Canada’s immigration DISASTER
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Summary
In this episode of Not Sorry, we re expanding on our immigration episode to start the program last week with Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner. She s the longtime prominent conservative MP for Calgary Nosehill and the shadow minister of immigration. Michelle s work on the file has been immense, from op-eds across multiple publications to Twitter posts and articles that have received millions in engagement, to producing her own podcasts and reaching a sub-stack audience only rivaled in size by Canadian independents like Candice Malcolm and Candace Malcolm.
Transcript
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Welcome back to another episode of Not Sorry here on Juno News. I'm host Alexander Brown.
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I'm a writer. I'm the director of the National Citizens Coalition. And I'm thrilled to be here
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and to be speaking to the Juno audience. I've got a great promo code that you're more than
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welcome to take advantage of. That's junonews.com slash not sorry to get 20% off. And I'm thrilled
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to have on the show this week, expanding on our immigration episode to start the program last
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week, Michelle Rempel-Garner. She's the longtime prominent conservative MP for Calgary Nosehill
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and the shadow minister of immigration. Michelle's work on the file has been immense, from op-eds
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across multiple publications to Twitter posts and articles that have received millions in
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engagement. She's even producing her own podcasts and reaching a sub-stack audience only rivaled
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in size by Canadian independents like here at Juno News and Candace Malcolm. To the credit of
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Michelle and her efforts as a big blue tent communicator, now is the time for economies
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of scale on the center and the right when it comes to newsletters, publications, and broadcasting
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to do all that we can to prevent the continuation of the last 10 years and to solidify gains back
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towards common sense and something more familiar. As a writer, campaigner, and communicator who has
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spent an awful lot of time on the liberals' broken immigration system and helping communicate the
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extent of that damage in an effort to better inform the public, hold those who broke it to account,
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and move the needle on public opinion to get dire changes made, Michelle should be lauded for taking
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your shared concerns seriously, and we're lucky to have her in that role. If not for black swan bad luck
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and selective memory amongst the Brantford Boomer crowd, this would and should be her file to run
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with. We make up for that injustice and how unfortunate that is by sharing her work, heeding
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her warnings, and presenting a united front against excess, abuse, and rampant fraud. I'd encourage you to
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check out the latest Asylum Crisis Rant episode of her podcast, as well as a discussion on immigration and
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how conservative parties deal with the loss, with British Tory MP Tom Tuggenhat. In particular,
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and we reference in this interview, I'd like to recommend her excellent personal essay on national
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identity and integration, and how we have to return to the standards of the Harper years.
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The essay, Michelle's third in a summer op-ed series on non-obvious or uncomfortable problems that
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should be urgently addressed by the federal government, she strikes the kind of unapologetic,
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common-sense tone we would all benefit from seeing more of in politics. In the piece,
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Sheila laments how Canada was a nation where diverse voices coexisted in balance,
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creating a richer whole. Canada's identity has only recently eroded into a fragmented,
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ghettoized cacophony amid high immigration, a lack of clear integration standards. This absence of a
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cohesive national identity makes it impossible for newcomers to integrate into something undefined,
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attributing this erosion to decades of policies that prioritize differences over shared values.
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We can lay the blame on the liberals and the Trudeaus, both of them, but there have been many
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who helped in that managed decline. As highlighted in the work here recently and in our first episode
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and a column, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who claims to be a conservative, has certainly played a part
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there. Despite scenes of temporary and reflexive elbows-up patriotism, post-national policies
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continue to dismantle our shared Canadian identity in favor of globalism and division. Policies like
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relaxed citizenship requirements, tolerance of imported conflicts, and the erasure of national symbols
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have resulted in a fractured nation where liberal boomers lack perspective and accountability,
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and then youth then lack buy-in, and we even see hate crimes are on a historic rise. Without an urgent
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and serious reversal or a return to 2014's immigration targets, standards, and integration efforts,
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I'm of the opinion there's little point of attempting to solve for any of our other issues,
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because Canada won't really exist anymore. We're thrilled to have Michelle Rempel-Garner
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on the show today, and I hope you enjoy the interview.
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All right, we're thrilled to welcome on Michelle Rempel-Garner to the Not Sorry show on Juneau News
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with Alexander Brown. Michelle is the Shadow Minister of Immigration. She's a long-time conservative MP
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for the riding of Calgary Nose Hill. She is now, to me, the most important person in Parliament as the
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Shadow Minister of Immigration, because you have Canada's biggest dumpster fire to hold to account.
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You have what was once sort of the immigration system that was the envy of the Western world,
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has fallen into all kinds of disrepair and monkey business over the last few years.
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We're not doing right by our kids. We're not doing right by our grandkids,
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our present, our workers, even our newcomers. And so, Michelle, thank you for joining us.
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And then, gee, immigration, to me, is now the biggest issue in Canada for a few reasons.
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Why is it the biggest issue, would you say, to you? Why do we need such an urgent fix to this file?
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Well, maybe I'll start with what you said to introduce the segment, which is it is a dumpster
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fire, but it's not because of the people who want to come to Canada, right? And you mentioned that the
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consensus for immigration in Canada has broken down. And I think that's such a tragedy.
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It's not the fault of people who want to come here. It is squarely, squarely the fault of the
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Liberal government for mismanaging all of the immigration processes, but also for not aligning
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immigration levels with the basics that everybody in Canada needs to succeed, newcomers or not,
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like health care, housing, jobs, right? So I think that restoring, if we don't restore
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the integrity of the immigration system, there's so many different things in Canada that will fall
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apart more than they already are. And, you know, even just from that moral perspective of restoring
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the consensus for immigration that many Canadians once had that don't any longer, I think that's
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important too. But certainly right now, there's immediate action that needs to be taken. It doesn't
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feel like the Liberals understand that. You know, immigration levels need to come way down.
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The backlogs that they have for processing asylum claims, for example, like it incents people to
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abuse the system. So there's so many things. But, you know, the loss of that consensus, it's really a tragedy.
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And, you know, the Liberals, if they care about this country, if they care about our national identity,
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then they should be looking to fix that mess very quickly. And, you know, conservatives, we're here to put
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Yeah, I think about, I don't know if you saw this a few, I think it was over the long weekend,
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Immigration Canada started putting out tweets being like, hey, please don't commit asylum fraud.
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And I'm thinking, gee, I don't think we used to have to do that. Like there's bullet points about,
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you know, please don't take advantage of the system. And in some ways, that's actually represents
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damning with faint praise, but a kind of progress that they're at least announcing, like, please
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no longer, you know, take advantage of this system. But surely when you have to put messages like that
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out, they are, without fully admitting it, like it is, it is a sign that something has gone seriously
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Well, I mean, maybe for your listeners, it's important to walk through what does happen right
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So the asylum system, or, you know, bringing people to Canada as refugees, it was designed
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to provide safety and safe haven to the most persecuted people on the planet. You know,
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over 10 years ago, it's actually, we're recording this pretty near to, I think it's the 11 year
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anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, right? These are people who ISIS came in and raped their
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children, you know, killed their women, killed 10s of 1000s of people. And they were kind of, like,
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pushed from their homeland. They, they're some of the most persecuted people on the planet. And yet, it
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took, you know, a huge effort for the system to recognize them in Canada, right? Now, by contrast,
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somebody who illegally crosses the border from upstate New York, after having reached the safety of the
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United States of America, of America, can make an asylum claim, there's still loopholes in the safe
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third country agreement that allow for this. And then it takes years to process their claims, they can appeal
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these claims. And all the while, they're drawing benefits, they're entitled to work. And people like
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somebody who has reached the safety of the United States of America is not in the same need of asylum as
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somebody who just experienced a genocide in another part of the world where their persecutors are
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still actively pursuing them. So, like, it's just that, like, it's important for people to understand
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that, like, the system was designed to protect people who are in need. And now it's incenting people
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to abuse the system. And that's a reality that the liberals have to just admit, right, in order to start
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fixing the program. So saying, like, oh, please don't come and abuse the system. It's like, well,
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we'll make the system such that it's not abusable. Yeah, right. And that's what they need to do
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quickly. Yeah. And we've seen too, over the last few years, like the data has been coming in that
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the asylum system, it's not just the sort of Quebec border crosser. It's the foreign student whose visa is
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expiring. And all of a sudden, the parents who gave them the dough from the family farm to come
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over here, evidently now that's an untenable situation they can't go back to, even though
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they go back for vacation. But now all of a sudden, you know, they're claiming asylum under some
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attempt at a protected status. And it's just such a outright desecration of, you know, the sanctity of
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the system. And you had a whole asylum rant episode of your podcast about this of late, which it was
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terrific. And it was an extended rant. It was it was it was 40 minutes and thoroughly well earned. And I
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and I enjoyed every second. But it's, I think regardless of where one sits on the political
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spectrum on these matters, like, we had such a proud, I mean, gee, our reputation in the 80s and 90s
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was sort of founded on like our role as a peacekeeper, Canada's role as a peacekeeper, which
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we don't even hear much about anymore. And we wanted to be welcoming to the world and to those
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who are fleeing conflict, and in really difficult situations in dire straits. And now we have diploma
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mill students and folks who are already in the US and we're about to get the boot taking advantage of
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this system. Borrowing from your asylum rant episode. Is there is there a specific action item
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that you could give the government right now if you could to say like, this is an immediate fix for
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this stream when the house resumes in September, I want to see this?
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Well, I already started doing this before the house rose in June, right? I had the immigration
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minister in front of the House of Commons, just even asking basic questions like, okay, there are a lot
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of people, you know, estimates vary between, you know, several hundred thousand to several million
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of people in Canada who are either on expired or about to expire visas. How, what's, what's the plan
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to get them to leave? Yeah. Right. So there's action item number one. We're on the honor system.
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They need a comprehensive plan to, to, to address that issue. Our party leader, Pierre Polyev has been
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out talking about the need to massively curtail immigration levels writ large because we don't
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have that infrastructure, healthcare, housing jobs to support the levels of people that are coming
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into Canada. And that's not fair to anybody, as you said, newcomers alike. Right. Yeah. Um, and then from
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there, I mean, like how is it the liberals have allowed a backlog of, I think it's 300,000 asylum claims
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to, to, to, to generate, to populate. Uh, I mean, people, people shouldn't be waiting four or five
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plus years to have their asylum claim looked at. It should be almost instantly, right. There should
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be decisions very, made very quickly. Um, instead of, you know, this, this endless delay while people
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can draw benefits and they might not have a valid claim to begin with. Um, you know, I could, I could go on
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and on like, and, and we will like, this is kind of a teaser, but obviously in the fall, I'm, I'm here
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in Ottawa in the middle of the summer, we're preparing, the conservative party is preparing a
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very robust, critical and constructive, um, like litigation of this issue in the fall against the
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liberals, because if they can't figure this out, then we will, right. Because it's too important to
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the country to not get this right. And again, I don't blame somebody for wanting to come to Canada
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to build a better life. I blame the liberals for messing up the system so badly that either,
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you know, people who play by the rules, they can't do that. Or people that come here and are
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abusing the system are getting benefits that are, that shouldn't go to them. Right. So liberals have
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to fix this. This is so critical to the country, to maintaining our pluralism, to maintaining our
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democratic institutions. And I just, it has to happen. And, you know, they've got a really weak
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minister. Uh, the prime minister very rarely talks about this issue. And it, as you said, it's, it's
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one of the top two issues for a lot of people in the country right now.
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It is. And I think of, gee, over the long weekend, my, my wife and I, we were, we went up the sunshine
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coast for a few days. And for those who don't know anything about the geography of, of British
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Columbia, it's a highway doesn't reach there. So you have to take a ferry, even though it's still
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mainland. And it was kind of like, we, we slipped and hit our heads and we went back to the 1990s
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because we were, we were looking at all these local positions and they were, they were staffed
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by the local kids. Like they were staffed by 20 somethings and 30 somethings. Like there hasn't
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been this sort of temporary foreign worker explosion there. But I know that that's not the case
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in towns like Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton. We've seen there's stats can data today that I
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believe trending politics put out a post that shows sort of unemployment by province. Uh, if you look
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at Ontario, it's around 7% out in Atlanta, Canada, it's 10%. And yet you look at the United States
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and, and yes, we're, we're, we've got some beef with them right now, but it's, you know, it's closer
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to 4%. And so I'm in a piece with, uh, in the hub with Matt spoke, uh, talking about immigration
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and immigration data in Ontario and how worried we are about these young kids. And how do we,
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it's, it's one thing to talk about, I suppose, fixing the asylum stream and putting this all back
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together, but it's, how do we get these jobs back to, to young Canadians and young, new Canadians
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and, and because I worry increasingly, and I know you do too, and you, you put this in your
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communications and your columns where it's like, what do we do about these kids? Like they're
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already struggling with, with AI changing everything they knew or expected about their
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potential job stream. And now, and now we're looking at youth unemployment in areas like Toronto that
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is, seems to be tracking around 20%. The CNE applications to the CNE fair in Toronto were like up 300%
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just over the last three years. I think there was over 50,000 job applications. So, so what the heck
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do we do in addition, in regards to the, the temporary foreign worker program and, and trying to make sure
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that we, we were respecting employers who have specific needs, but also like launching the Canadian
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worker and doing right by young Canadians. Great question. Um, and I think I'll start answering it
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by reemphasizing a couple of the points that you made, like fact-based. Yeah. So we are in a youth
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unemployment crisis in Canada right now. I mean, both qualitatively, the data shows that and
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quantitatively one in five students returning to school this fall do not have a job this summer.
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So we're in, we're, we're in a youth jobs crisis. And then I, as you mentioned, I wrote a column
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showing that the, about how the possible disruptions that AI, as it was one example, could have for entry
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level job prospects, making that a lot worse, even in the very short term, right? So you have a situation
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where we already have a youth unemployment crisis in Canada. We are virtually alone in developed countries
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in this. It's not the same in other countries. And then we've got possible extra disruptions to the labor
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market that are going to make things worse. So why would the government be bringing in temporary low skilled
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workers to compete with Canadians for jobs? It's bananas to me, especially in areas of high unemployment. So, you
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know, where, how do we fix the program? You have to start with the principle of Canadian jobs should go to
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Canadians first, right? And I largely don't buy a lot of the lobbying that some of the big users and abusers
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of low skilled TFWs make, which is that Canadians don't want to do these jobs, or that, you know,
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they try to hire Canadians, and like, there's just no, there's just no labor. I just don't believe that.
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I do believe that the use and abuse of the TFW program over the last decade under liberal policies
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has allowed abusers of the TFW program to distort wages writ large in the country. And actually,
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I think depress or suppress wage growth in certain areas. You know, we also have the principle of
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labor mobility in the country, right? I also don't buy that, like, the people don't want to move across
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the country from areas of high unemployment to other areas, we should be looking what the government
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should be doing is saying, like, how do we partner with everybody to, to, to, to help employ people who
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are here, especially in areas of the country where there may be, you know, regionally rare, low
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unemployment. There are a need for, like, a perennial need for seasonal agricultural workers. These are,
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these are difficult to fill jobs in any scenario, they're seasonal, because of their seasonal nature. So
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there's probably a need to carve off that component of this, but like, big, big time reductions in other
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areas. And again, like, I encourage people to look at the data. There's several sites that post all of
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the TFWs, the labor market impact assessments that were granted in people's regions, they can see the
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types of jobs that employers are getting, like, like, like basic administrative assistance, you know,
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hospitality workers in major urban centers, like, these, these are positions that should be filled by
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Canadians. Yeah, and the government is making it way too easy for the abuse of this program and, and for
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youth, Canadian youth to lose opportunities for jobs. And it's got, it's got to change massively and
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quickly. Yeah, I mean, it strikes me increasingly talking to, to those who try to defend some of what's
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happened, that whether it's seemingly an outright lie, or a kind of cope, when they talk about labor
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shortage, and you get the, oh, these kids don't want to work. And then you go, well, then why were there
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54,000 job applications to the CNE? Exactly. Why do, when I talk to, how come, you know, I interface with
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these young Canadians a lot in my work. And it's, you know, when I talked to a guy in their 20s, who tells me
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he's, you know, handed out 200 resumes and gone absolutely nowhere. That's, that's not just anecdotal. It's, it's
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because there's thousands of him, because it is, it is just, it's an evergreen experience. And so, gee, I
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understand that maybe some of these companies are not acting in bad faith. But in some ways, the
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federal government has opened up the fire hose to sort of cheap, lowered skilled labor, that really
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undercuts these kids and sets them up for failure and a kind of replacement in the labor force. How do
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we also, after sort of giving them an inch and them taking a mile, is it even possible to wean these
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companies, some of these corporations off of this, this new sort of underclass? It absolutely is,
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because it's been done before, you know, former Alberta premier, but then he was the minister in
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charge of this program, Jason Kenney under the former conservative government made substantive
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changes to the temporary foreign worker program. I was in the government at that point in time. And I
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remember the kicking and screaming from, you know, I won't name the exact names, but you know,
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chain restaurants coming and saying, wow, I can't pot, how am I going to, how am I going to open this
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up? And it's like, well, how did you not price this into your business model? How did you not think
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about labor? And why aren't you making more of an effort to hire Canadians? So Jason Kenney, he did make
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those changes. All the liberals had to do was, like, we had taken the political heat for doing
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this. There was already an adjustment. It was a phased in process, right? Like the phasing in was
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happening, that weaning off process, if you will. And, and the liberals reversed all of it. They
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reversed all of it and went way further, right? When you look across other areas of foreign labor streams,
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like the issuance of foreign student visas, for example, who are allowed to work when they're in
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Canada. So all the liberals had to do was just not reverse the changes. The changes have been made,
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right? But they were, you know, I think that there was a certain amount of capture from lobbies that
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were like, well, of course, no Canadian wants to do this work. And it's like, I don't buy it.
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I don't buy it. Because I know, and you know, Alex, like, we know people who are hopeless, like young
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Canadians who are hopeless about finding a prospect of work and building a better life for them in Canada,
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Canada, in Canada. And that's not fair to anybody. So you know, like, pardon me for doing my job and
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wanting to advocate for people who can't find work because of a government program that is distorting
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wages and removing opportunity from them. That's not right. It's not right. And somebody has to be
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standing up for these workers. And apparently, that's not the liberals right now. It's mind boggling.
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No, and I worry about the language they've used recently, Lena Diab, before going away for the
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summer. And we've been seeing a lot of you this summer, we haven't been seeing a lot of her,
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which is, you know, slightly, you know, alarming, remarkably incompetent. Well, that's I kind of
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understand why they don't want to put her out. She was woefully unprepared for basic debate in the
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House of Commons. She doesn't know her file, you know, like, it shouldn't it didn't take a rocket
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scientist to figure out what I was going to ask her in the first session of Parliament, like,
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like, it's literally in the newspaper every day. And she couldn't. So so like, anyway, sorry,
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that was my therapeutic rant. I just I'm shocked they put such a weak minister in that position.
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Yeah, because I mean, like, I'm going to butcher his name. So I'm just going to call him Gary A.
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Well, like when it came to the public safety minister, too, it's like, he's in charge of,
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of, of gun legislation. He doesn't know what an RPAL is. He, he has to abstain from certain files
00:24:28.320
because he has like Tamil tiger associations. And you're going, I thought you guys were supposed
00:24:32.980
to be serious. I thought you were supposed to be different. This, you know, this looks a whole lot
00:24:37.680
like the last 10 years. I just don't think Carney cares about these files. Yeah, like, and I really
00:24:44.720
don't think that he has the chops and understanding on how, like, you know, I'll use the term social policy,
00:24:51.580
if you will, like immigration justice, how, you know, the woke policies of his predecessor,
00:24:57.560
and most of his cabinet of the last 10 years, has created all of these structural problems in
00:25:02.620
the country that they have to get on top of. So you know, putting, like, I think Lena is what the
00:25:08.880
like, seven or eighth immigration minister, it's been a real rogues gallery of like, you needed to
00:25:14.900
have, he needed to have one of his strongest players, and somebody who can lean into the bureaucracy
00:25:20.620
and across, you know, these industries that have sprung up around, you know, temporary foreign
00:25:27.500
labor and advocacy for, you know, abuse of the system, essentially, he needed to have somebody
00:25:32.720
who was like, No, not today, not with what's at stake for the country, we are going to make some
00:25:36.820
changes. And, you know, like, to me, it, like being kind of a pundit, it to me shows me that he really
00:25:43.780
doesn't care about the file to put somebody as weak as her there.
00:25:46.620
Yeah, I worry about those political instincts, which it can be nice to have an outsider, but we
00:25:51.800
also know that he's not truly an outsider. But quite early on, you see an obliviousness with the
00:25:58.440
public, you see a lack of interest on like, meaningful files, you have, after Sean Frazier
00:26:04.020
and Mark Miller, like, to not turn around and go, like, here's a heavy hitter who like, is going to
00:26:09.540
cut down an entire racket at this point, like, like a fraud network, like you see some of these schools
00:26:15.300
and go like, you're not even trying. Like, I've, I've talked to teachers at some of these schools,
00:26:19.400
and they, they sat down for a week and tried to teach. And then we're like, this is just,
00:26:24.020
they're not even attempting to make this look real, I quit. And so you needed somebody there,
00:26:31.680
Yeah. And I should say, as much as I just, you know, ranted about her, I hope she succeeds.
00:26:37.300
She has to succeed in reforming the system.
0.84
00:26:40.560
You know, there's a lot that needs to be done for, for all the reasons that we've, we've
00:26:46.620
already talked about. But there, there needs to be critical and immediate reforms to the
00:26:52.200
system. Like levels need to come way down. They need to be tying levels to things like
00:26:58.160
healthcare. They need to be factoring in technological change like AI to like the amount of temporary
00:27:06.300
permits that they're, they're, they're issuing to the country. And that takes political will,
00:27:10.960
and it takes a heart for the people of Canada, a heart for the newcomers of Canada to just
0.90
00:27:15.620
look across all the, you know, the BS and say, no, we're doing what's right by this country.
00:27:20.660
And what's right by this country right now is not allowing the status quo to fester.
00:27:24.400
So I hope she, like my job as an opposition critic will be to mercilessly and relentlessly
00:27:30.820
prosecute the failings of the government on this file and offer solutions, right?
00:27:35.200
Where appropriate and advocate for them. But her, what she should be doing, if she's a
00:27:40.640
smart cabinet minister is being like, she's giving me space within cabinet to push for
1.00
00:27:45.240
reforms, right? She was an immigration minister, not a great one in a provincial government for
00:27:50.600
10 years. She had a lot of controversy and scandal, but she should, in theory, be able to
00:27:56.920
You know, we can only pray that there's, um, that there's some positive movement there.
00:28:02.660
Yeah. And so it, it kind of falls to you to like expand that social license for them.
00:28:06.920
And then on folks like me on, on an audience like this. And so going into the fall, going
00:28:13.160
into, to how important and crazy this all is. And this dire need for change, like what's
00:28:18.420
an action item for this audience? What is, because we all feel frustrated. I think about
00:28:24.000
the results of the federal election, but this gets worse in a vacuum. If we all just like
00:28:28.560
collapse in the street and go, nothing's going to change. Like how do we, how do we sort of
00:28:33.080
embolden people? Like how do we, how do we keep the momentum and, and, and continue that
00:28:38.180
growth that you, you see in, in, in the numbers for the election on the conservative side?
00:28:43.120
Like I want to, I don't want to just go away from, from talks like this. And I'm, and I'm lucky
00:28:49.260
to get to talk to you and just say like, we'll see. It's like, how can I better inform this
00:28:54.780
audience? How can we, we lead them to, to really forcing change and how do we make the
00:29:02.040
It's a great question. And I would start with this principle. Don't let the liberals
00:29:06.120
off the hook for this, right? Often when we talk about immigration, like when people talk
00:29:10.480
about immigration, they talk about the symptoms and it can be construed as the fault of somebody
00:29:15.020
who wants to come to Canada, who, to make a better life for themselves, right? Like nobody
00:29:19.720
should be faulted for wanting what our country in theory should promise to the world.
00:29:24.140
I would tell your listeners to, to, to, to, to put the blame for the loss of acceptance
00:29:31.060
of immigration and the extremely high levels of immigration without those, the support of
00:29:36.840
housing, healthcare and jobs, the blame has to go to the liberal government. I don't want
00:29:41.060
to be sitting in the house of commons, litigating, you know, having liberals be like, well, you
00:29:46.480
know, with proof points, this is, you know, X, Y, and Z don't actually want immigration.
00:29:51.960
We don't need a blah, blah, blah. It's like the kids don't want to work.
00:29:54.740
You messed up the system and to make it work. And it goes beyond. And I guess the second part
00:30:00.360
of my ask to your audience would be, you know, there's a lot of, I see a lot of talk online about
00:30:06.500
multiculturalism, right? And does multiculturalism work? Was it a bad policy? Was it a good policy?
0.71
00:30:12.300
But all of that discussion kind of misses the point because multiculturalism can't function
1.00
00:30:18.140
if we don't have strong democratic institutions like freedom of speech, freedom of religion,
00:30:24.420
a strong judiciary that puts criminals behind bars, that enforces a shared rule of law, right?
00:30:31.700
That keeps foreign interference out of our election processes. Multiculturalism can't function without
1.00
00:30:38.580
those things. And it's been the liberals that have destroyed those institutions on purpose,
00:30:44.520
right? With like a post-national vibe to it. So when people are talking, the second thing I would
00:30:50.320
say is when you're talking about multiculturalism in Canada, talk about how the liberals buy eroding
00:30:56.840
the justice system, eroding freedom of speech and allowing more censorship, you know, making it
00:31:02.520
difficult for certain groups of people in this country to practice their faith and so on and so forth.
00:31:07.500
That is what makes multiculturalism impossible in a country, right? So in order to fix that beauty
0.99
00:31:14.500
that we had 10 years ago, I mean, like, this was not an issue under Stephen Harper and the
00:31:19.460
conservative government. Like, immigration was not cracking the top 10 as an issue. And why?
00:31:24.880
It's because the system works, right? But we also had a national identity. Instead of, you know,
00:31:31.240
the Justin Trudeau woke, there is no national identity to this country. We don't have,
00:31:35.820
you know, Stephen Guibault, the minister of national identity now is like, well, there's
00:31:39.400
no one way to be Canadian. He couldn't articulate anything about those democratic institutions
00:31:45.020
needing to be there. That's what needs to change. So, you know, if we have the public talking about
00:31:50.560
those two issues in a constructive way and putting the blame back on the liberal government
00:31:54.520
and asking for change, then change will happen, right? Then my job becomes easier. Then it's not,
00:31:59.700
it's just not like a heavy lift for awareness. Yeah. It's, you know, being able to get policy
00:32:04.060
through. Okay. And so it falls on us then, me and the listeners to answer that call. Because
00:32:11.360
I would also encourage folks to read, Michelle has a terrific piece on her Twitter right now
00:32:16.880
about like integration and what's lacking there, where it's like that, you know, these,
00:32:21.120
there's a lack of connective tissue now and identity and what that all means and how we can't
00:32:25.760
just be balkanized and different. We've got to come together. And so, Michelle, thank you so much
00:32:31.400
for joining us. These have been terrific points. I've, I've learned a lot. I hope the audience has
00:32:35.840
too. And, you know, thanks so much for your important work right now.
00:32:40.040
Thanks for having me. And thanks for talking about this issue.
00:32:43.520
Thank you for joining us here at Juno News and this interview with Michelle Rempel-Garner.
00:32:48.000
For more from Juno and to support vital independent journalism on, on issues like immigration and,
00:32:54.640
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right below. That's junonews.com slash not sorry. I've been Alexander Brown. For more from me,
00:33:05.220
you're welcome to follow me on Twitter at AlexBrown17. You can find my work at the National Citizens
00:33:10.560
Coalition at nationalcitizens.ca, or you can find more of my writing on Substack at acceptableviews.substack.com.