The Ben Mulroney Show - Public safety minister has to recuse himself from files on two terrorist groups

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Public safety minister has to recuse himself from files on two terrorist groups with Guest: Mercedes Stephenson, Global News’ Ottawa Bureau Chief and the host of the network’s flagship national political affairs program The West Block If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Condition Supply, visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and I want to thank you for joining us wherever we may find you. You may be listening to us on the radio, on the Chorus Radio Network or on a streaming app like the iHeart Radio streaming app or possibly in podcast form. You can find us on your favorite podcast platform and now you can find us on YouTube. So we say thank you and we really appreciate your time.

We appreciate your input. We appreciate your passion and we appreciate you helping us build the Ben Mulroney show each and every day. Our new Minister of Public Safety, Gary Anandasangari is not having a great few weeks. A few weeks ago he was grilled in committee over his depth of knowledge or rather lack of depth of knowledge on a series of questions that should be standard knowledge for somebody in his capacity. He weathered that storm.

And now there is news by Mercedes Stevenson, who is the global news Ottawa bureau chief, also the host of the network's flagship national political affairs program, the West Block, that he's had to recuse himself from files on two terrorist groups. So to discuss this, please welcome to the show for the very first time and hopefully not the last Mercedes Stevenson. Mercedes, thank you for joining us. Hey Ben, thanks so much for having me. Okay, so what have you learned about our public safety minister and why he's had to recuse himself? So we started digging into this file about three or four weeks ago when we were aware of some of the things that the minister had said or done in the

past including if you remember the MV Sun Sea or the Ocean Lady, two ships of illegal migrants that arrived on Canada's west coast way back in 2009-2010. Those ships had connections to the Tamil tires which is a listed terrorist group in Canada. And the minister at the time was a lawyer who represented and advised some of those on the ship. And he had argued that everyone on the ship should be entitled to be able to make a refugee claim and stay in Canada, even if they had connections to the Tamil Tigers.

So that had been on our radar screen sort of throughout his political career. And so when he became the public safety minister, we started to wonder, is there potentially an issue here with the Tamil Tigers? And we started asking questions. We pushed for weeks. We finally got an answer last week,

saying that the minister was not involved in anything to do with the Tamil community. And we thought that's odd phrasing, the Tamil community. Like that's a very big group of people. Yeah, that's quite broad. And I've never heard of a minister who can't engage with their own community before. Yeah. But they insisted that was it. We kept pushing. And we got a statement this week revealing it's not the Tamil community, it's a listed terrorist organization, the Tamil Tigers, based out of Sri Lanka and their Canadian front group, which is

also a listed terrorist organization. And so based on that, we went, wow, we have a public safety minister who can't deal with two listed terror organizations, and we don't know why. We don't know if it's a perceived conflict of interest, if there is a real conflict of interest. We do know some of his past work around the one group

in particular, but we are not able to say if that is the reason why. The minister has not answered our many repeat questions as to why this screen is in place. It is the first time since I have been in Ottawa I have ever seen anything like this with a

public safety minister. It is raising a lot of questions. Also so far the Prime Minister's office has been ignoring us for weeks while we continually ask why this person was appointed to the public safety profile. Yeah, if you knew that they might have a perceived or conflict of interest, whichever one it is, with two terror verbs in Canada, and not for nothing, but a perceived conflict is as bad as an actual conflict. If people don't believe that something is right, it doesn't matter if it is, they have to have a belief that the person is on solid ground. And so that is what it is.

But given the fact that we are engaged in really robust negotiations with Americans who are skeptical about how serious we are about public safety, about the border, about issues that matter to them, I have no doubt that they're keeping an eye on something like this, and the rubber's going to meet the road at some point. Yeah, and then the other issue around Mr. Anandasangari is that he had been a big proponent of those who came to Canada and crossed the border, claimed refugee

status by just showing up. So there's a bit of a credibility issue there, which I asked him about, actually, in a press conference last week. I said, do you think you have a credibility issue when you argued that people that did that should be able to stay here legitimately? And you know what, that is a legitimate argument to make. Lots of people hold that belief, but the issue becomes when you're now the public safety minister saying, I'm going to close the borders to anybody who's trying to come here and just land on our soil and claim it. Like, there's a pretty clear hypocrisy there.

Yeah. And he essentially defended his record and said that he has a long history of working with migrants and refugees. But he did not sort of find a way to explain how that makes what he is saying and doing now, less hypocritical from his previous beliefs. I was told by somebody very close to him, he was shocked when he got the public safety file. He had not asked for it. He did not know what was in this legislation that was coming. And so now he's just kind of out there defending it in this very awkward position. Well, you know, when you say that, it makes more sense as to what I saw

in committee last week when the conservatives were grilling him over some pretty basic information that any public safety minister should have and knowledge that that minister should have and the fact that he didn't have it. Now that makes more sense that he was not expecting this file and probably didn't want it. So congratulations on that scoop. I know you're going to keep the pressure on so that we as Canadians get the answers we deserve. But you actually, I mean, it's a good week when you get a scoop like that.

You've got a second one and this I think is going to be a really surprising, and the knock-on effects of your reporting will be felt throughout the G7 summit next week, that Indian agents had Jagmeet Singh under close surveillance. What does, I mean, break this down. What does this mean? Yeah, so this is another story that Stu Bell, my colleague, and I started digging on. I got a tip from a national security source that this threat had now abated so sort of safe to talk about it right

they don't want to talk about an active threat on someone because it could get them or their family killed but I was told that Jagmeet Singh was put under 24-7 extraordinary police protection we're not talking like one police officer we're talking like tactical teams level police protection and airport level security to get into his home. And that this meant there was some sort of very serious threat of his life which he was notified of. He was not told who or what it was. What we've been able to find out since that time is that the Canadian government discovered Mr singh was being surveilled by somebody who acted as an agent india in the past

and it will surveillance was very detailed we're not talking like showed up at public events in moxham we're talking to you day-to-day activities and his schedule and part of why that's concerning is it reflects the pattern that we saw of another canadian who was assassinated in BC in 2023. There was a tracker placed on that individual's car. They started looking at his daily activities. And we also learned that this person who was having him tracked is connected to organized

crime and a particular organized crime group that the Indian government has used in the past to carry out violence. Well, Mercedes, I mean, the implications for this, as Modi has been invited by our Prime Minister to the G7, already before this reporting, this was a controversial pick and a controversial choice by our Prime Minister. And if you're saying that our government, it was aware that there could be ties between the Modi government and this threat to somebody who was running in the last federal election, I think it is incumbent upon the government to provide us far more answers than we've gotten as to why he's coming, what the subject matter is going to be that is discussed, and

why despite this story that you've given us, he's still being invited as a guest of honour. And there's a lot of frustration in the national security community around the R.C.M.P. that he has been invited because the government of India is still not cooperating in that investigation into the murder in B.C., into a number of other alleged violent crimes or assassination attempts. And now it elevates it to another level. Obviously what's happening to anyone is terrible,

but the suggestions about potential foreign interference and the questions that it raises, when we're talking about a federal party leader in Canada, it's sort of a very different level of discussion at this point. Oh, absolutely. And my heart goes out to Jagmeet Singh, his entire family. Nobody should live with that cloud, that threat over them.

I'm very glad to see that he's gotten to the other side of it in safety. And Mercedes Stevenson, I want to thank you for joining us on the Ben Mulroney Show. And thank you for this incredible reporting on two fronts. We really do appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me, Ben.

Wow, I really do hope that the press keeps the pressure on on both of those two fronts. We really do appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me, Ben. Wow, I really do hope that the press keeps the pressure on on both of those two stories vital to us as we move forward with this new government, what it's going to look like, what their priorities are, what their values are. Our Lives 60th anniversary, W Network and StacTV invite you to enter for a chance to win the ultimate fan experience. By watching new episodes of Days of Our Lives, you and a guest could win a three-night stay

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