The Ben Mulroney Show - Mexico cartel warfare spills into the street, Canadians told to shelter in place

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

GUEST:  Artur Wilczynski/Canadian told to shelter in place in Mexico Guest:  FRANCIS SYMS /  faculty member in the Protection, Security and Investigation program at Humber College If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Happy Monday, everybody. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. And yesterday was not the day Canadian Olympic sports fans were hoping for.

Yesterday, obviously, it was the inevitable end to the Olympics, with Canada facing off against, against the United States and for the first time since a miracle on ice in 1980, the United States won gold at the Olympics. And like I said, not what everybody wanted. Certainly not what Justin Trudeau wanted when he posted on February 20th. You can't take our country and you can't take our game. To which the White House yesterday, following the game, posted a picture of an American

just destroying a Canadian goose. And yeah, look, there will be a day where I break this down a little more chapter and verse. There's a big difference between being pro-Canada and being anti-American. I've seen a lot of anti-Americanism. It's unproductive. It's unhelpful. Being pro-Canada is not bashing America senselessly. Being pro Canada is wanting to make sure that everybody in this country is successful, making sure that we are the wealthiest nation on the planet where we can't take care of those who can't take care of themselves. That's that's pro Canada. This nonsense, this reflexive nonsense attacking Americans is anti-Americanism. And there are some people who have mastered it. It's a dark art. It's a dark art to be able to convince Canadians to follow you down that path.

It's unproductive. It doesn't help us. It doesn't help you. It doesn't help me. It doesn't help our fellow Canadians. But it gets certain people elected. And we'll break that down on another day. But as soon as that game was done, if that's all you were focused on and then you fired up your phone to check out social media, well, you were treated to one of the hottest destinations for Canadians vacationing this time of year, Mexico, specifically Puerto Vallada, becoming a war zone.

A war zone. Look, we go down there, and let's be honest. When we go down to Porta Viata or those coastal communities, we don't go down there to sample the local flare. We go to our gated garden of our resort and stay there until it's time to go. You know, those all-inclusive places where once you get in there, everything's taken care of. But imagine showing up at your resort thinking you're going to have a grand old time. And next thing you know, you're looking out the window and you are seeing fires and explosions and you hear gunfire in the streets.

This is not what people sign up for. Let's listen to a Canadian tourist Dan Dix, giving us a sense of what he experienced as a tourist down in Porto Vallarta. What I walked out to was just a scene of absolute mayhem. There was black smoke everywhere to the left of me, to the right of me, behind me, multiple cars being torched in the streets, cartels setting up, roadblocks, setting buses on fire. Some people who attended the conference I was at had their taxi cab taken over,

the driver murdered in front of them, all their luggage burnt up in the car, including their passports. So a lot of people's lives have been flipped upside down and totally turned around. I'm supposed to be on a flight tomorrow, but I just got the cancellation notice in my email now that I will not be flying out tomorrow. Yeah, and just remember, like that, not a war zone. This is a, this is a, a top destination for people looking to forget their troubles and forget their cares. And, uh, right now, if you're at one of these resorts,

you are being, uh, advised to shelter in place because the, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, and the army. Now, what kicked this off? Well, a person by the name of Nemizio Ruben Osegura Servantes, known as El Mentiono. He was the boss of one of the fastest growing criminal networks in Mexico, notorious for trafficking fentanyl, meth, and Coke to the U.S. and staging attacks against government officials who challenged him. So he was killed. He was killed, and apparently this is all retribution for that. And this, I mean, this, I mean, his network is called the Yalisco New Generation Cartel grew rapidly with militarized tactics, ultraviolence, aggressive territorial expansion.

The USDAEA described what's called CJNG as one of the most significant threats to public health, public safety, and national security of the United States. And under El Menscho, CJNG became a major player, as I said, in all those drugs. Now, I don't know if one is related to the other, but you'll remember a few weeks ago that Ryan Wedding, the former snowboarder who turned into a massive kingpin in the Mexican drug underworld, was arrested after a massive, a huge bounty was put on his head. And he's been in custody in the United States for a few weeks. Now, you know, I was going back and forth with my intrepid producer Mike Droulet, who's back from his vacation. Hello. And, you know, we were talking like, has he been singing like a canary? And I said, look, here's what we know.

We know that a massive bounty was put on his head by the U.S. government, which tells me that it wasn't performative. This wasn't somebody that they just want to arrest because they felt like it. This was somebody who had deep knowledge of the working of the cartels. And now he's been arrested. and there's no chance that once arrested that he's ever going to see the light a day again. However, there are ways for him to make his life a little easier, and that's perhaps telling the U.S. government everything they need to know.

Everything that he knows, they're going to know. Is it possible that he said something to the U.S. government, which was then passed on to Claudia Shinebom's government, and they, in fact, found a way to kill this guy? It's not a hot take. It's not a hot take. It's definitely a, it's speculation, but it's, it's educated speculation. Education.

I don't know, how do you combine speculation and education into one word? You lost me on that. Education? Maybe. Yeah, there you go. Maybe it's some education. Yeah, why not? Make it up.

Spechication. There you go. Spechication. So anyway, so that's what sparked this. But what has been the, so the effect for Canadians. The entire airport's been shut down. No flights in or out. And if you're supposed to leave, you ain't leaving anytime soon.

And as of right now, the Canadian government is not sending any planes. I think there should be a plan at least, like a plan B, to get military planes down there to pick up Canadians. However, Shinebaum, Claudia Shinebaum, had told reporters this morning that she expected flights to and from Porta Vallarta to resume today and tomorrow. We're going to be talking to somebody who was on the ground there a little bit later. and I'm going to ask them the question. Like, you're in a gated community right now. You're protected from what's going on outside your doors. But I don't know that I would trust a minibus from the Rio to take me to the airport and for me to be safe.

Unless I have a military protection on my way the airport, I don't know that I'm leaving that resort until I know for sure, for 100% that the streets have been cleared. And so a flare is among the Canadian airlines. They say have rebooked customers on return flights for tomorrow. But if it were me, I'm adopting a wait and see position because, yeah, that's a big issue. And one of the things that we're going to be talking about is, look, the World Cup, the FIFA World Cup is expected. It's a North American event. Most of the big matches are taking place in the States. But Canada and Mexico are hosting as well, Guadalajara being essentially.

to the early rounds of this FIFA World Cup. If you had tickets, are you going to go? Are you going to go? I don't know that I would want to be in an open-air stadium with a whole bunch of people if the cartels are going to pitch a connoissean fit. I don't like that, one bit. It's not even the stadiums.

It's everywhere around the stadiums. It's everywhere around. But, yeah, you're going to have to spend a day in Guadalajara. I don't trust to be 100% safe. And just for context, over 26,000 Canadians have registered with global affairs. That's an increase of 8,000 in a single day. So, like, this is, you know, for those complaining that Canada is on par with Mexico in terms of the drug problem in North America, I give you Exhibit A against that position

being Porto Vallarta today. All right, don't go anywhere. When we come back, like I said, we're talking with a Canadian on the ground. round in PV about the state of play and how safety feels about getting on a plane possibly tomorrow to come home. That's coming up next on the Ben Mulroney show. You don't need AI agents, which may sound weird coming from service now, the leader in AI agents. The truth is, AI agents need you. Sure, they'll process, predict, even get work done autonomously. But they don't dream, read a room, rally a team, and they certainly don't have

shower thoughts, pivotal hallway chats, or big ideas. People do. And people, when given the best AI platform, they're freed up to do the fulfilling work they want to do. To see how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Before the break, we were painting a picture for you of the lay of the land in Portoviata and the violence that consume that city. And the people who have been down there on vacation hoping to leave their troubles behind, Instead, they had a bird's eye view and have been feeling the brunt of being asked to shelter in place. And we're now joined by somebody who is on the ground in Puerto Vallarta.

Arter Wilchinsky, who also has spent more than 30 years in the Canadian Public Service working on foreign policy, intelligence, security, defense issues. So, Archer, thank you so much for being here. Something tells me that when you look out your window and see what's going on, you see it maybe a little differently than just an average joke. Yeah, I think part of the challenge when you have my kind of experience is that this kind of stuff seems pretty familiar. Ironically enough, I happened to be in Israel last summer during the war with Iran. So I've been told by my partner, I'm not allowed to pick destinations anymore. Well, I'm glad we're laughing, but let's take a step back before I ask you to sort of drill down on what you've seen. And how are you feeling?

How are the people in your resort feeling? This all started what about early or late morning yesterday, correct? Yeah, it happened yesterday morning. Look, I think we're all feeling relatively good. I mean, I think nobody likes to be in a shelter in place situation. But I think, you know, we're feeling safe and secure. Folks here at the resort are feeling comfortable. there are worse places in the world to be forced to be confined than a resort on a beach in Mexico.

So you don't want to be too, you know, too extreme in terms of complaining about the situation. But yesterday was quite, sorry, go ahead. But when I hear shelter in place, are people expected to stay in their rooms or is it shelter in place in the larger resort? Yeah, the latter, in the larger resort. It's not that honest. This is a big place. There are a lot of facilities here, a number of places to eat, a number of, you know, to be blunt bars and pools,

you're not forced to stay in your room. And there isn't like an armed guard out front or beach side that's preventing you from leaving. It's your good judgment to listen to people's advice to say, don't venture out in a place that's dangerous. Okay, so let's go into your expertise now because I guess the question is, are we witnessing, we're witnessing a significant violent outburst between the, the cartels and the military and the police. But do you feel like it could spill over? Do you feel like innocent civilians could become the targets?

Or is this like a fight you're watching from a distance? I actually don't think that civilians are the target. Right. Yeah. They haven't been. I think that, look, there's all. always a chance of individuals being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And when people are torching buses and cars and trying to burn buildings,

the chance of somebody who is a visitor getting hurt is not negligible. So this was a dangerous situation. But I think some of the rumors that were circulating online that tourist resorts were going to be targeted were just hyperbolic nonsense. That's not the way this fight has happened over quite a lot. long number of years. This has been a fight between the cartels, in particular, the cartel here in in Halisco State versus the government. They were trying to demonstrate two authorities, their resistance against the killing of their leader yesterday or the day before. So, you know, as a tourist here, I was not particularly worried for my personal safety. And again,

And in chatting with folks here and seeing how folks are behaving here at the resort, generally people are just mildly annoyed and inconvenienced and not necessarily fearful. And we're hearing from the president of Mexico that the airport should be reopened by tomorrow. You're definitely giving me a little more confidence in sort of what's going on there. But still, from the images that I saw of the streets there, I would be, worried about getting caught in some sort of crossfire accidentally on the way of the airport. What sort of steps? Have you heard that the airport's opening again tomorrow? So I've heard that there's a good chance of that. I mean, there's, we really are looking

for clarity. If there's anything that I wish that there was more of was more, more communications from that to make sure that we know what's going on. You know, we're on the road. Our resort is not far from the cruise line terminal. And the cruise line terminal is on the main roads. I've got a good view of the main road between what's called the Zona Romantica, the tourist area in Porta Vyarda and the airport. So yesterday it was very clear

that you could see cars being torched and flames. It was like direct line of sight from our hotel to see that happening. As of yesterday evening, things had really subsided. Last night was eerily quiet. You know, Porta Viata, if you've ever been here, is a bustling town, you know, restaurants, nightclubs, lots of loud noises and lots of loud music. It was eerily quiet. And same thing this morning.

And now, so it's about three o'clock, sorry, two o'clock in the afternoon here in Porta Vallada. And you're starting to see a little bit of traffic. See a couple of cars. You're starting to see some buses. So there is a normalization that's taking place. So what is really important is not necessarily getting caught in the crossfire. I think that's done from what I can tell. So your assessment at this point is that like this was a show of force by the cartel.

I mean, it was almost like a one and done. We're going to engage with them and then we're going to retreat just to let them know that we take issue. Yeah, somebody who's worked in the field, I operate on information that I have. And I don't have that information. so I can't make an educated guess because it's not informed by anything other than what I'm experiencing. But based on what I'm seeing, I'd be very surprised if they came back in the same level that they did yesterday. Yesterday was really trying to demonstrate to authorities that they're still here despite the killing of their leader. A big question for them organizationally is his replacement and whether or not somebody is going to be able to take up the reins,

quickly to exercise some level of control. But I'm more concerned about clearing of debris. I'm more concerned about, again, that there's a level of confidence that folks will be able to get to the airport safely and that the airport is secure. I think our airlines, Canadian Airlines, U.S. airlines, all the companies that are flying into here are going to make sure that they do their due diligence to ensure that they don't expose their customers, but to be blunt, their staff and their very expensive equipment to unnecessary risk. So if there's a reopening, I'd be very confident that folks are comfortable that they have mitigated the risk to an acceptable level. I mean, again, historically, many years ago, you know, during the Harper years,

I was a Director General of Strategic Policy at Public Safety Canada. I worked very closely with my counterparts, both at DHS in the U.S. and Security Publica here in Mexico. These are professionals. They work in partnership with international colleagues to, again, understand the intelligence environment to make sure that they can appropriately respond and mitigate risk. So if they're comfortable in reopening the roads, I'd be very comfortable in using them. You know, really quickly, I'd love to get your take on this.

this particular cartel, they'd at least go new generation cartel. What little I know about them is, is, you know, that word new generation, expression, new generation really speaks to sort of the highly skilled, militarily precise nature of some of the, of some of the members. And I'm wondering, like, do you know anything about this cartel? again, unfortunately, Ben, I've been retired for a few years. So again, my information is dated. Yeah, of course.

And I wouldn't want to. No, that's okay. That's okay. But I think that folks shouldn't underestimate the fact that these are serious security risks to Canada, to the United States, that actions taken against them by the Mexican government and anything that we can do to assist Mexico in mitigating the threats posed by these kinds of cartels. is I think an important thing. The things for Canada to understand

and for Canadians to understand is that much of the narco-trafficking into our country does have connections back here to Mexico. But conversely, much of the violence, much of the guns and the equipment that these cartels use are actually imported from the United States illegally, much like Canada has a problem with the illegal traffic of guns into our cities.

Mexico has the same. challenge. I remember that back from when I was in day, the conversations that we tri-laterally focused on sort of the what each country brings from a risk perspective. So again, anything we can do to mitigate that is a good thing. Archer Wilkinsky, thank you so much. I know a lot of people are listening with very little information as to what's going on on the ground there, sort of had you relaying your personal experience along with your depth of knowledge from a career, a sort of understanding this sort of has gone a long way for a lot of people.

Thank you very much. Be safe, sir, and get home as soon as you can. Looking forward to it. Thanks a lot, Ben. Do you have plans to visit Mexico? And they might not be in the next few weeks. It might be six months from now, but is what we're seeing coming out of Puerto Vallarta, giving you pause?

Look, it's one thing to see smoke billowing in the city center and not necessarily know what it is. It's another thing entirely to watch social media and see people running for their lives and panic. in a major tourist airport running onto a tarmac. It's another thing to see streets completely empty where the government told everyone, go home, taxis are no longer functioning.

Every restaurant is closed. Every business is closed. And hearing gunfire in the streets of a place that is supposed to be known for, look, the whole idea of a tourist town is that it's welcoming. It's, you are welcomed at the airport. because they want you there.

They want your tourist dollars. They want you at the resorts. And so what does it say to you if a place like Puerto Vallarta has been turned in, at least temporarily, into a war zone? If it can that quickly descend into gunfire and lack of a better word, anarchy, it could happen tomorrow. It feels to me based on the conversation we had with our previous guest, that this was a show of power, a show of force by the cartel.

They say, even though you got our top guy, we're not going anywhere. And we are willing to bring chaos to the streets of this very busy town. When visitors from around the world are living here temporarily trying to enjoy themselves, we are going to make them think that this place is more dangerous because you took out our guy. And if they can do it once, I think the whole point is they can do it. do it anytime they want. And so we'd love to hear from you at 41688-870-60-6400 or one triple-8-225 talk to let us know. And look, this, I don't know anything about these cartels beyond what I've, what I've read. And, you know, sometimes the, you know, shows on Netflix

like Narcos. But the fact that this, this C-J-N-G, Alisco New Generation cartel is referred to by the USDA as one of the most significant threats to public health, public safety, and national security of the United States really speaks to how dangerous these guys again, the escalation of them. Let's get Danny. Danny, welcome to the show. Where are you calling from? I'm calling from Porta Bayar in a condo right beside the airport on the golf course by the marina.

My goodness. You must know that. Yes. So please tell me what have. How are you? How are you feeling? Talk to me about how the past couple of days have gone. Well, let's say that it started, call it right to my left. I heard a bang right after the third period of the hockey game,

and I looked up and here was a bus blowing up and then a taxi. And then realized there's something else starting a couple of feet away, so I knew something was up, and then, I don't know, then all on the lower, below the mountains, all kinds of blowups were all happening. day was going on. And the city you could look like from the distance, which we're 30 minutes away, but you can see the smoke in the air in old town. So you're close to the airport.

Did you see anything going on at the airport? I don't know what happened at the airport, but I did see videos of people running for what they felt like was for their lives. No, nothing. That's all fake. That's all fake. I'm trying to get clear. Nothing of that has happened.

No planes have caught fire, no nothing. Okay. Okay, good. Of that nature. So now you're in a condo. Is it your, do you own that condo? Well, I'm here for five months. Oh, you're there for five.

Oh, sure. So you're there for five months. So, so, so for. Cohen comes from Porto Vallarta, and I was supposed to leave today at two o'clock. Yeah. But unfortunately, the flight's canceled. So this is more or less for a big chunk of the year. This is your home.

And has what you just saw on the streets, has that shaking your faith in, in Puerto Vallarta? Or is this just an aberration? It's just an eerie feeling, let's say. the traffic's starting to pick up now. Okay. I think that they've proved their point of their aggression. And, you know, I can still see a bus in front of me. As I look in the distance, it's burnt out on the side the road and a taxi in front of it.

But I see them coming down the street, hauling them away. So what they did on this here, it's a plane you might hear in the distance. It's a big one, too, leaving there. Now, they're all Mexican planes coming and going. Okay. But when this did happen down below there was a lady in. this building living. She was walking across the street,

wait where it happened. And they ran to the bus, these guys, I guess, and they'd get out of the bus right now, bus driver included. They're not trying to hurt people. They're just trying to show their agendas. Okay, so that's it.

That's an interesting perspective. So this was really a show of force to the authorities, more than anything. That's right. They told people, get out of the bus, just run as fast as you can.

Oh, I see. Oh, that's very interesting. That's very interesting. Well, listen, I'm glad you're safe. I hope you get home as soon as you can. and I really thank you for joining us and for giving us a call. I really appreciate it.

And please be safe, Danny. Thank you very much. Yes. Okay. Take care. Have a good one. Bye. Well, that's very interesting.

Let's go to George. George, welcome. Hey, good afternoon, Brian. Well, you, hi. I mean, I've been avoiding Mexico, I think, pre-COVID. I mean, we've always had through our Canadian government, small travel advisories, that it's not really safe, even at these tourist places. Because these drug cartels, you know, depending on the wing blow,

and what their political, you know, affiliation is in this country, in their country, and even, you know, around the world, they can change. And this is a Tinder box. You know, our government was correct. But I don't know, your last caller there, like having trust in the cartels that they're, they want the safety for people. I don't know what he's been smoking. Well, look, just, well, let's play it out with me.

If all of a sudden, they decide to take up arms into one of these resorts, and they're taking hostages or killing people, they would have a whole other problem on their hands because now all of a sudden you're you've been you've been killing you've been killing a complete innocence who are only down there to help the local economy

so so if I mean look if it's true what he said that everybody was was taken off the buses so that they could do a show of force I'm that's true but I remember you were saying that you know if you're down there and you're at a gated community

you know you wouldn't go to the airport unless you had a military presence. Well, yeah, and I think that's, I still stand by that. I mean, I don't know. Have you heard of rocket launchers? I mean, if you want to take people out, it doesn't matter what military you have. My second point is I just to want to wrap this up a little bit. It's pretty ironic where, you know, I'm 52 years old.

I've been brought up thinking America is our friend. I've been told in school our allies, our cousins down south. And all of a sudden, now you, I talked to 65-year-old, 60-year-old, They're scared to go to Florida, Naples, the United States, because the American customs are going to arrest them because America's turned into a dictatorship. How is the cartels working out? Yeah, see, that's what I'm saying. There's been a level of delusion that's been allowed to fester in a certain type of Canadian where you see what's going on what can. Like what we're witnessing in PV is, you know, it's pretty close to a worst case.

scenario, right? I mean, things could get worse. People can feel even less safe. But show me an example of that. And I thank you for your call, my friend. Show me an example of that in the United States. This nonsense that America is somehow less safe than PV. Hey, Nick, welcome. Thank you. Hey, Ben. Yeah, I've been talking to my cousins the last two days. My cousin and his wife, been going down there for at least 10 years. They rent from January until April. And, you know, they obviously like they go down there because they hate the winter here but they're um they're nervous and they just think it's a real black eye for an area that they always felt so safe in and they're as we speak they're sitting in a a restaurant at the the bottom of their building they live in

because there's no electricity and they're working on that and she says it's eerily quiet yeah especially yesterday and uh i asked if they're coming home and they're just they're just going to wait it out a few days i think so i think waiting it out even more just to know that the coast is clear. Thank you, Nick. Thank you for that call. Thank you to everybody for calling it. I do appreciate it.

When we come back, we're going to revisit the tragedy in Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia. Another red flag appeared on the horizon and doesn't seem like anybody did anything about it. We're going to talk about that with Francis Sims from Humber College when we get back. Well, the wounds that were opened by the school shooter in Tumblr Ridge will not close or heal anytime soon. And there's still a young girl clinging. to life, fighting for life in hospital after she was shot in the neck and the head. And a lot of us have been saying, oh, you know, if only we knew then what we know now. And I predicted that some things were going to pop up that would scream.

Red flag. Red flag over here. Pay attention to this. And the ones that were easy to predict were, you know, the use of guns and the issue of mental health. Both of those, both of those were as clear, should have been as clear as the nose on everybody's face. And yet, it feels like the checks, the guardrails, it should have been in place, were not there or were ignored. Well, we're learning now that the RCMP has confirmed that OpenAI contacted investigators after the Tumblr Ridge mass shooting as police are reviewing

the shooter's digital footprint and online activity. And there's some pretty, uh, red flaggy behavior that should have risen to the level of of open AI going to the police before this person became a school shooter. So to discuss this a little more, we're joined by Francis Sims faculty member in the Protection Security Investigation Program at Humber College. Professor Francis, thank you so much for being here. Yeah, happy to be here, Ben. Thank you for having me.

So what have we learned about the shooter's engagement with open AIs product? So what we know through reporting, I think, from the Wall Street Journal was that in June of last year, an automated review within the CHAT-GPT tool flagged the account

for violent activities involving gun violence over multiple days. So the account reported account that this person used was flagged and then it was escalated to basically, you know, the internal review process and a number of human saw it.

I think they say potentially up to 12 employees, they remained aware of the threats. They discussed it inside OpenAI, and then they concluded at that time that while it met the criteria for closing the account down, it didn't meet the imminent, incredible risk of serious physical harm criteria that would have required them to report it to law enforcement. And so they just shut the account down and they did not report it. and then they notified authorities, I think, two days after the shooting that they had done that previously last summer. Yeah, this is, this is, I mean, look, I want to say shameful, but I don't want to ascribe motivation. I mean, these are people who are following whatever the protocols were, whatever the criteria were.

It's clear now that the criteria that they have are not appropriate. And I keep thinking, if they had, if they had escalated this and sent it to the RCMP, then maybe it would have lit a fire under the RCMP about the mental health checks and the guns in the house. Like it all could have come together and this could have been prevented. Yeah. And I think that our, I mean, ultimately our society is not set up to handle these new AI tools. And, you know, you could argue, well, did it meet the criteria to report to law enforcement? you know, they decided it didn't. We might have said that it should have,

but not the criteria for some mental health issue. And for the fact that they shut the platform down and just closed their account and didn't do anything about it, that's kind of shocking to me. You know, you think that there would be some way, you know, or maybe keep the person engaged in the platform and have a conversation.

Yeah. They're starting to use these tools for personal therapy now. You know, why didn't they keep the person engaged and tried to talk them down? Well, Francis, I'll do you one better. I mean, we've been, we've been fed this belief that AI is, you know, AI is one bad prompt away from, you know, being self-aware and taking control and doing all this nefarious stuff.

But it's going to be the adults in the room, the human beings interacting with it, supervising it, that are going to make sure that it remains a benign, positive tool that we can use. And here we have an example of the AI telling you, telling human beings, hey, hey, red flag here. And 12 human beings looked at that information that was provided by AI and said, yeah, no, I mean it's bad, but it's not so bad that we have to tell the cops. So it's the humans that failed, not the AI.

And if we can't trust the humans and we've been told, ah, we have to remain vigilant about the AI. That's concerning. Now, some people have looked at this and said, if this happened in Europe, the legal framework in Europe would have revert. required them to report and they might have taken action. In Canada with Bill C63, which was introduced in February 2024, that died on the House floor. And I know that Minister Solomon is looking at resurrecting something similar. But in that case, if social media platforms, if there's any incitement of violence or extremism or terrorism,

they had a duty with a report. But at that time, the bill didn't make it through. But I don't know. Why do we need a law here? This should be internal regulation at Open A.L. I don't know why they would need a law to compel them. They have a user who is using language and running, like flirting with the line as to what is dangerous and what is violent and what should be reported.

I don't know that we need a law for it. This is a company that should know that if they hear something like this, they just report it. Yeah, you would do it if you were, you know, you would feel like it was your responsibility to take action. Yeah. Because you don't want it to happen. I agree. the ethical and moral decision making here just boggles my mind.

Yeah. I'm not trying to let the RCMP off the hook or those who are in charge of the mental health checks on this person. I mean, we know that in both cases, they went to this house, this person's house, multiple times because of complaints and about concerns over this person's mental state. They knew there were guns in the house. And despite those two red flags, they did nothing. if this third, if this third red flag had been raised, I really don't know that we would be, we'd be mourning the death of eight people,

including a number of children. You might have been able to bring help to that individual. Yeah. Right, early on. That's what I think about, that young person. Yeah. And now we have, but now we have a situation where Tumblr Ridge happened, right?

We can't change that. But out of this and out of this news that Open AI had, had concerns, and didn't escalate them. Perhaps something good can come out of it, which is these companies, the Anthropics, the Open AIs, and all the other ones, coming together and saying,

yeah, you know what, we have to lower the threshold for what we consider concerning language and concerning interactions with our platforms before we go to the authorities. We have to do that on our own so that we are viewed as responsible stewards of and part of the community. If they could self-generate,

some sort of code of conduct that would lead them to be active participants when something like this happens as opposed to just waiting, well, we have to be compelled before we send this information. And no, you shouldn't be compelled. You should offer it. I agree. If we're going to use these tools as personal therapy tools, they have a duty of care, I think, in these situations as well, that goes beyond just what the law is. Well, because I got to wonder, you know, once this, all the information really comes out, I mean, I wonder if there's liability by Open AI. I mean, if they, they had, once we get the full extent of the transcripts of the conversations that were had,

is like you closed down their account, but you didn't do anything with that information. Why don't we take a look at the information? There could be, you know, if I'm the families, I may take issue that open AI did nothing. And I think you're probably right. I suspect we'll see this being tested in the courts, just like we have with Open AI and other ideas of self-harm and suicidal ideation in the past. Yeah. Well, last question for you. There is a role for people.

People should feel that there's a level of confidentiality with these things that they're working with. But correct me if I'm wrong. There is no expectation of confidentiality when you're working with an AI model, no? Yeah, I would, you know, as an individual, I would assume that anything you put in those tools, you have to assume is gone and available for everybody in the world to look at. at the whim of the person that owns that company. So, yeah, I think that privacy in those tools, just assume that they don't exist.

That's where I would start. Francis Sims, thank you very much for being here with us today. Thank you very much, Ben. Thursdays on Global. I'm Madeline Matlock. She's the lawyer with a legendary name. Don't underestimate Ms. Matlock. This woman's a shark.

You know it, baby. The one you can trust, even if she has to bend the rules. Things aren't always as black and white as they seem. To crack a case. This is how I get things done. Emmy-winning actress Kathy Bates is Matlock. All new Thursdays at 9 Eastern on Global. Stream on Stack TV.