The Jill Bennett Show, October 1, 2026

0:00This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manager account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pasquies, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. Hello and welcome to the Jill Benicio podcast. Today, we take a closer look at the big pipeline announcement. It will end at Robbert's bank when will construction begin? Also on the podcast, the Canadian Tax Fair's Federation, releasing some numbers about how much of your money, senators are spending on international travel. And another case of artificial intelligence going rogue. This time targeting a government website in Canada,

1:00how concerned should we be? That's all coming up on the Jill Benicio podcast. We are starting, though, with the news announced earlier today, having to do with a pipeline that is now deemed a project in the national interest. The government of Canada is working with the government of BC to expand the port there, the Pacific Gateway. The federal government is investing $10 billion to expand Robbert's bank terminal, which will serve as the landing point for crude moving through specifically. And as we build Pacific Gateway, we're taking additional measures to protect the environment that surrounds it. That was Prime Minister Mark Carney speaking earlier today, saying that an oil pipeline to the West Coast is the first project to receive national interest designation. And that comes under the Building Canada Act. He was with Alberta Premier Daniel Smith, making the announcement to inform McMurray. So what does this actually look like?

2:02And what would a project like this cost joining me now with Stewart, Mayor President to NCEO resource works. Stewart, thank you for being with us today. Good afternoon. Good afternoon to you. I don't think anybody was surprised by this. We knew that this announcement was coming. But how significant is it or does it matter that this is the first project to be under the national interest designation? Well, it matters today was a watershed day. Until today, there was a question. Should this pipeline get built? The answer today is yes. And how is it going to get built? So now going forward, especially for the next year, we're going to be hearing answers to that question. How do we get this done? How do you think we get it done? I think the price tag that was put out somewhere between $35 and $43 billion being split between different entities, how does this actually get built?

3:05Well, that's a big price tag, but don't forget we're talking about Canada's most valuable export commodity, something a substance that the world cannot do without and has more and more trouble around the world in acquiring that thing that we have in enormous abundance. So that number doesn't scare me given that fact. So when we look at the motivation for these parties to work together, they are taking a natural resource that is owned by the people in the provinces where it exists. That's how natural resources underground are owned in the Constitution and how to get the greatest value for that, the greatest return to create benefits for Canadians. That's really the question. People might hear this announcement today and think back to the Trans Mountain pipeline and the issues with the Trans Mountain pipeline to the point that the government had to purchase that pipeline. What do you say to people that will have concerns about the price

4:05and how much of that cost is going to be picked up by taxpayers? Well, we're not going to have that problem this time because the pipeline won't need to be purchased from a private enterprise government because it's starting with government said it's been said. And I agree with this that a major project of this kind that seems to be the national interest that is at this level of national priority is only going to get built if it is owned by the state interest by the province because they alone have the legislative heft. They have the long term ability to make decisions and back up those decisions and they have the legislatures. They can make laws to support the national interest. So there's no private company we'll ever have. So this is a very practical move. How significant is it as well that this pipeline will go to Robert's Bank and we know that the Robert's Bank terminus was chosen because the moratorium on tankers in Northern BC is going to continue.

5:08Does that change the project or does it make it at all more difficult that it will be going the southern route? It makes some things more difficult to improve some things easier easier in a sense that there's already well-established shipping port infrastructure here as well as the marine protections. And I think politically it's very savvy that I think the credits to the decision here because through Trans Mountain one of the things the public demanded was protection. You know show us that it will be safe if you're going to run these more tankers through the bay where we live and the beaches and the islands and the coastline, uh, prove it. And the proof has come in the form of much more stringent and thoughtful safety. You know anyone can stand on the sea well at Santa Park and watch those tankers go by. You can see the target that starts and front. No, everyone's gotten acquainted with that and I don't hear anyone complaining about it that it hasn't been addressed. So that exists here and it has public confidence.

6:09Now the problem of getting into Robert's bank is that it's not the same as the Trans Mountain terminal. There will be some new infrastructure required there. But there's a lot of other things that we've already got in place and I think there's also a technically proficient workforce here of construction and operational people who've been here for a long time to support things like the port and other other natural resource operations. So makes sense to me. That's not the main reason to do it. I think the main reason to do it is is the the old mantra that Alberta has of getting as they say their products to tidewater. We're here on tidewater. It's a little further than Prince Rupert's, but it is tidewater down. If you go to Bellingham and Blaine, they've got a huge petrochemical complex down there of refineries. The oil is shipped in from all around the world from Alaska. It's increasingly coming from Alberta to supply American customers. So that infrastructure is already here on the huge sound side of the sailors seat.

7:12So that's a bunch of reasons. I'd say there's some others too, but that pretty much wins the argument for a lot of people. Has the attitude changed, do you think, because it does seem like a very different environment, hearing the announcement about this pipeline, the fact that yes, it will follow a lot of the Trans Mountain route with the exception being the Robert's Bank, that Southern Terminus. It feels like it's a different environment from when we were having these discussions about approving Trans Mountain. Is that the case? Yeah, I couldn't agree more because you're referencing, I think, the trend in public opinion over more than a year. We've seen a consistent trend of Canadians, including British Columbians, where sometimes the outlier and exception here, supportive of building an oil pipeline or pipelines. And it's at least 60% in DC. So a good politician is going to say, well, let's take advantage of this moment when the public's on-side to do something that they might not be as strong on in the future.

8:16Who knows what happens with attitudes. So, yeah, that's changed. Why has it changed? Because of what's happening down south, our relationship every day, there's some new attempt to denigrate, and evenly it Canada doesn't feel good up here. We want alternatives, everyone does and should. And also, we can't. We thought countries, when the first shipment of Canadian oil arrived in Japan a while ago, the Prime Minister tweeted that it was the happiest treat and that she was just overjoyed that Canada had got as oil to Japan. They needed, they don't want to get Russian oil. And they need oil for their economy, they don't have any. So she was just overjoyed to tweet that. What a pedestrian thing to get overjoyed about? Well, it tells you how serious it is. This is no laughing matter for our trading partners. They really, really want us to be helping them. The timeline that I had seen said that it would be possible that construction could start as early as September 2027.

9:19That seems like a pretty fast timeline. Do you think that's possible? The fact that it's being talked about is a statement that for those making it, they would be embarrassed if they have to apologize they were wrong. I think there's a lot of determination that this could result. I don't think construction after that date has to get everything happening at once, but I think it should be quite possible to have tangible evidence of construction activities without necessarily being the entire thing at once. So you think about the easiest part is probably in the Alberta side, the Booterheim where it starts, where they're putting in the terminal, the facilities to receive the oil from where it comes from in Northern Alberta and do those first stages of processing. That stuff they'll probably take the start on tomorrow. Maybe they already have these refineries and upgrades and all that. They're constantly being refined and improved.

10:21That's very likely they could claim that in a year. But then on the route to corridor and the panel which way they go exactly, there's going to be engineering work. It takes years of surveying and the environmental side, the water. So that is quite possible and then they'll have to do the construction at the court and that infrastructure needs years to be built as well. So there's so many points along the way. My answer is for sure they can do that construction, shoveling the ground announcement and be honest about it. Stuart Muir will leave it there for today. Thank you as always for coming on the show. Thanks. Most welcome, thanks. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that. But for your money, shop, pay, manage your account and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and pasquies, you're

11:24protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty crunchy peanut sweet sweet caramel ravine you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday P not caramel bar. We are taking a look at some other spending and this has to do with spending by senators. Some numbers released by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show that about $1.85 million spent on international travel. And this was between January of 2023 and March 17th of 2026. And it also shows a huge increase in spending on international traveler by our senators. So joining me to break down these numbers is Chris Sims, the BC and Alberta director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Chris Sims, thank you for coming on the show today.

12:26Nice to be back, Joel. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Take us through these numbers. You were looking specifically at international travel and Canadian senators for about a three year period. So what do these numbers tell us? It tells us that they're spending way too much of our money and full credit goes to our great investigative journalist Jen Hodgson. She sifted through all of the available data. She got a whole document and she found that travel spending went up by around 88%. And just over two years. So we're not just picking up on when things were shut down during 2020 or 2021. No, no. Just the last couple of years, it's skyrocketed by about 88%. And what really gets us is this, Joel, is that senators aren't elected. Like none of us get to vote for them. They don't have any constituencies. And yet they're jet setting. They're traveling internationally. The only place I would ever be able to defend them to travel to would be to go see his majesty

13:28King Charles III as the role of senators because he's our head of state. But no, no, they're going to Strathburg, France and they're jetting all over the planet. It's funny. They're going off quite often to nice warm places in the middle of February and March. I can't help but notice that. So why are senators traveling? Do they give a reason? What kind of business, what kind of work are they doing that requires at least in their minds this type of international travel? My favorite is when they say something like, oh, well, I had to go to France to go to this kind of a parliamentary type meeting. But we're not part of the group. And they're only allowed to speak. If they're called upon. It says if they're kind of like students at a school tour going to this building and quite often Jill was weird, is that they'll head along with members of parliament? Now members of parliament can waste money on international travel too. But at least we elect them. At least we have constituents that are voting for them and saying, yay or nay, but these

14:33senators just kind of attach their little red cart to the back of these M.Bs and off they go to all sorts of places. But quite often they'll say, oh, well, we had to represent Canada. And it's like, bro, they're not even calling on you. You sat there silently during the entire session. Which sounds a bit odd. Now I know in this reporting, you mentioned France. And one was a specific meeting that took place in 2023 called PACE. What happened there? Yeah. So that was where the senators didn't participate in the debate. They didn't deliver a speech. They didn't even write a speech during these trips to France. So this one Senator Tannis didn't deliver a submitted speech during the PACE meeting. On his $4,545 trip to Strachburg, he did this back in April of 2024. He asked one question at a separate meeting. And that's according to Parliament's own post trip report.

15:35So imagine Jill going all around the world, going to this fancy meeting in France. And you have to basically kind of show your homework. One question. And it was in this separate meeting. Do they get asked to show their homework, though? Do they have to do anything when a senator comes back from one of these trips? Do they have to present to other senators? Do they have to justify why they go? Not really. They make a little post trip report. And they post it on the Senate website, which as you can imagine is a real barn burner and other website, super popular. They also have Senate magazine. Yeah, who knew? We pay for that. And they do their little post trip reports in there, which nobody reads, of course. And they also kind of chat about it on their own Senate YouTube page. Yes, there is one. And yes, they have a tiny amount of views. These videos have like 30 or 40 views each.

16:36So they do kind of say what they did, but literally nobody does. So at the very most, their family members or maybe each other are watching the Senate YouTube channel. They're staffers. Yeah, their staffers are making sure that their boss is not tripping a little bit themselves. And the thing is, again, the Senate costs us $140 million with an M per year. And this isn't even counting the speaker of the Senate. Remember, Ramon Ganye went on this huge globe trot over the last three years. She and her own entourage alone have spent close to a million bucks, including going to places like Japan, Brazil, and Romania. And she went to the country of Benin, where she learned about the quote, sacred forest of voodoo culture. I don't know. I don't know. No, I don't know. Like if she wants to go travel there herself on her own dime, I mean, the lady makes close to 300 grand. She can go do that. But why are taxpayers paying for the speaker of the Senate to visit Benin?

17:39Like, this makes no sense. I would imagine too. And I don't know if the numbers show this, but we know that when politicians travel, like you said, at least they're elected, but when they travel, they do get prudyums. They tend to spend a lot on airplane food, not like any airplane food that you and I would ever get. But they do spend a lot. They spend a lot on hotels and prudyums and food and such. Do senators do that as well? Oh, yeah, for sure. They are not hurting. They are not waiting the McDonald's drive through. There's this one delegation here that we found. I $65,000 delegation that included senators, Selma, Atalusia, and Mobina Jaffer. They spent more than $1,100 on lunch for 10 people at the, quote, factory stake and the lobster restaurant. That's in the Dominican. Must be nice. And that turns out to be about $117 per person for one meal. Huh. The interesting.

18:39That's that. And this is information that's out there. So not that that, I mean, it should be out there. It's taxpayer dollars being spent. So what could possibly be done about this? If we're talking about raining and spending, getting value for our dollars, is this just a blank check or could anything actually be done to break this down or to pull this back? You know, I've been in the game a long time. I worked on the hell a long time, including back in the reform days. When you might remember when there were senators that were falling asleep on beaches in Mexico and not coming back to work. And back then reform empties, including press and manning. When they greeted the senators when they finally returned home, they had a whole Marriotsky band going to greet them back to Pearl and the Hill. So there's been attempts to reform the Senate literally for like the last 30 years. And I just interviewed press and manning who's the father of the movement to reform the Senate. Jill, even he's saying it's time to let this thing go. It's time to abolish it.

19:40And over in Alberta, they are having that's one of the nine questions. Our nine of them during the referendum later this month. And one of them is should we abolish the Senate and the taxpayer's federation for a long time, we said reform it. Now we're saying just get rid of it. Just get rid of it. Over the last 10 years, it's cost us more than $1 billion with a B. And every attempt to fix it has failed. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper with a majority tried naming elected senators to the upper chamber. He was blocked by the court. So any attempt to reform it has failed. We think it's just a huge expense of rubber stamp and we should scrap it all together. And Chris remind us again, because I know we often refer to the Senate as the chamber of sober second thought. Is that still, is that what it's supposed to be? What is it actually supposed to be doing for Canadians? Sure. So in our parliamentary democracy, in our constitutional monarchy, which is what we have, the

20:41king is managed to be king Charles III is our head of state. When he comes to Canada and does a speech from the throne, the reason it's called that is because of course he's a sovereign king. When he does that, he sits in the Senate chamber. That's the big red room. The people around him are senators. They're not elected. They're appointed by the Prime Minister on advice of the governor general who is representing the king. They're supposed to jail. Once a bill law leaves the House of Commons, the big green carpeted room, it's supposed to go to the Senate where all these smart people are supposed to say, yes, no, maybe. And they're supposed to amend it. Then they go to committee, then they send it back to the House, then it gets royal assents. In like almost every other situation, it is just a waste of time. It's just a rubber stamp. And in some kind of hairy situations, they've almost made legislation worse. Like we just came very close to criminalizing what is very uncomfortable speech, totally

21:44understand, but they were very close during a Senate human rights committee to amending already bad, sensorial legislation so that people could be thrown in jail for speaking. Now that didn't pass, but they came so close, these unelected senators, to passing that law. So it's supposed to be this kind of quiet chamber of silver second thought, or smart nonpartisan people really think things through. But unfortunately, it's mostly just a huge waste of money. And they appoint like party bag men, big partisan and political hacks and retired broadcasters there, like a lot. Let's leave it there for today. Interesting, interesting numbers. Chris Sims, thanks for coming back on the show and for sharing these numbers with us. It's nice to hear your voice. Thanks, Phil. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler?

22:45The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. A payday candy bar is miles and miles of peanuts. Salty crunchy peanut, sweet sweet caramel, ravine you up with every bite. Enjoy the tasty journey, my friend. Payday, peanut caramel bar. Here we go again. There is another report of artificial intelligence going rogue. This time, an agent attempting to hack a Canadian government website earlier this year. This has been revealed by an AI research group. Apparently, two attempted hacks took place, one in May, the other in June, on a government website here in Canada. And this was a report put out by Transluse, an independent non-profit research lab that

23:48looks at AI. So what exactly happened here and how concerned should we be about this? Hey, Levy, joins us now, technology analyst and journalist. Karmie, great to have you back on the show. Good to be with you, Jill. Thanks for having me. Well, thank you. Can you explain what happened here again, in other case, of some artificial intelligence going rogue? Yeah, it seems to be a really common thing these days. Open AI, their agents hacked, hugging face, and no sooner did that. Was that reported than others met a Google anthropic all admitted that their AI agents had done the same thing during testing. Then we heard about the Australian Medicare medical platform being targeted as well by open AI agents. And now this. So it definitely is a trend and it shows that AI agents as a category of technology are exhibiting behaviors that folks who designed them, the engineers simply could not predict. They're escaping containment, they're getting it onto the internet, and they're learning

24:50how to be hackers, how to be cyber attackers. And so the good news in this case is that even though there is evidence, as reported by Transluse, that it attempted to target the website of the library in Archives Canada twice, there is no evidence that it actually succeeded. In fact, they described it as a mediocre attempt, a failed rudimentary hacking attempt. So that's the good news, is that they didn't succeed in actually getting anything. There was no damage, no data released any of that. But because this is, it's yet another example of an autonomous AI agent that works without human intervention, engaging in cyber attacking behaviors, it shows that it's, you know, this problem is growing. It's not, and the industry is struggling to figure out how to put the genie back in the bottle. And of course, as time goes on, these technologies will get better. They'll move from rudimentary to pretty sophisticated pretty quickly.

25:53And so maybe this attack, nothing bad happened, but the next one, I'm not so sure. And so we either figure that out, or the cybersecurity defense is that government websites, and your bank and your, you know, the air traffic control system or whatever, that those that they have in place aren't going to be as effective as they should be once AI gets thrown into the mix once AI agents fall into the hands of cyber attackers. That's the worry. We're starting to see kind of a turn in the industry, and it's a worrisome one. Worriesome to say the least. Carmi, something you said, so this is something you said that the creators, the operators couldn't predict or hadn't predicted. How is that possible given that they're the ones that created the AI? Yeah. And that's the, you know, that's the $64,000 question that the industry cannot, you know, not answer. And that's what troubles me the most about this is that they've created AI agents that are supposed to behave within a certain, you know, number of constraints.

26:56In other words, they're not supposed to try to escape containment. They're not supposed to try to break into systems yet. Here we are. That's exactly what they're doing. And the industry kind of shrugs its shoulders when we ask them what's going on. They call this misalignment that it was designed to do something, and it's behaving in a way that could not have been predicted. And that's ultimately the industry's accountability. And either they figure that out or we, you know, we as a government, we as a society, we as individuals put limitations on their ability to create and market these products because we're releasing something into the wild that is the technological equivalent of a nuclear weapon and yet there are no rules that apply here. And so this explains why we're seeing debate over new laws coming into play. This is why our AI Minister of Insolven and our Prime Minister are being questioned on what Canada is doing to improve these attempts. And this is why looking across the border to the US where President Donald Trump is saying, I don't really care about safety. We have to beat China in the race.

27:56That is so concerning is that if the US decides to not hold the industry accountable, that means that we are all ultimately going to be less safe because most of these tech companies are all there based in the US. And when you talk about the failed attempt and the fact that the technology is going to keep getting better and better. So these attempted hackings, when they get out of their constraints, even though they're not supposed to, are they, in a sense, practicing and they're doing this and practicing to get better and to be successful at it? That's precisely it. And from a hacking perspective, it's almost like they're knocking on the door. They're sort of, they're testing the perimeter. They're walking around it virtually and they're looking for vulnerabilities, weak areas, and trying to assess what those weaknesses look like. In much the same way that an invading army would walk around the perimeter walls and look for areas where they can focus their attack. There were about 899, what they called requests, against the website, that they were able

28:57to detect. And it sounds scary, but the reality is, any system out there, so it could be a website that a company puts up or it even could be an app that the radio station deploys. Every single day, they are constantly being probed as well. And that's just the way the internet is. We call it the threat landscape. And hackers are constantly poking at the edges. What's different now is that it isn't somebody sitting behind a keyboard, sort of typing a request saying, look at this perimeter and tell me if it's weak. It's an AI agent that's doing it under the direction of a hacker. So they're automated. They work faster. They work at a broader scale. It's a much more powerful tool in the hands of a cyber attacker. And that's the worry is we're going to see more of these attempts going forward. And even though now they don't seem to be very good, they still can't pick the lock. At some point they're going to learn. And they're learning as they go along and they're going to get better at it. And we've got to be ready. And so is it human hackers that are using AI to do this?

30:00Or is it AI getting smarter on its own? It's a bit of both. And they, in this particular case, Transliss was not able to identify precisely who is behind these attempts. They said it looked like it had the signature of the similar issues that were witnessed with OpenAI agents earlier this summer. But they could not definitively say that it was in fact OpenAI. So we're not quite sure who it is. But it's most likely either an AI company or it could also be malevolent actors who are using these tools have gotten access to AI agents and are starting to figure out, I'm a cyber criminal, how do I use this? It's almost like adding another tool to their toolkit. So the problem is that once they activate them, they can operate autonomously. So a cyber attacker can essentially say, well, go target all of these websites for me. And then they can go disappear, have coffee for a few days, and then come back and see

31:00what the AI agents were up to. So it raises the scale. It accelerates the pace of a cyber attack because it means you no longer have to have someone sitting behind a keyboard 24-7. The automatic software does it for you and then reports back to whoever is pulling the strings, whoever is sort of engaged in this. So yeah, it's still criminal activity, but it's criminal activity that is automated. And so one criminal can cover a lot more ground than they used to. In this particular case, the group again, the nonprofit research lab said that these requests, the almost 900 requests were hitting collection search of the library in Archives Canada that they were looking for data on divorce records in this country between 1905 and 1911. It seems very specific. Why would they be going after something like that? Or was that just something you think it chose to see if it could get it? They often look for obscure data sources that nobody else would be looking for, and that

32:05helps the training process because there's no other activity there to kind of pollute the process. So it illustrates that they really weren't trying to knock off the website of library in Archives Canada. And certainly if they did break in, they weren't exactly going to find anything earth shattering, but they're learning the process. They are getting better at the mechanics of autonomous cyber attacks. And you do that by going after dusty corners of the internet where no one else is hanging around. And so all of the signatures of this particular event, these 899 requests, illustrate that it's a test and it's a test that had gone wrong. And it could very well be a legitimate AI company that their AI agent got out of containment and they're still not aware of it. But it shows that at least it isn't some Chinese hired state-sponsored hacker who's trying to wreck our water system or poison millions of people. It's a lot more benign than that. We can at least sleep at night knowing we're not at risk of imminent attack.

33:06But years for now, if we don't start figuring it out, we may very well be facing a much bigger problem. And on that note, what can be done? Like you said, that's why these alarms are being raised. Is it too late or can we do something to reel this in? Yeah, I mean the clock is certainly ticking. The longer we wait, the better this technology will become. And the more likely it will be that it'll get into the hands of malevolent actors. And so the time to act is now. And the federal government has responded to this the Canadian Center for Cybersecurity has launched an investigation. The federal government, the AI and digital innovation ministry has issued a statement and various other agencies are weighing in as well. So we're doing the things that we need to do. Understanding what happened here, making sure that the appropriate Canadian agencies and resources are engaged to conduct that investigation and ensure that learnings from that are incorporated into updated government policy that keeps us all safer.

34:07They've also committed to greater levels of transparency. And certainly we're also, we also know federal government has just introduced digital safety legislation. They're working on an AI law. They've just introduced a national AI strategy, AI for all. So we're doing all the different pieces. And the good news is, is, you know, because there's so much demand for them out there, you know, our timing is actually right. But we have to keep, you know, pedal to the metal. We can't afford to allow the technology to get away from us because it is advancing very quickly. Government needs to keep up. Carmie Levy, thank you for joining us and talking more about this. We'll leave it there, but thank you for the time today. Appreciate it, Jill. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Jill Bennett Show podcast. Don't wait for the latest episode to drop. Tune in to the Jill Bennett Show live from noon till three on 730, CKNW. Have a question or comment? Send me an email. Jill at cknw.com. Thanks again for listening.

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