Full Comment - November 09, 2026


Carney delivers a budget 'in denial'

The anti-Trump radicals storming the U.S. Congress are not our friends

Episode Stats


Length

55 minutes

Words per minute

164.43

Word count

9,148

Sentence count

572

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

17

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:01:00.000 we're masters of our destiny we determine our future here that's the message today
00:01:06.960 affordability opportunity sovereignty masters of our own destiny it's the title of the carney
00:01:12.720 government's newest budget it's also the buzz phrase that carney and his ministers especially
00:01:17.680 finance minister francois philippe champagne couldn't stop saying when they delivered it
00:01:22.520 on thursday but the moment in front of us mr speaker is serious canadians know it our new
00:01:28.980 government knows it. The moment demands an ambitious plan to be masters of our own destiny,
00:01:35.180 to be maîtres chez nous.
00:01:38.960 Does the budget live up to its grand title and promise? Not really. Hi, I'm Brian Lilly,
00:01:43.840 your host. Welcome to the Full Comment podcast. We're here to tell you that it is a big spending
00:01:48.480 budget this year, over $600 billion in spending. That includes a deficit of more than $62 billion
00:01:55.160 this year. And public debt charges, that's the interest-only payment on the National Credit
00:02:00.320 Card, that sits at more than $60 billion. The government has identified more than $140 billion
00:02:07.000 in new spending over five years. Strangely, though, there's no overarching narrative in
00:02:11.860 what they're trying to do in this budget. There's no sweeping reform of our tax code to try and
00:02:17.040 unleash the Canadian economy, not even a grand plan for putting our economy on a more solid
00:02:22.100 funding in the face of tariffs and trade uncertainty. There are a couple of things
00:02:26.240 that tinker around the edges when it comes to capital gains tax and reducing regulations.
00:02:30.800 We'll get into the good and the bad of that later. But buried in the budget were the government's
00:02:36.040 immigration level plans. This is the the details on how many people they plan on letting into the
00:02:41.880 country in the coming years. And on that front, it's massive. Three hundred and eighty thousand
00:02:46.280 permanent residents. That figure alone is above historic norms. But the government wants to
00:02:50.960 Add on an extra 200,000 people currently in the country on a temporary visa, school or work, and grant them permanent status.
00:02:59.740 That would be 580,000 permanent residents in one year, the largest number of new permanent residents Canada ever recorded in a single year.
00:03:09.660 To help make sense of this, I caught up with Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner, who's also her party's critic on The Immigration File.
00:03:16.920 What was your reaction when you saw the new immigration targets contained in the budget?
00:03:22.300 This is going to impact a lot of people's lives and not in a good way.
00:03:26.920 You know, and I want to be very clear about that.
00:03:31.160 When Canada invites somebody to this country, there is a promise made that they're going to be able to come here, find an affordable place to live, find a good paying job and better themselves.
00:03:44.320 At the same time, there's a promise that's made to Canadians that they will also be able to do those things. And the numbers you mentioned are the highest levels of permanent resident immigration, permanent immigrants in Canadian history.
00:04:01.200 And this follows, you know, a decade of very high immigration levels that have outpaced the Canadian economy.
00:04:12.640 They've outpaced job creation.
00:04:14.260 They've outpaced housing. 0.91
00:04:15.540 They've outpaced health care.
00:04:18.740 The net effect has been to suppress wages.
00:04:21.360 And it's created a lot of social tension.
00:04:23.060 And instead of fixing, you know, the rampant fraud and abuse that we see in the system, both in the temporary foreign worker program, in the international mobility program, in the asylum system, what we saw today was so irresponsible that Mark Carney himself, and he hid these numbers, but the highest levels of permanent immigration in Canadian history on top of record levels of new temporary residents.
00:04:50.460 Where are these people going to live, Brian?
00:04:52.240 Where are they going to work?
00:04:53.240 And where are they going to go to the doctor?
00:04:55.280 These are questions that the government can't answer.
00:04:57.820 And I think that that's morally bankrupt.
00:05:01.820 I'm just flabbergasted.
00:05:03.140 And the fact that he just went on there and said, this is sustainable.
00:05:08.460 Well, there's more.
00:05:09.900 I don't know what to say.
00:05:11.700 I'm going to play you more in a moment.
00:05:13.200 But, I mean, for the longest time, the regular number of new residents would be between 250,000, 280,000 in that range when you were part of the Harper government.
00:05:26.000 That's what it was.
00:05:26.920 First several years of the Trudeau government, that's where it was.
00:05:30.520 And then they embarked.
00:05:31.600 They say they're not following this entry initiative, but it seems like they're going over and above it.
00:05:37.040 They went up to 490,000 in 2024, I believe it was, 23 or 24.
00:05:46.380 And then they said, oh, well, we're going to bring it down.
00:05:48.540 So they say that the new number of permanent residents will be 380,000, but then they're
00:05:54.360 going to add on these other 200,000.
00:05:56.940 What's to say that, you know, the millions of people that are here on work visas, student
00:06:02.640 visas, visitor visas, don't just stay?
00:06:06.040 So, I think that's a really important point. Like, earlier this year, it was reported that
00:06:12.860 in 2026, there'll be roughly 2.1 million people in Canada on expired or expiring temporary visas.
00:06:21.960 The government has no way of tracking whether or not those people leave when they're supposed to.
00:06:27.580 Statistics Canada can't keep track. They've had to revise estimates. We don't even know how many
00:06:32.000 people are in the country right now. And then on top of that, the government is announced,
00:06:39.100 Mark Carney is announcing record levels of immigration. So I just, you know, I think
00:06:46.000 oftentimes, you know, over the years, I have these interviews and it's, you know, these numbers are
00:06:50.400 thrown out, but like, put that all aside. Where are people going to live? Where are they going to
00:06:55.740 work? And where are they going to go to the doctor? Where are they going to go to school?
00:07:00.700 Where are they going to put their kids in daycare?
00:07:02.980 Those are questions that the government can't answer.
00:07:05.420 And until they can answer those questions, just continuing to juice levels.
00:07:12.640 I mean, like this, the numbers that I'm seeing here are a city roughly the size of Winnipeg
00:07:18.300 in permanent residence on top of, with the temporary residence, like new people coming
00:07:24.100 to the country.
00:07:25.600 That's, I don't even know what to say.
00:07:28.560 I'm so concerned.
00:07:33.000 You mentioned Winnipeg.
00:07:34.440 This is Mark Carney in Winnipeg, where he was asked, are these levels sustainable?
00:07:40.020 And as you'll hear in this clip, he says the numbers are down, not up.
00:07:45.500 We have taken back control of immigration.
00:07:47.540 We've reduced the number of asylum seekers by 70 percent. 1.00
00:07:53.020 This is the flow.
00:07:53.720 The number of temporary foreign workers by 60 percent.
00:07:57.380 the number of foreign students by 80%.
00:08:00.600 These are the new numbers.
00:08:02.440 Do you believe those numbers on foreign...
00:08:05.920 Like, the last I checked,
00:08:07.520 only temporary foreign workers
00:08:08.960 and international mobility program
00:08:11.300 had been reduced significantly.
00:08:13.880 Unless things have changed over the past few months,
00:08:17.000 those numbers are still much higher
00:08:18.660 than their historic norms on every category.
00:08:22.800 Well, let me frame this a little differently.
00:08:24.940 The Bank of Canada has put out reports showing that the levels of immigration that Mark Carney is sustaining and increasing are depressing wages.
00:08:35.380 The Bank of Canada has put out reports talking about the impact on various other metrics like unemployment and productivity.
00:08:48.080 They've pointed out that it harms the housing market for both rentals and being able to purchase a home.
00:08:54.060 And the government's own housing department has said that. So that's official agencies saying that. But then there's the lived experience of Canadians who are watching this and newcomers who are watching this who can't afford an apartment that is affordable. They can't find an entry level job. They're being expected to be paid far less than what the market would demand for their labor if immigration levels were sustainable.
00:09:19.440 And the only people who are benefiting this, when Mark Carney talks about sustainable numbers, it's sustainable for one group of people, corporate interests who have relied on a very high level of mass immigration in order to depress wages and profit off of that.
00:09:39.260 And that's not Canadian.
00:09:40.580 Like, come on.
00:09:43.180 This is so damaging, Brian.
00:09:44.840 And what all of this scarcity that is completely artificial and created by the government through mass immigration is having, the impact is social unrest.
00:09:55.220 You see it in public opinion polling on immigration, attitudes towards immigration.
00:10:00.380 And I think what the Liberals want to have happen is have Canadians point the finger at immigrants or newcomers when we're all in this together.
00:10:10.360 The finger needs to be squarely pointed at Mark Carney.
00:10:13.380 He should have said no to the corporate lobbyists who came in asking him for the levels of
00:10:18.240 immigration that he delivered.
00:10:20.140 And he should have been, you know, trying to restore the promise of Canada and an orderly
00:10:25.180 and fair immigration system.
00:10:26.340 And the only way to do that is to massively, massively reduce immigration levels while
00:10:32.540 system reforms are undertaken and to a point where housing is affordable.
00:10:38.440 There's job creation and less job scarcity and wages start to grow again.
00:10:42.220 But that that's not going to come for a long time.
00:10:46.920 Instead, we had unemployment in the most recent labor force survey was up six point seven percent.
00:10:54.560 Tens of thousands of private sector jobs lost, masked by the fact that government hiring went up to to cover it.
00:11:04.720 So this is a we're talking about a situation where adding half a million people is not going to be beneficial to the to the workforce.
00:11:16.480 When my parents came to this country in 1968, they were able to buy a house within five years of of moving here.
00:11:24.060 That sort of upward mobility isn't there right now for the crop of people coming in. 0.60
00:11:30.640 And it's pricing out Canadians that are already here, whether they've been here for five years, 10 years or, you know, generations.
00:11:39.180 The housing stats, the housing starts have gone flat.
00:11:43.060 How does the government not see this?
00:11:45.620 Or is it, as you're saying, they are just listening to corporate lobbyists, people coming in from Tim Hortons and elsewhere.
00:11:52.120 I talked to Ontario's labor minister. He told me he's constantly being lobbied to grant this.
00:12:00.720 And he says, well, show me what you're doing.
00:12:02.340 Is Carney just listening to the lobbyist for people that want low wages?
00:12:07.140 Yes. And those low wage earners can't afford those corporate lobbyists.
00:12:11.720 So that's why people like me and the Conservative Party needs to be their voice.
00:12:15.760 That's why levels need to come down.
00:12:17.280 And, you know, the start end of the statement, you talked about immigration levels under Stephen Harper's government.
00:12:23.640 Well, under Stephen Harper's government, you know, economic growth per capita was on pace with the United States.
00:12:30.240 We saw wage growth.
00:12:31.660 It's an entirely different picture right now.
00:12:33.520 In fact, I think that the Liberals' mass immigration numbers have masked fundamental weaknesses in the Canadian economy, which have been created by years of high deficit spending, high taxation, high untenable regulations.
00:12:50.000 And instead of reforming all of those things, or to your point, talking about essentially things like labor mobility or skills training, Mark Carney's just like, yeah, okay, let's bring in another city the size of Winnipeg in a year.
00:13:06.180 Again, like just the fundamental issue, where are those people going to live?
00:13:09.700 Where are they going to live?
00:13:11.480 Where are they going to go to the doctor?
00:13:13.020 The median wait time for treatment services in Canada is, what, 26 and a half weeks now?
00:13:20.000 So this is, I think that what you're listening to to understand is how fundamentally irresponsible this policy is when you're looking at overall public policy.
00:13:33.260 This is the most important thing that Canadians should care about right now.
00:13:37.080 And the government is doing the exact wrong thing.
00:13:40.760 It's crazy to me.
00:13:41.880 recently in the house of commons your leader fear polyev raised the issue of how the liberal
00:13:50.140 government blames immigrants for high housing prices and pointed to a cmhc report or sorry
00:13:57.000 a departmental report outlining this and what was the response from the government from housing
00:14:03.960 minister gregory robertson why are you scapegoating immigrants how do you have this conversation when
00:14:09.580 the government that for years, any questions about immigration, you are xenophobic, you are racist,
00:14:17.800 you are scapegoating immigrants. Then they realized, well, there's a problem. They said,
00:14:22.100 yes, we brought in people faster. We need to reform. They talked about needing to lower numbers.
00:14:27.780 They're just pulling wool over people's eyes because we're not lowering numbers.
00:14:31.640 And now they're back to, if you question their out of control century initiative,
00:14:36.280 because this goes further than the Century Initiative ever called for.
00:14:40.440 If you question that, you are back to being called anti-immigrant, racist, xenophobic.
00:14:46.720 I think that Canadians and newcomers alike are done with being gaslit by the liberal government
00:14:53.100 and they understand where the problem is being created.
00:14:55.560 And it's Mark Carney's policy, which he's perpetuating today.
00:14:59.120 I could point to, again, public opinion research that shows that a lot of folks
00:15:04.180 who have come to Canada recently are not supportive of these immigration levels because
00:15:09.560 they understand that the social infrastructure needed to support integration is not being
00:15:16.060 built at the same pace in which Mark Carney is letting in more folks to juice corporate
00:15:21.980 profits.
00:15:23.540 I think, Brian, the fundamental thing for me is that the Liberal government think the
00:15:29.060 Canadians and newcomers don't understand that he's treating people like people.
00:15:34.180 cogs in an assembly line or like just the sterile consumer as opposed to human beings 0.87
00:15:40.480 who deserve a path towards self-determination in immigration or if they're Canadian born alike. 0.83
00:15:46.420 Like, I mean, you know, and let's talk about, okay, they want to talk about increasing population. 0.75
00:15:51.720 Well, how are people supposed to afford to have a family if you can't afford to put a roof over
00:15:56.700 your head because we're letting too many people in too fast? The last thing is, I mean, I saw this
00:16:02.080 report recently that showed that there's now an imbalance in the Canadian population where they
00:16:06.360 let too many men in. For the first time ever, there's this significant imbalance between men
00:16:12.280 and women in the population. I mean, I just, Brian, this, you know, I do think that Canadians
00:16:20.860 understand this and that there's a political price to be paid because this is messing with
00:16:25.360 Canada's social fabric and it's creating social unrest. And Mark Carney's technocratic viewpoint
00:16:32.740 He better, I'm going to oppose this.
00:16:36.180 The Conservative Party is going to oppose this with every fiber of our being
00:16:39.080 because what he's doing is morally wrong.
00:16:41.260 And I think that that will resonate across political stripe 0.56
00:16:44.000 because you can't just gaslight immigrants and Canadians who want a better life. 0.91
00:16:49.860 You mentioned the gender imbalance.
00:16:52.120 The numbers from the immigration department are that for international students,
00:16:57.360 it's 53% male, 47% female.
00:17:00.000 Now, that's an imbalance.
00:17:01.660 And in a society on the whole, that's not good long term.
00:17:06.060 But that's close compared to the other categories.
00:17:09.400 Temporary foreign workers, 58 percent male, 42 percent female.
00:17:14.060 Asylum claimants, 63 percent male, 37 percent female. 0.68
00:17:20.000 That leads to an awful lot of problems down the line if you have that kind of gender imbalance.
00:17:26.380 I mean, this is one of many things.
00:17:28.200 They're not taking into consideration.
00:17:31.340 They're just saying, open border, come on in, no vetting.
00:17:34.620 Like, we haven't talked about security screening.
00:17:36.540 We haven't talked about language proficiency.
00:17:40.020 We haven't talked about skills acquisition.
00:17:43.360 There are so many things that fraud.
00:17:46.740 You know, the Auditor General found rampant fraud.
00:17:49.120 What you're seeing here is just an unmoored open border policy that harms human beings.
00:17:55.040 There's no compassion in this policy.
00:17:56.580 There's only corporate profit. 0.98
00:17:58.200 Explain for people, explain for people why it's different with these temporary foreign worker or IMP programs, why it's different than just bringing someone in as an immigrant to do the job. 0.95
00:18:12.020 Why does that keep wages down low?
00:18:14.100 Why does it end up treating them essentially, I believe it was the United Nations said this, as a form of indentured serving?
00:18:21.200 So let's say you want to come to Canada from abroad.
00:18:25.740 And the stream that you apply to come to Canada through is the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
00:18:30.600 So you are coming to Canada, you're taking a big risk, you want to build a better life.
00:18:36.580 But here's what's going against you.
00:18:38.880 You are tied, your ability to stay in the country is tied to one job and one employer.
00:18:45.200 So what does that mean?
00:18:46.460 that means that there's no incentive for the company to raise your wages because you have
00:18:51.540 to take the wage that they're giving you. There's no incentive for the company to better your
00:18:55.900 working conditions because you have to take the working conditions that that employer is giving
00:19:01.080 you. And what that means is that we're essentially creating an indentured labor class in a variety
00:19:09.000 of industries in this country, especially the food services sector, while at the same time
00:19:14.060 we're displacing those entry-level jobs that normally would go to Canadian kids that would
00:19:19.300 learn vital things like showing up to work on time, how to work with customers, how to work
00:19:24.680 in a team. And we're abdicating, we're allowing companies, much of this profit goes to shareholders,
00:19:32.560 you know, the firm you mentioned in the United States or in Brazil. We're allowing them to
00:19:37.860 advocate their social responsibility to train the next generation of workers or to create social
00:19:43.040 cohesion that says, if you work hard, you can get ahead. Um, we're not the, we're not a country
00:19:49.560 like the Emirates where we have two classes of work, not in my Canada anyways, but yet this is
00:19:56.120 what Mark Carney's enabling. It's disgusting. What's the solution? Um, I mean, you don't have 0.87
00:20:03.140 a majority in parliament. I, I, even if the liberals were still in a minority, I doubt the
00:20:09.680 NDP would join you, the bloc might, in opposing this. So what realistically can be done other
00:20:16.720 than raising the alarm so that the public lets the government know, hey, you're on the wrong track?
00:20:23.720 I'm optimistic on this topic because I think Canadians understand that this is fundamentally
00:20:30.260 an issue of human rights and morality. And I actually think that Mark Carney doesn't understand
00:20:38.920 that. You could see it in his response today. And so because it creates such an emotive response
00:20:45.300 based on lived experience, I think that this is an issue that transcends political stripe.
00:20:51.420 And, you know, my responsibility as a parliamentarian is to put forward
00:20:54.780 system reform proposals, which we have been doing. I've been on your show multiple times,
00:21:00.180 concrete amendments to legislation, legislation myself, policy proposals on how to fix the system.
00:21:07.560 And I think that's resonated with Canadians. It's why you see in public opinion research that immigration is the liberals' weakest issue. And it's also why it's the conservatives' best issue. I think that we've struck that balance in a way that resonates with Canadians. And I think that we've forced them to enact some change.
00:21:28.040 but I'll say this. You know me to not be a shrinking violet. I'm a bit of a spicy tamale.
00:21:34.180 Giddy up, Mark Carney. We're not going to let you do this. I'm not going to let Mark Carney
00:21:39.080 be morally bankrupt on behalf of his corporate buddies. Enough. This is gross. Canadians and
00:21:47.760 people who want to come to Canada to build a better life deserve better than the prospect
00:21:52.400 of depressed wages and living 10 deep in a basement suite in Brampton. So, you know, this
00:21:58.120 is where conservatives, it's a full court press, we will, we're opposing this. And I know that
00:22:03.100 Canadians are raising their voices. I know that immigrants are raising their voices. We can't,
00:22:08.000 we won't let human beings be reduced to sterile units of production for Mark Carney's technocratic
00:22:13.480 worldview. No, this has to be about human rights and morality and the ability to build a better
00:22:20.760 life. And to do that right now, the levels need to come way down.
00:22:27.680 Michelle Rempel-Garner, thanks for the time.
00:22:30.000 Thanks for having me.
00:22:31.180 When we come back, a look at the budget from a productivity or business perspective and
00:22:35.480 what the Kearney government will or won't be doing to help the country's economy.
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00:24:48.380 So much is happening in politics right now.
00:24:51.360 Rising tensions with the U.S. on trade and defense.
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00:25:42.260 Economic growth, give us the means.
00:25:45.360 Our plan is to turn that growth into greater opportunity,
00:25:49.040 greater security and a better life for all.
00:25:52.200 I know Canadians are watching.
00:25:54.500 It is to deliver on what matters most,
00:25:57.320 giving Canadians the opportunity for a better life.
00:26:00.740 Economic growth and a better life.
00:26:03.120 That's the promise of the Carney budget.
00:26:04.880 But does it deliver?
00:26:05.720 On that front, the budget's getting mixed reviews, including from our next two guests.
00:26:11.020 Dan McTague was a Liberal MP from 1993 to 2011.
00:26:15.200 He was there for the budgets in the mid-90s under Jean-Claude Chen that turned around Canada's finances and got the deficit and debt under control.
00:26:23.460 He's now president of Canadians for Affordable Energy. 0.68
00:26:26.680 Lucy Hargraves worked for years on Parliament Hill as a senior political staffer in the Trudeau government.
00:26:32.420 She's now co-founder and CEO of Build Canada, a group advocating for making Canada the best place in the world to invest.
00:26:39.680 So, Lucy, let me start with you.
00:26:42.080 First take on the budget when you were reading it, my view was it was neither fish nor fowl.
00:26:47.500 No huge spending increases, but no major tax reform or changes that, in my view, go big enough in terms of getting to what Build Canada calls for, making us more prosperous.
00:26:59.460 What was your take?
00:27:00.080 Yeah, I mean, overall, I think this was a really strong budget from an entrepreneur perspective, specifically in the tech sector. There's the Canada Growth Incentive in there that is basically like a U.S.-style tax incentive to give founders and early entrepreneurs a break on capital gains tax. It's something that many, many, many innovation entrepreneur groups have been asking for for the last number of years.
00:27:26.160 So for that community, yeah.
00:27:30.000 Can you explain it a little bit?
00:27:31.080 Because I did see the Build Canada post on it, the Spends Canada post on it.
00:27:35.960 Yeah.
00:27:36.320 It's going to be better for entrepreneurs in Canada with this than in California and in some instances, New York.
00:27:46.520 Explain why, how.
00:27:47.740 Yeah, so this tax incentive basically gives entrepreneurs a break on the capital gains that they would pay on the first $15 million of their exit, which is different than what is in place now, which is just the LCGE, which is $1.275 million.
00:28:07.840 So this is totally separate, a much larger pool, and is modeled after what is on offer in the U.S., which is QSBS.
00:28:14.880 The limitation to it really is that it only applies to very, very specific types of companies, mostly in the digital sector and the tech sector.
00:28:24.620 There's a whole wide range of industry carve-outs.
00:28:27.320 So this is not good if you are an entrepreneur in a professional services sector, if you're in real estate, if you're in mining or fisheries or agriculture.
00:28:38.140 Like, this cannot apply for you.
00:28:39.920 I saw the very long list of companies that do not qualify.
00:28:43.900 Yeah. And that is actually similar, like to be fair to the Canadian government, that is similar to how QSBS is structured in the U.S. It is mostly a tax incentive for tech founders. And so that is sort of the model that they've adopted here. It's very, very narrow.
00:29:02.560 We would have, like, this is great.
00:29:04.080 We would have loved to see more for entrepreneurs across the economy.
00:29:08.840 When we talk about builders that build Canada, we're not only talking about tech builders.
00:29:12.840 We're talking about all entrepreneurs that are the founding, you know, driving engines of our economy.
00:29:18.740 So it's very narrow. It's good. We'd like to see more.
00:29:21.620 There was some great stuff on competition in this budget as well,
00:29:24.500 but still reads as a plan for a plan to address competition and increase competition in our
00:29:31.740 markets. So those were kind of a couple of really good things. But then on spending and debt,
00:29:38.440 a lot of concerns still on the levels of spending, the size of interest payments on our debt,
00:29:45.180 that is the largest budget item, and projected to grow rapidly over the next number of years.
00:29:54.020 And so, you know, I think that is something I'm sure we'll talk about more in this conversation.
00:29:58.740 But, you know, I think a lot of Canadians are going to be concerned about those levels of spending.
00:30:04.960 Let me ask you about that, Dan.
00:30:06.620 You were around in the days when there were still fiscal hawks in government.
00:30:10.660 I've been arguing for a long time.
00:30:12.740 You know, I hear from conservative minded voters and they say, when are they going to cut spending?
00:30:17.440 When are they going to pay down debt?
00:30:19.300 And I said, there are no fiscal hawks in the voting pool anymore.
00:30:22.560 It's a very small group of them anyway. For this current fiscal year, we're going to be spending $58.7 billion on servicing the debt. That's just the debt service payments. That's climbing up to $80.9 billion just for the interest on the national credit card by 2030-31.
00:30:47.020 you would have fainted back when you were in the Khrushchev government
00:30:51.700 with Paul Martin as finance minister.
00:30:54.140 It's the accumulation of these deficits that is extraordinarily worrying.
00:30:59.580 And while we point around the world and say,
00:31:01.280 oh, other countries are doing the same thing,
00:31:03.240 they don't have reserve currencies as in the case of the United States.
00:31:06.180 And they certainly don't benefit from a languishing economy.
00:31:11.380 Growth is minimal. It's anemic, if at all.
00:31:14.860 Labor numbers are not strong.
00:31:17.400 And of course, while the IMF and others who did threaten us back in the 1990s with taking over tutelage of the finances,
00:31:25.400 the reality is that this number, by most metrics, not the ones that are invented by the government to create this sort of what I call creative financing,
00:31:33.480 one operational, one capital, and you can sort of divide the two.
00:31:37.100 Debt is debt.
00:31:38.320 And this is a burden that will be obviously bestowed to the next generation and the generation after that with no real timely from the, you know, from the horizon the next five years attempt at trying to bring this down.
00:31:52.260 And interesting that, you know, the backdrop is that there may have been increases in revenue with the oil and gas sector and some restraint in spending, but all of it's going to go back to once again spending.
00:32:03.600 That's not to say we shouldn't, and we don't see this, you know, deficits and reduction of deficits and cutback in programs as a means to an end.
00:32:13.700 It has to be measured in a way that understands full well that with a no-growth economy and no prospects for an economy, we're still saddled with the same problems that we saw under the previous government.
00:32:24.460 Now, some commentators this morning, I heard them saying, oh, this is not like a Trudeau budget.
00:32:28.900 It doesn't have to be.
00:32:30.100 I mean, the damage was done then, 10 years of accumulated deficits and the debt that we now bear.
00:32:35.760 And it's not just the federal government, it's the subsovereign, it's the provinces, and it's, of course, consumer debt.
00:32:42.000 We have not addressed what was going to be the fundamental point of this budget, and that's the word affordability.
00:32:47.740 You know, Brian, for eight years, we rang the bell on affordability.
00:32:51.840 He said, if you mess around with energy prices, as an example, and you pretend that these things are not important, you don't put guardrails in place, and you break those guardrails with want and abandon, which this government has done.
00:33:05.320 And it's advocates pretty much on two-thirds of the size of the house, the Greens, the NDP.
00:33:11.000 I know they may not like this budget, but they were very much part of this.
00:33:14.100 The reality is that we are heading towards a fiscal cliff.
00:33:17.740 And I'm not going to wait for bond rating agencies and other woke organizations to basically say, oh, this is all cool, this is all trendy.
00:33:26.340 As I mentioned, this is a hard debt that we now have to face that the next generation will have to pay for, and for which it may be harder and harder for the Canadian government to borrow money, notwithstanding the fact that it's continuing down this road of finding ways to increase energy prices and, as a result, driving up the cost of living.
00:33:44.360 the uh just on the the public uh debt charges for this current fiscal year they're projecting
00:33:52.800 that 11 cents of every tax dollar collected by ottawa will go to pay the interest on the debt
00:33:59.520 that's going up to 13.2 cents by the government's projections i'd like to hear from both of you is
00:34:07.720 is that sustainable?
00:34:09.500 I mean, that's 13 cents of every dollar
00:34:12.200 not going to government programs.
00:34:15.240 I think maybe Jen and I will probably agree on this.
00:34:17.080 I personally think it's extremely unsustainable.
00:34:20.460 If you look at, we published a chart this morning
00:34:23.480 or late last night on our Canada Spends brand
00:34:26.060 showing the projections over time,
00:34:30.700 looking back to 2011,
00:34:31.980 of how accurate the future projections
00:34:34.760 of growth and spending have been
00:34:36.440 and budgets over time. And, you know, year after year, the government of Canada sort of grossly
00:34:42.820 overestimates how much the economy is going to grow and grossly underestimates how much they're
00:34:49.620 going to spend in future years. And so they don't have a good track record of accurate estimations
00:34:55.260 on these things. And when I look at our debt levels, you know, a lot of what some people will
00:35:02.440 say is like, well, we can manage those debt levels because our economy is going to grow
00:35:06.840 and we can control spending down the road. I think the danger is that, you know, if you're
00:35:12.400 spending 11 cents on every dollar to surface your debt, you just have very little fiscal
00:35:17.920 capacity and room to deal with unexpected crises, to deal with lower economic growth
00:35:27.040 rates than anticipated, and to deal with, you know, other things that might come up
00:35:31.980 that might require you, like COVID, to dip into your reserves and allocate spending to address
00:35:40.320 something unforeseen. That's not the way most Canadians like to manage their household budgets,
00:35:45.480 and I don't think that's the way we should be managing our budget federally.
00:35:50.280 Dan? Yeah, I think there's no doubt this is a moment where, you know, 10 years of denialism,
00:35:57.220 of saying there is no, to use an expression,
00:36:01.080 the budget will balance itself.
00:36:03.960 You know, anybody who's visited a hospital this past year,
00:36:06.360 anybody who's looked for a social program for some help
00:36:08.920 is now finding it extremely difficult.
00:36:11.640 And it's not because, you know,
00:36:13.480 there's a whole host of other reasons,
00:36:15.360 bureaucratic overload or overspending
00:36:17.580 or what you may look at.
00:36:19.160 I mean, the reality is that this now constitutes
00:36:21.560 the single largest expenditure
00:36:23.780 of any particular block
00:36:26.720 of which the federal government
00:36:28.100 will have to spend in it.
00:36:29.680 How will we achieve our objectives?
00:36:31.600 Other than old age security,
00:36:33.520 which is 17 cents on the dollar,
00:36:36.280 that's a program that is out of control.
00:36:40.300 But that's one I don't think anyone
00:36:42.060 would have the political will to take on.
00:36:45.320 There's been some debate about old age security.
00:36:48.460 And is it too generous?
00:36:49.920 This is not the Canada pension plan.
00:36:51.680 This is not the pension that we all pay into and expect to collect.
00:36:57.660 It's supposed to be there to lift people out of poverty, and yet people making over $100,000 a year in retirement are still collecting it.
00:37:07.160 I spoke to one accountant who said, with proper tax planning, couples earning over $350,000 a year can still be collecting OAS.
00:37:16.000 Do we need to restructure this program so that it is there for people in poverty?
00:37:20.980 and isn't helping folks that earn six figures in retirement
00:37:26.640 have an even cushier retirement?
00:37:29.920 Yeah, I mean, absolutely, it needs to be reformed.
00:37:32.240 We've published a memo on this at Build Canada.
00:37:34.260 Other organizations like Generation Squeeze
00:37:36.920 have talked a lot about this as well.
00:37:38.840 And I think this issue of intergenerational fairness
00:37:41.720 and intergenerational equity
00:37:43.120 is going to really come to a head for this government
00:37:45.600 in the next 12 months.
00:37:46.560 I wouldn't be surprised if the next budget
00:37:48.460 has to focus on this.
00:37:50.980 And the reality is, even with OAS is, you know, as you said, Brian, a huge cost to the Canadian taxpayer right now. 0.70
00:37:59.440 It is, you know, benefiting seniors who don't need it.
00:38:05.540 And we still have over 400,000 seniors in poverty every year.
00:38:09.460 So I think we need to take a step back and look at, OK, if the issue we're trying to tackle is making sure that no senior in our country should live in poverty, which I think is, you know, what most Canadians would agree with.
00:38:20.000 we can reallocate funding and redesign that program so that it actually achieves that
00:38:25.640 objective. As you say, like we already have the CPP program that people have paid into. This is
00:38:31.300 something totally separate. And we should think about it more like the Canada Child Benefit,
00:38:35.720 which is, you know, income adjusted at a much different level of calculation
00:38:40.620 and actually address the problem of poverty for seniors rather than the program we have in place
00:38:46.280 right now. The politics of it, though, Dan, Stephen Harper tried to say, you know what,
00:38:52.140 move it up to 67. People said, oh, you're raising the retirement age. Of course,
00:38:56.660 he wasn't doing that, but it was fought long and hard. People got very angry.
00:39:05.200 You know, we spend three times as much on OAS, though. You mentioned the Canada Child Benefit,
00:39:11.540 Lucy, we spend three times as much on OAS as the child benefit. 0.85
00:39:17.680 And, well, one's generating more seniors.
00:39:20.180 The other is not generating more kids.
00:39:23.000 What are the politics of it as someone who's been in elected office who's seen anger over any attempts to change programs?
00:39:32.200 Well, there's a demographic imperative here that we've been talking about for many, many years.
00:39:37.180 that eventually the system, the program, would be unsustainable
00:39:42.080 given the number of people who are requesting
00:39:44.180 and those who can support it and government's contribution to it.
00:39:48.340 So I think we're at that stage.
00:39:51.260 Two, Mark Carney could use a lot of his capitals,
00:39:54.760 political capital, saying these are the realities.
00:39:56.540 He could explain it very well.
00:39:57.800 He can wordsmith better than most.
00:39:59.300 We know that and say this is the reality.
00:40:02.080 Unless we give, you know, I only categorize this
00:40:05.800 is sort of the lifeboat ethics, but the reality is that so many people who need are not getting
00:40:11.540 enough, and those who have enough don't necessarily need it. Now, of course, it can be cat taxed back,
00:40:17.380 clawed back, et cetera, but I think it has to be more targeted, more purposeful, and if we do have
00:40:22.640 to raise the age for retirement, then I think this is certainly a time that would be more
00:40:31.960 amenable than it was 10, 15 years ago in the fat good times when things were going very well, and
00:40:36.540 most of those who are collecting today were still in their 50s. So there is a shift that has to be
00:40:42.700 understood, and it has to be approached. And I don't think liberals are going to lose a lot of
00:40:46.360 capital doing this. I think that the reality is that it will go belly up if we don't do something
00:40:52.740 radically different. And with Lucy on this, it has to be in the next 12 months. Yeah, and sooner
00:40:57.800 rather than later, because anything that a government would do on this is going to have
00:41:01.820 to be phased in. You can't just change the rules overnight for seniors who may have been,
00:41:06.380 you know, planning on, you know, this income for a variety of different reasons. And so the sooner
00:41:11.840 that they can kind of decide on what those new rules should be and communicate that, the better.
00:41:15.920 I think also the other thing that is changing is that the demographic that is now collecting OAS,
00:41:22.100 you know, in many cases has grandchildren or even, you know, children who are still struggling to
00:41:30.440 afford day-to-day costs, still struggling to afford homes. And so they're probably having a
00:41:37.000 lot of conversations around their kitchen table about cost of living and affordability. And I
00:41:40.940 think this government would be wise to try and tap into that to actually get support of some of
00:41:46.480 those seniors to change the rules so that their kids and grandkids can have the same opportunities
00:41:52.720 that they had. When Laurent Fiera, the CEO of National Bank, issued a challenge a couple of
00:42:01.200 weeks ago, I thought, that is fantastic. That is exactly what we need. And if you missed it...
00:42:06.640 Yeah, I missed that. What was it?
00:42:08.140 He was talking about the need to fundamentally transform our tax code. He suggested that the
00:42:14.700 government should take one year, point to panel, bring in, rewrite the tax code from top to bottom
00:42:21.600 with one goal, he said, becoming the simplest, most efficient, and most competitive tax jurisdiction
00:42:26.900 of all developed countries. Now, ever since Donald Trump's inaugural speech, where he not
00:42:33.460 only laid out his vision of the external revenue service and his devotion to tariffs, he also laid
00:42:41.560 out how he was going to transform the American economy by deregulation. And I thought, we need
00:42:49.280 to match that, and we haven't done it. And so the government does talk a lot about, well,
00:42:55.960 we can't control the terrorists, but we can control other things, and we can give ourselves
00:43:02.180 more than anyone can take away. But we haven't looked at doing fundamental reform. Lucy, I know
00:43:07.600 that Build Canada has a proposal out no income tax on your first $100,000. I put out my own
00:43:16.100 proposal saying, you know, expand the tax brackets and lower the rates. It doesn't, you know, go as
00:43:23.020 far as the $100,000. But in my view, we didn't see the bold reform that we need to make our
00:43:32.000 economy competitive in this. Do you think, either of you think that this government is looking to
00:43:41.220 be that bold, or are they being more managerial in their approach? Yeah, that's a good question.
00:43:48.320 I mean, a lot of what was in the budget is incremental, as you pointed out. I think steps
00:43:54.660 in the right direction, some really positive steps in the right direction, and credit work
00:43:58.600 do on that. But in terms of like the sheer boldness and the power that this federal
00:44:03.960 government or any federal government has to make those changes, I think we're still, you know,
00:44:08.640 we are falling short. There's a lot that you could do with a comprehensive tax reform to
00:44:14.060 dramatically simplify the system. There were no real signs of, you know, that happening
00:44:20.500 in this budget. On the regulatory red tape reduction, I mean, there is this cabinet
00:44:27.920 directive that was included in this budget to tackle red tape. And that is the proposal for
00:44:35.760 basically an assessment of for every dollar spent on new regulation, $2 needs to be taken away.
00:44:45.680 This was in the conservative platform from 2025, if I'm recalling correctly. I think it's
00:44:50.420 generally a good idea. The methodology of how you do that and how you calculate it and whether or
00:44:56.640 not that would have an impact. It was questionable. When Tony Clement was president of Treasury Board
00:45:01.240 under Stephen Harper, they brought in the, for every new regulation you brought in, you needed
00:45:07.180 to take two away. And they had to be of similar size. You couldn't bring in one huge regulation
00:45:14.360 and take away two tiny little things. They had to be equivalent. And look, oftentimes regulations
00:45:20.640 go in and they serve a purpose, and then you can't remember why they're there years later,
00:45:25.620 and they no longer serve a purpose.
00:45:27.480 The better approach would be just to take a first principles approach to tax policy
00:45:32.960 and a first principles approach to regulation and actually just, you know, it's like zero-based
00:45:38.020 budgeting.
00:45:38.520 Just take a blank slate and think about, okay, if we were going to redesign our tax system
00:45:43.200 from scratch today, what actually would we put in place and how would we design it rather
00:45:49.160 than, you know, tinkering around the edges?
00:45:52.360 Same goes for regulation.
00:45:53.320 You end up just with more complexity over time if you tinker and you're incremental with those changes.
00:46:01.760 So I looked at the numbers the other day, Dan, and back when 1986, Brian Mulroney says,
00:46:08.580 OK, 36 percent corporate tax rate is too high. It's strangling us.
00:46:13.640 He lowered it to 28. And of course, the hue and cry was, you can't do that.
00:46:20.240 The government, it'll cost the government money and corporations won't pay enough.
00:46:24.960 Well, revenue went up in the first three years from $9 billion to $12.8 billion.
00:46:31.620 When the government you were part of lowered the tax rate from 28% in 2000 to 21% by 2004,
00:46:41.640 revenues went from $22 billion to $28 billion.
00:46:44.640 When Harper lowered it, it went up.
00:46:46.420 But, you know, you can be bold, and I'd say, you know, you want to make it so that companies do want to invest here and overcome things like the barriers set up by the tariffs and the other non-trade barriers going to the U.S.
00:47:04.640 We have to be competitive.
00:47:05.760 So we've got a 15% corporate tax rate. 0.52
00:47:08.960 Cut it down to 10.
00:47:10.780 You know, Alberta took theirs from 12 to 8 and their revenue went up by two-thirds, partly due to the price of oil, but also more business activity.
00:47:19.520 I think more governments take from, under whatever guise or under whatever direction, they tend to, these things tend to be self-defeating.
00:47:27.560 A lot of the programs, the tax structure that we have have not been amended in quite some time, tinkering perhaps.
00:47:33.700 But, you know, when we're faced with the ever-increasing number of Canadians leaving, a weak Canadian dollar, and make no mistake, that is just something that I think far too many economists pay no attention to.
00:47:45.140 And yet it's at really the heart of why and a symptom of the bigger problem we have is that we're not attracting young entrepreneurs.
00:47:52.480 We're not attracting those investments that will lead to greater productivity, not just in manufacturing, but in the entrepreneurial spirit that we discussed at the outset.
00:48:01.820 But, you know, there is now need for an overhaul.
00:48:05.940 And I think the overhaul is made fairly clear by the fact that by most metrics, save and
00:48:10.520 accept being saved on oil prices that have helped a region of the country and help the
00:48:15.660 federal government's finances, there isn't really much to celebrate in Canada right now
00:48:19.160 economically.
00:48:19.960 And we cannot blame this on Donald Trump.
00:48:22.160 We'd like to because it's cool and trendy and neat.
00:48:25.360 But as someone who's been in this business for a very long time, all of us here, we know
00:48:29.280 that these are deep-seated problems within the institutions and the mechanisms by which we
00:48:34.580 function, by which we tick. And it is time for those to be reformed and overhauled. And if we
00:48:38.800 don't do it, then we can continue to look at an ever-diminishing lot in terms of cost of living
00:48:45.080 and equality of life, which is, I hate to say it for the first time, perhaps since the Great
00:48:50.140 Depression, in serious decline. Dan, I'm actually curious, how do you think we should go about sort
00:48:58.160 of bolder tax reform in this country?
00:49:01.140 Like, do you think we should be looking at things like,
00:49:03.120 you know, some people in my network say,
00:49:04.640 oh, we should have a royal commission
00:49:05.960 and we should study it.
00:49:07.340 And like, then we could have the political capital
00:49:09.540 to go do it.
00:49:10.840 I go back and forth on whether or not
00:49:12.860 that's really a good idea, but I'm curious.
00:49:15.340 I think the, Lucy, I think I mentioned earlier,
00:49:18.220 I think Carney has enormous amount of credibility
00:49:21.300 in terms of the public perception.
00:49:24.140 And if he were to look at this from the perspective
00:49:26.600 of how to turn things around
00:49:28.100 to get the country back up
00:49:29.180 and running again,
00:49:30.420 rather than, you know,
00:49:31.640 talking about, you know,
00:49:33.120 relationships with Europe,
00:49:34.880 which is extraordinarily complicated
00:49:36.460 and I think has drawbacks,
00:49:37.460 or China. 1.00
00:49:38.560 One of the best ways 0.54
00:49:39.600 would be to look at our tax code
00:49:41.440 and to see if there's a better way.
00:49:44.380 I mean, you have,
00:49:44.860 how many brackets do you have?
00:49:46.740 It's crazy.
00:49:48.240 And you have a GST on top of that
00:49:50.240 and you have provincial taxes
00:49:51.320 and you have municipal taxes.
00:49:52.920 And I'm not comparing us
00:49:53.900 to any other country.
00:49:54.880 I just think that there's
00:49:55.740 a better way in terms of governments to manage this. And of course, taking a bit less, giving
00:50:00.200 people the incentive will actually create more opportunity, more revenues for government.
00:50:04.640 And I think, Lucy, we're at the point where we have to have that discussion. It's not
00:50:09.840 left or right. It's how we maintain and get this ship back on path. Because right now
00:50:15.200 as it is, I cannot in my years being in this business see a scenario where the country
00:50:20.700 is going to gain or get ahead by the status quo.
00:50:25.740 Okay. Last point from each of you. If you, uh, you had the ear of the government, I know you
00:50:30.480 both have lots of ideas. You've got the ear of the government. Mark Carney says, okay,
00:50:34.460 I'll grant you one wish. What, what would you want? What, what do you think would have the
00:50:40.380 biggest impact on, uh, boosting our economy, boosting our productivity, making us, uh, primed
00:50:48.140 for growth, despite the U.S. headwinds.
00:50:53.000 Lissa, you want to go first?
00:50:54.440 Oh, no, sir.
00:50:55.280 Thanks, Dan.
00:50:56.580 I mean, you know where I'm going to go.
00:50:58.100 I mean, it's pretty obvious.
00:50:59.720 I think the federal government should basically say,
00:51:01.960 we're going to get rid of net zero 0.97
00:51:03.400 and all of these, you know,
00:51:05.020 these burdens and regulatory, you know,
00:51:08.000 impediments that have stopped
00:51:10.000 development of our resources.
00:51:11.640 The federal government had a little bit to cheer about
00:51:13.860 because its deficit wasn't so bad
00:51:15.380 because energy is getting to markets.
00:51:17.680 and we're selling more of it.
00:51:19.160 And that's what we need to do.
00:51:20.320 I don't say it's the only thing,
00:51:22.040 but I think if you took off the,
00:51:24.580 as it were, you took the dogs off
00:51:26.620 through net zero on regulations,
00:51:28.820 you would probably find a greater incentive
00:51:31.640 for industry, for business,
00:51:33.660 and for consumers to get ahead.
00:51:35.360 And I won't even talk,
00:51:36.360 I mean, we've talked about this in the past.
00:51:38.920 You know, when you add 19 cents a liter
00:51:40.620 to the price of diesel
00:51:41.980 at a time in which we have diesel prices
00:51:43.960 affecting the very, you know,
00:51:45.640 viability of affordability in this country. It's kind of weird to say, hey, we're still
00:51:50.240 sticking by a carbon credit market and be cool and trendy. Look, that's a horse that's left the
00:51:57.240 barn. It's time to get back to reality. No other country does this to itself. And we shouldn't be
00:52:02.620 making conditions to getting pipelines built and getting our resources to global markets.
00:52:06.860 They want to buy Canadian resources. They can't. They're being frustrated because we're too busy
00:52:11.800 trying to be trendy and cool?
00:52:14.140 Yeah, I would say two things,
00:52:15.680 so I'm going to cheat a little bit.
00:52:16.800 I would say two things.
00:52:17.700 I would say, like, lowest flat corporate tax rate
00:52:21.740 across the board, you know,
00:52:25.440 while still abiding by the OECD
00:52:29.100 kind of minimum corporate tax rules,
00:52:31.360 but, like, across the board,
00:52:32.920 lowest corporate tax rate.
00:52:34.080 Like, let's do away with mega deductions
00:52:37.000 on certain things
00:52:38.180 and, like, different calculations here and there
00:52:40.100 and just have lowest corporate
00:52:41.800 flat corporate tax rate across the board. And then second thing I would do is a capital gains
00:52:50.540 exemption for all entrepreneurs and early employees, probably, you know, whether that's
00:52:56.900 10 million or 15 million, we can quibble on what the right amount is. But for all entrepreneurs
00:53:03.020 and founders in all sectors, and I think you would see huge amounts of increased entrepreneurial
00:53:09.200 activity across Canada.
00:53:11.820 Help the risk takers.
00:53:12.980 Exactly.
00:53:14.060 Yeah.
00:53:14.940 All right.
00:53:15.420 Thank you both so much.
00:53:16.900 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.
00:53:18.960 My name is Brian Lilly, your host.
00:53:20.580 This episode was produced by Andre Pruth.
00:53:22.620 Theme music by Bryce Hall.
00:53:24.560 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.
00:53:26.700 Please make sure that you hit subscribe.
00:53:28.700 Share this on social media.
00:53:30.120 Tell your friends about us.
00:53:31.620 Thanks for listening.
00:53:32.460 Until next time, I'm Brian Lilly.
00:53:33.920 here's that clip from canada did what season two that we promised for you
00:53:41.480 and i will tell you that there was the vast majority of the people
00:53:49.000 that we went to look for that we went to locate uh we had no problem finding them
00:53:56.440 approximately a third of them we found literally in the phone book these were
00:54:02.540 these people were not afraid. They knew that nobody was effectively hunting them. They knew
00:54:08.940 they had escaped justice, that they were going to die in their beds, and they felt comfortable.
00:54:15.000 The usually cited figure is that several hundred Nazi war criminals settled in Canada after 1945.
00:54:21.760 After the war, you have massive streams of refugees moving into countries in the Western
00:54:26.340 Hemisphere. The term at the time was displaced persons, or DPs. We'll get into this, but a lot
00:54:33.500 of these war criminals weren't German. The Holocaust was disproportionately committed by
00:54:38.080 non-Germans acting under German orders. The Nazis show up, they enlist whatever police force or
00:54:44.040 militia groups are around to helping the occupation, and it's those groups that are 0.98
00:54:48.560 ordered to round up and murder Jews. After the war, Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, is
00:54:54.520 completely in ruins. If you were a Nazi collaborator, it was a very easy place to take 0.63
00:54:59.540 off your uniform, rip up your identity cards, and pretend to be someone else. As refugee streams 1.00
00:55:05.940 moved into places like Canada, there were groups at the time warning that it was a perfect conduit
00:55:11.740 for war criminals looking to escape justice. The Canadian Jewish Congress specifically told Ottawa
00:55:17.540 that even though Canada was barring immigration to veterans of the German military, any number of
00:55:23.280 these foreign collaborators could be slipping in. But as will be a theme of this podcast,
00:55:28.940 Ottawa didn't listen to them. If you want to hear the rest of the story,
00:55:33.140 make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What? Everywhere you get your podcasts.