which essentially means it won't do its job while it's in that

mode. Now, the good news is take the magnetic source away and it goes back to doing what it's supposed to be doing. But for those few seconds, you know, if I hold something really close to my chest, I might feel faint. I, you know, my heart rate might drop or whatever. So there's warning there that you want to keep at least six inches between the AirPods and the devices in your chest, which means if you're in the habit of keeping them in, say, your pocket, you might probably want to move them to your pants pocket or your backpack or your purse. Keep them away from them.

And also, and I cannot state this enough, it's a conversation you probably want to have with your doctor. It's one thing to sort of see this out there on the internet, but let your doctor know because there may very well be additional guidance from the manufacturer of your pacemaker that you want to be aware with, but magnetic interference is something that we should be aware of when we have these devices,

and it also applies to any other device with radios in it. Okay, so, yeah, that was going to be my last question for you. Is this just an AirPods thing, or is this any earphones, Bluetooth earphones? Any Bluetooth earphones. So, like, it doesn't have to be Apple's branded AirPods. It can be any ones that you have. If you have an Android phone with other brands, that's an issue.

And it's also any device with Bluetooth or similar radios in them. So it could be a smartphone. It could be a fitness device. Oh, geez, your smartphone, too. My God. Yep. All right. Something to keep in mind just stop putting it in your shirt pocket and you should be okay.

Gotcha. All right. And I'm glad we have a little bit of time left. We've got to talk about what I thought was a great move. by the CRTC, not known for great moves recently, but this one was that they were going to, Canadian cell phone carriers were going to have to stop charging activation fees on June 12th,

but apparently some carriers are not playing by the rules. Yeah, they originally called them activation fees or connection fees, and the reason consumers hated them was, let's say you found a better deal for your monthly, you know, your monthly wireless service from another carrier. You would have to pay this activation or connection fee in order to switch over. It was a disincentive to cross the street.

It was a very anti-competitive behavior. So consumers complained, the CRTC ruled saying, nope, get rid of activation fees, whatever you call it. Activation fees or connection fees, they're no longer allowed. So that was great. That went into effect. And wouldn't you know, a number of our major telecommunications companies did, in fact, get rid of them, but then they introduced other fees.

And they just called them something else. So the invoice looks different because it's got a different word on it, but the dollar figure hasn't changed. And so now the CRTC, again, consumers are complaining. CRTC has sent a letter to them saying, stop it. Like, don't replace it with other fees because we're going to ban those two. And either you resolve this now or we will conduct additional regulatory action against you. So the CRTC looks like it's finally growing us by and saying, you know what?

Stop behaving this way. And if you insist on challenging our authority, it could potentially cost you. And I kind of like that. It sets us up for a bit of a battle between the regulator and telecommunity. communications companies. And I think Canadians have been waiting for a while for this because this kind of thing, it's trivial, it's annoying, and it's expensive, and quite frankly, consumers deserve better. Well, we have some of the highest cell phone rates in the world. And if I'm coming to you and I want a cell phone, like the number already exists. Don't tell me that you have to move mountains at the cost of a fee to turn it on.

You press a button on your computer in the system and boom, I have my phone line available. to me. It's not like you've got to go into the switchboard and send somebody in for half a day, and therefore that's why you're incurring the cost. It's just another way to suck money out of my account and put it into yours. Exactly. And oftentimes, you know, when you're making that change, though, you look at the, even if you notice the fee, they like to bury it on your monthly bill, but if you raise the issue and I've been told, oh, no, the government requires us to have that. Yeah, right. Of course, I went off and did some research and no, the government doesn't have that at all. Stop lying to me.

So there's so much fear, uncertainty, and doubt and misinformation in this communication. And the CRTC is basically drawing along and saying this has to stop. Stop being consumer unfriendly and stop being consumer hostile. Thank you very much, my friend. You take care. You as well, Ben. Thank you. The world is changing from the misuse of AI and the rise of deepfakes to the dangerous spread of misinformation. It's getting harder for Canadians to separate fact from fiction. That's why having a trustworthy news source is vital.

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