Poilievre's new policy announcement completely misses the mark...
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Summary
Pierre-Olivier Polyev wants to cut off access to free healthcare for rejected asylum seekers. It's classic conservative mushy middle politics: try and please everyone, end up pleasing no one. The left are calling him far-right, fascist, MAGA North, and meanwhile, he hasn't won any support from the right who don't think he went far enough.
Transcript
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Let's talk about Pierre Polyev's big immigration announcement.
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I'm happy to see Pierre Polyev focusing on immigration.
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It is the most important issue facing Canada today, and more people need to be talking about it.
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But this policy? It completely misses the mark.
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It's classic conservative, mushy middle politics.
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Try and please everyone, end up pleasing no one.
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The left are calling him far-right, fascist, MAGA North,
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and meanwhile, he hasn't won any support on the right who don't think he went far enough.
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On Tuesday, the conservatives introduced a motion to restrict healthcare access to asylum seekers
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whose claims had been rejected right now all asylum seekers get free healthcare through the
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interim federal health program for some reason this healthcare program is even more generous
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than the one offered to canadian citizens it includes things like eye care physiotherapy
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dental the ifhp is now costing taxpayers over a billion dollars a year all for healthcare for
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non-citizens polyev says failed claimants should lose access sounds reasonable until you think
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about it a bit more rejected claimants don't need reduced benefits they need to be removed from the
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country entirely. This begs the question, why are rejected claimants even still here? Because the
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system is set up to favor asylum seekers instead of protecting Canada. When a claim fails, claimants
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get the opportunity to appeal. If that fails, they can then apply for permanent residency on
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humanitarian and compassionate grounds. If all this fails, Canada has no real enforcement agents
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to ensure removal. These people aren't just blindly navigating the process even. There's a whole
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industry of consultants and fraudsters supporting these bogus claims through WhatsApp groups and
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other messaging platforms. Whistleblowers in the IRCC say there is a massive false positive rate
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on asylum claims. Currently, about 80% of all claims are approved because of this broken
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bureaucratic system. Government workers are incentivized to rubber stamp approvals. Each
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rejection requires far more paperwork resulting in overtime. If there is an appeal, they could
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get called into a hearing. Too high a rejection rate could compromise their chances at promotion.
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These 20% of failed claims are really egregious cases, and even then they are allowed the benefit
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of the doubt and end up staying in this country. And Polyev's solution is trimming healthcare. If
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the conservatives are going to start talking about immigration, they can't just trim away at the
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peaks of liberal excess. They need to flip the script entirely. They should be attacking the
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asylum system itself. Let's be real here. The asylum system has devolved into a backdoor
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immigration scheme. Anyone from any country can come here and baselessly claim asylum. They get
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to sit in a backlog system for years where they can enjoy free healthcare, subsidized housing,
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and welfare. If they bring children with them, they can put them in our education system. If
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they have a child while they're here, the government will give them $8,000 per year per
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kid through the child benefit, and that kid will get birth rate citizenship, all but guaranteeing
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the parents will get citizenship as well. This system rewards abuse at every stage. It's time
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to be honest about this situation. The people entering our country this way are scammers. They
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are more likely to engage in criminal activity, less likely to be economically productive,
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meaning they'll spend their lives dependent on government handouts,
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and they're far less likely to integrate into our society in any meaningful way.
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It needs to be rebuilt from the ground up or shut down entirely.