Juno News - Canada’s immigration DISASTER

00:00:00.000 Welcome back to another episode of Not Sorry here on Juno News. I'm host Alexander Brown.

00:00:09.640 I'm a writer. I'm the director of the National Citizens Coalition. And I'm thrilled to be here

00:00:15.900 and to be speaking to the Juno audience. I've got a great promo code that you're more than

00:00:20.440 welcome to take advantage of. That's junonews.com slash not sorry to get 20% off. And I'm thrilled

00:00:27.240 to have on the show this week, expanding on our immigration episode to start the program last

00:00:33.240 week, Michelle Rempel-Garner. She's the longtime prominent conservative MP for Calgary Nosehill

00:00:39.280 and the shadow minister of immigration. Michelle's work on the file has been immense, from op-eds

00:00:44.540 across multiple publications to Twitter posts and articles that have received millions in

00:00:49.220 engagement. She's even producing her own podcasts and reaching a sub-stack audience only rivaled

00:00:54.800 in size by Canadian independents like here at Juno News and Candace Malcolm. To the credit of

00:00:59.580 Michelle and her efforts as a big blue tent communicator, now is the time for economies 1.00

00:01:03.560 of scale on the center and the right when it comes to newsletters, publications, and broadcasting

00:01:08.420 to do all that we can to prevent the continuation of the last 10 years and to solidify gains back

00:01:14.620 towards common sense and something more familiar. As a writer, campaigner, and communicator who has

00:01:20.360 spent an awful lot of time on the liberals' broken immigration system and helping communicate the

00:01:25.540 extent of that damage in an effort to better inform the public, hold those who broke it to account,

00:01:31.400 and move the needle on public opinion to get dire changes made, Michelle should be lauded for taking 1.00

00:01:36.820 your shared concerns seriously, and we're lucky to have her in that role. If not for black swan bad luck 0.99

00:01:43.600 and selective memory amongst the Brantford Boomer crowd, this would and should be her file to run

00:01:49.560 with. We make up for that injustice and how unfortunate that is by sharing her work, heeding

00:01:55.700 her warnings, and presenting a united front against excess, abuse, and rampant fraud. I'd encourage you to

00:02:03.020 check out the latest Asylum Crisis Rant episode of her podcast, as well as a discussion on immigration and

00:02:09.280 how conservative parties deal with the loss, with British Tory MP Tom Tuggenhat. In particular,

00:02:16.340 and we reference in this interview, I'd like to recommend her excellent personal essay on national

00:02:20.980 identity and integration, and how we have to return to the standards of the Harper years.

00:02:25.800 The essay, Michelle's third in a summer op-ed series on non-obvious or uncomfortable problems that

00:02:32.080 should be urgently addressed by the federal government, she strikes the kind of unapologetic,

00:02:36.680 common-sense tone we would all benefit from seeing more of in politics. In the piece,

00:02:42.960 Sheila laments how Canada was a nation where diverse voices coexisted in balance,

00:02:47.680 creating a richer whole. Canada's identity has only recently eroded into a fragmented,

00:02:53.820 ghettoized cacophony amid high immigration, a lack of clear integration standards. This absence of a

00:03:01.740 cohesive national identity makes it impossible for newcomers to integrate into something undefined,

00:03:07.440 attributing this erosion to decades of policies that prioritize differences over shared values.

00:03:14.360 We can lay the blame on the liberals and the Trudeaus, both of them, but there have been many 1.00

00:03:20.140 who helped in that managed decline. As highlighted in the work here recently and in our first episode

00:03:25.660 and a column, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who claims to be a conservative, has certainly played a part

00:03:33.080 there. Despite scenes of temporary and reflexive elbows-up patriotism, post-national policies

00:03:40.520 continue to dismantle our shared Canadian identity in favor of globalism and division. Policies like

00:03:47.320 relaxed citizenship requirements, tolerance of imported conflicts, and the erasure of national symbols

00:03:53.820 have resulted in a fractured nation where liberal boomers lack perspective and accountability,

00:03:59.240 and then youth then lack buy-in, and we even see hate crimes are on a historic rise. Without an urgent

00:04:06.720 and serious reversal or a return to 2014's immigration targets, standards, and integration efforts,

00:04:13.600 I'm of the opinion there's little point of attempting to solve for any of our other issues,

00:04:18.600 because Canada won't really exist anymore. We're thrilled to have Michelle Rempel-Garner

00:04:23.800 on the show today, and I hope you enjoy the interview.

00:04:27.220 All right, we're thrilled to welcome on Michelle Rempel-Garner to the Not Sorry show on Juneau News

00:04:34.360 with Alexander Brown. Michelle is the Shadow Minister of Immigration. She's a long-time conservative MP

00:04:41.020 for the riding of Calgary Nose Hill. She is now, to me, the most important person in Parliament as the

00:04:49.340 Shadow Minister of Immigration, because you have Canada's biggest dumpster fire to hold to account.

00:04:55.640 You have what was once sort of the immigration system that was the envy of the Western world,

00:05:02.620 has fallen into all kinds of disrepair and monkey business over the last few years.

00:05:07.580 We're not doing right by our kids. We're not doing right by our grandkids,

00:05:12.320 our present, our workers, even our newcomers. And so, Michelle, thank you for joining us.

00:05:19.440 And then, gee, immigration, to me, is now the biggest issue in Canada for a few reasons.

00:05:27.060 Why is it the biggest issue, would you say, to you? Why do we need such an urgent fix to this file?

00:05:40.660 Well, maybe I'll start with what you said to introduce the segment, which is it is a dumpster

00:05:46.040 fire, but it's not because of the people who want to come to Canada, right? And you mentioned that the

00:05:53.920 consensus for immigration in Canada has broken down. And I think that's such a tragedy.

00:05:59.140 It's not the fault of people who want to come here. It is squarely, squarely the fault of the 0.99

00:06:04.940 Liberal government for mismanaging all of the immigration processes, but also for not aligning

00:06:15.200 immigration levels with the basics that everybody in Canada needs to succeed, newcomers or not, 0.97

00:06:22.260 like health care, housing, jobs, right? So I think that restoring, if we don't restore

00:06:31.060 the integrity of the immigration system, there's so many different things in Canada that will fall

00:06:36.900 apart more than they already are. And, you know, even just from that moral perspective of restoring

00:06:43.180 the consensus for immigration that many Canadians once had that don't any longer, I think that's

00:06:49.280 important too. But certainly right now, there's immediate action that needs to be taken. It doesn't

00:06:55.960 feel like the Liberals understand that. You know, immigration levels need to come way down. 1.00

00:07:02.280 The backlogs that they have for processing asylum claims, for example, like it incents people to

00:07:08.020 abuse the system. So there's so many things. But, you know, the loss of that consensus, it's really a tragedy.

00:07:15.880 And, you know, the Liberals, if they care about this country, if they care about our national identity,

00:07:21.200 then they should be looking to fix that mess very quickly. And, you know, conservatives, we're here to put

00:07:28.060 pressure on them to do so.

00:07:29.720 Yeah, I think about, I don't know if you saw this a few, I think it was over the long weekend,

00:07:34.320 Immigration Canada started putting out tweets being like, hey, please don't commit asylum fraud.

00:07:40.460 And I'm thinking, gee, I don't think we used to have to do that. Like there's bullet points about,

00:07:46.640 you know, please don't take advantage of the system. And in some ways, that's actually represents

00:07:50.560 damning with faint praise, but a kind of progress that they're at least announcing, like, please

00:07:55.940 no longer, you know, take advantage of this system. But surely when you have to put messages like that 0.90

00:08:02.520 out, they are, without fully admitting it, like it is, it is a sign that something has gone seriously

00:08:08.360 awry.

00:08:09.840 Well, I mean, maybe for your listeners, it's important to walk through what does happen right

00:08:14.440 now.

00:08:14.840 Yeah, please.

00:08:15.180 So the asylum system, or, you know, bringing people to Canada as refugees, it was designed

00:08:22.920 to provide safety and safe haven to the most persecuted people on the planet. You know,

00:08:28.380 over 10 years ago, it's actually, we're recording this pretty near to, I think it's the 11 year

00:08:33.100 anniversary of the Yazidi genocide, right? These are people who ISIS came in and raped their

00:08:39.640 children, you know, killed their women, killed 10s of 1000s of people. And they were kind of, like, 0.96

00:08:47.180 pushed from their homeland. They, they're some of the most persecuted people on the planet. And yet, it

00:08:52.100 took, you know, a huge effort for the system to recognize them in Canada, right? Now, by contrast,

00:09:01.060 somebody who illegally crosses the border from upstate New York, after having reached the safety of the

00:09:06.800 United States of America, of America, can make an asylum claim, there's still loopholes in the safe

00:09:13.260 third country agreement that allow for this. And then it takes years to process their claims, they can appeal

00:09:20.280 these claims. And all the while, they're drawing benefits, they're entitled to work. And people like

00:09:28.300 somebody who has reached the safety of the United States of America is not in the same need of asylum as

00:09:34.480 somebody who just experienced a genocide in another part of the world where their persecutors are

00:09:39.620 still actively pursuing them. So, like, it's just that, like, it's important for people to understand

00:09:46.520 that, like, the system was designed to protect people who are in need. And now it's incenting people

00:09:52.420 to abuse the system. And that's a reality that the liberals have to just admit, right, in order to start

00:09:58.920 fixing the program. So saying, like, oh, please don't come and abuse the system. It's like, well,

00:10:03.780 we'll make the system such that it's not abusable. Yeah, right. And that's what they need to do

00:10:09.140 quickly. Yeah. And we've seen too, over the last few years, like the data has been coming in that

00:10:14.500 the asylum system, it's not just the sort of Quebec border crosser. It's the foreign student whose visa is

00:10:23.980 expiring. And all of a sudden, the parents who gave them the dough from the family farm to come

00:10:29.780 over here, evidently now that's an untenable situation they can't go back to, even though

00:10:35.120 they go back for vacation. But now all of a sudden, you know, they're claiming asylum under some

00:10:39.740 attempt at a protected status. And it's just such a outright desecration of, you know, the sanctity of

00:10:48.500 the system. And you had a whole asylum rant episode of your podcast about this of late, which it was

00:10:54.500 terrific. And it was an extended rant. It was it was it was 40 minutes and thoroughly well earned. And I

00:11:01.360 and I enjoyed every second. But it's, I think regardless of where one sits on the political

00:11:08.220 spectrum on these matters, like, we had such a proud, I mean, gee, our reputation in the 80s and 90s

00:11:15.800 was sort of founded on like our role as a peacekeeper, Canada's role as a peacekeeper, which

00:11:19.960 we don't even hear much about anymore. And we wanted to be welcoming to the world and to those

00:11:26.460 who are fleeing conflict, and in really difficult situations in dire straits. And now we have diploma

00:11:33.840 mill students and folks who are already in the US and we're about to get the boot taking advantage of 0.98

00:11:39.000 this system. Borrowing from your asylum rant episode. Is there is there a specific action item

00:11:47.660 that you could give the government right now if you could to say like, this is an immediate fix for

00:11:52.480 this stream when the house resumes in September, I want to see this?

00:11:57.840 Well, I already started doing this before the house rose in June, right? I had the immigration 1.00

00:12:02.900 minister in front of the House of Commons, just even asking basic questions like, okay, there are a lot

00:12:08.620 of people, you know, estimates vary between, you know, several hundred thousand to several million

00:12:13.220 of people in Canada who are either on expired or about to expire visas. How, what's, what's the plan

00:12:20.220 to get them to leave? Yeah. Right. So there's action item number one. We're on the honor system.

00:12:26.880 They need a comprehensive plan to, to, to address that issue. Our party leader, Pierre Polyev has been

00:12:33.360 out talking about the need to massively curtail immigration levels writ large because we don't

00:12:38.720 have that infrastructure, healthcare, housing jobs to support the levels of people that are coming

00:12:44.320 into Canada. And that's not fair to anybody, as you said, newcomers alike. Right. Yeah. Um, and then from

00:12:51.280 there, I mean, like how is it the liberals have allowed a backlog of, I think it's 300,000 asylum claims

00:12:58.480 to, to, to, to generate, to populate. Uh, I mean, people, people shouldn't be waiting four or five

00:13:05.420 plus years to have their asylum claim looked at. It should be almost instantly, right. There should 0.96

00:13:10.860 be decisions very, made very quickly. Um, instead of, you know, this, this endless delay while people

00:13:18.420 can draw benefits and they might not have a valid claim to begin with. Um, you know, I could, I could go on

00:13:25.700 and on like, and, and we will like, this is kind of a teaser, but obviously in the fall, I'm, I'm here

00:13:31.400 in Ottawa in the middle of the summer, we're preparing, the conservative party is preparing a

00:13:35.720 very robust, critical and constructive, um, like litigation of this issue in the fall against the

00:13:44.720 liberals, because if they can't figure this out, then we will, right. Because it's too important to

00:13:49.420 the country to not get this right. And again, I don't blame somebody for wanting to come to Canada

00:13:54.620 to build a better life. I blame the liberals for messing up the system so badly that either,

00:14:00.700 you know, people who play by the rules, they can't do that. Or people that come here and are

00:14:06.300 abusing the system are getting benefits that are, that shouldn't go to them. Right. So liberals have 0.99

00:14:13.800 to fix this. This is so critical to the country, to maintaining our pluralism, to maintaining our

00:14:19.560 democratic institutions. And I just, it has to happen. And, you know, they've got a really weak

00:14:24.820 minister. Uh, the prime minister very rarely talks about this issue. And it, as you said, it's, it's

00:14:29.940 one of the top two issues for a lot of people in the country right now.

00:14:33.640 It is. And I think of, gee, over the long weekend, my, my wife and I, we were, we went up the sunshine

00:14:39.120 coast for a few days. And for those who don't know anything about the geography of, of British

00:14:44.560 Columbia, it's a highway doesn't reach there. So you have to take a ferry, even though it's still

00:14:48.700 mainland. And it was kind of like, we, we slipped and hit our heads and we went back to the 1990s

00:14:54.800 because we were, we were looking at all these local positions and they were, they were staffed

00:14:58.460 by the local kids. Like they were staffed by 20 somethings and 30 somethings. Like there hasn't

00:15:02.720 been this sort of temporary foreign worker explosion there. But I know that that's not the case

00:15:09.120 in towns like Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton. We've seen there's stats can data today that I

00:15:16.400 believe trending politics put out a post that shows sort of unemployment by province. Uh, if you look

00:15:22.580 at Ontario, it's around 7% out in Atlanta, Canada, it's 10%. And yet you look at the United States

00:15:30.380 and, and yes, we're, we're, we've got some beef with them right now, but it's, you know, it's closer

00:15:35.080 to 4%. And so I'm in a piece with, uh, in the hub with Matt spoke, uh, talking about immigration

00:15:43.380 and immigration data in Ontario and how worried we are about these young kids. And how do we,

00:15:51.000 it's, it's one thing to talk about, I suppose, fixing the asylum stream and putting this all back 1.00

00:15:56.360 together, but it's, how do we get these jobs back to, to young Canadians and young, new Canadians

00:16:04.220 and, and because I worry increasingly, and I know you do too, and you, you put this in your

00:16:10.040 communications and your columns where it's like, what do we do about these kids? Like they're

00:16:13.960 already struggling with, with AI changing everything they knew or expected about their

00:16:18.960 potential job stream. And now, and now we're looking at youth unemployment in areas like Toronto that

00:16:24.600 is, seems to be tracking around 20%. The CNE applications to the CNE fair in Toronto were like up 300%

00:16:32.700 just over the last three years. I think there was over 50,000 job applications. So, so what the heck

00:16:38.820 do we do in addition, in regards to the, the temporary foreign worker program and, and trying to make sure

00:16:46.480 that we, we were respecting employers who have specific needs, but also like launching the Canadian

00:16:52.860 worker and doing right by young Canadians. Great question. Um, and I think I'll start answering it

00:16:59.540 by reemphasizing a couple of the points that you made, like fact-based. Yeah. So we are in a youth

00:17:04.780 unemployment crisis in Canada right now. I mean, both qualitatively, the data shows that and

00:17:10.220 quantitatively one in five students returning to school this fall do not have a job this summer.

00:17:15.620 So we're in, we're, we're in a youth jobs crisis. And then I, as you mentioned, I wrote a column

00:17:21.380 showing that the, about how the possible disruptions that AI, as it was one example, could have for entry

00:17:28.220 level job prospects, making that a lot worse, even in the very short term, right? So you have a situation

00:17:33.700 where we already have a youth unemployment crisis in Canada. We are virtually alone in developed countries

00:17:40.560 in this. It's not the same in other countries. And then we've got possible extra disruptions to the labor

00:17:46.480 market that are going to make things worse. So why would the government be bringing in temporary low skilled

00:17:52.600 workers to compete with Canadians for jobs? It's bananas to me, especially in areas of high unemployment. So, you 0.98

00:18:00.640 know, where, how do we fix the program? You have to start with the principle of Canadian jobs should go to

00:18:06.560 Canadians first, right? And I largely don't buy a lot of the lobbying that some of the big users and abusers

00:18:16.400 of low skilled TFWs make, which is that Canadians don't want to do these jobs, or that, you know,

00:18:22.700 they try to hire Canadians, and like, there's just no, there's just no labor. I just don't believe that.

00:18:27.960 I do believe that the use and abuse of the TFW program over the last decade under liberal policies

00:18:33.900 has allowed abusers of the TFW program to distort wages writ large in the country. And actually,

00:18:41.240 I think depress or suppress wage growth in certain areas. You know, we also have the principle of

00:18:46.940 labor mobility in the country, right? I also don't buy that, like, the people don't want to move across 0.97

00:18:53.660 the country from areas of high unemployment to other areas, we should be looking what the government

00:18:57.800 should be doing is saying, like, how do we partner with everybody to, to, to, to help employ people who

00:19:02.800 are here, especially in areas of the country where there may be, you know, regionally rare, low

00:19:08.060 unemployment. There are a need for, like, a perennial need for seasonal agricultural workers. These are,

00:19:17.820 these are difficult to fill jobs in any scenario, they're seasonal, because of their seasonal nature. So

00:19:24.380 there's probably a need to carve off that component of this, but like, big, big time reductions in other

00:19:32.920 areas. And again, like, I encourage people to look at the data. There's several sites that post all of

00:19:39.580 the TFWs, the labor market impact assessments that were granted in people's regions, they can see the

00:19:45.040 types of jobs that employers are getting, like, like, like basic administrative assistance, you know,

00:19:51.700 hospitality workers in major urban centers, like, these, these are positions that should be filled by

00:19:58.960 Canadians. Yeah, and the government is making it way too easy for the abuse of this program and, and for

00:20:05.400 youth, Canadian youth to lose opportunities for jobs. And it's got, it's got to change massively and

00:20:10.620 quickly. Yeah, I mean, it strikes me increasingly talking to, to those who try to defend some of what's

00:20:17.460 happened, that whether it's seemingly an outright lie, or a kind of cope, when they talk about labor

00:20:22.400 shortage, and you get the, oh, these kids don't want to work. And then you go, well, then why were there

00:20:27.380 54,000 job applications to the CNE? Exactly. Why do, when I talk to, how come, you know, I interface with

00:20:35.040 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

00:20:40.540 he's, you know, handed out 200 resumes and gone absolutely nowhere. That's, that's not just anecdotal. It's, it's

00:20:46.820 because there's thousands of him, because it is, it is just, it's an evergreen experience. And so, gee, I

00:20:55.660 understand that maybe some of these companies are not acting in bad faith. But in some ways, the

00:21:02.600 federal government has opened up the fire hose to sort of cheap, lowered skilled labor, that really

00:21:09.600 undercuts these kids and sets them up for failure and a kind of replacement in the labor force. How do

00:21:16.540 we also, after sort of giving them an inch and them taking a mile, is it even possible to wean these

00:21:24.420 companies, some of these corporations off of this, this new sort of underclass? It absolutely is,

00:21:31.240 because it's been done before, you know, former Alberta premier, but then he was the minister in

00:21:36.420 charge of this program, Jason Kenney under the former conservative government made substantive

00:21:41.260 changes to the temporary foreign worker program. I was in the government at that point in time. And I

00:21:46.180 remember the kicking and screaming from, you know, I won't name the exact names, but you know,

00:21:52.840 chain restaurants coming and saying, wow, I can't pot, how am I going to, how am I going to open this

00:21:58.160 up? And it's like, well, how did you not price this into your business model? How did you not think

00:22:02.360 about labor? And why aren't you making more of an effort to hire Canadians? So Jason Kenney, he did make

00:22:08.640 those changes. All the liberals had to do was, like, we had taken the political heat for doing

00:22:14.140 this. There was already an adjustment. It was a phased in process, right? Like the phasing in was

00:22:20.300 happening, that weaning off process, if you will. And, and the liberals reversed all of it. They

00:22:26.580 reversed all of it and went way further, right? When you look across other areas of foreign labor streams,

00:22:32.500 like the issuance of foreign student visas, for example, who are allowed to work when they're in

00:22:37.080 Canada. So all the liberals had to do was just not reverse the changes. The changes have been made,

00:22:43.520 right? But they were, you know, I think that there was a certain amount of capture from lobbies that

00:22:48.140 were like, well, of course, no Canadian wants to do this work. And it's like, I don't buy it.

00:22:53.120 I don't buy it. Because I know, and you know, Alex, like, we know people who are hopeless, like young

00:22:59.140 Canadians who are hopeless about finding a prospect of work and building a better life for them in Canada,

00:23:05.560 Canada, in Canada. And that's not fair to anybody. So you know, like, pardon me for doing my job and

00:23:12.760 wanting to advocate for people who can't find work because of a government program that is distorting

00:23:18.840 wages and removing opportunity from them. That's not right. It's not right. And somebody has to be

00:23:24.680 standing up for these workers. And apparently, that's not the liberals right now. It's mind boggling.

00:23:29.980 No, and I worry about the language they've used recently, Lena Diab, before going away for the 0.99

00:23:36.180 summer. And we've been seeing a lot of you this summer, we haven't been seeing a lot of her,

00:23:40.280 which is, you know, slightly, you know, alarming, remarkably incompetent. Well, that's I kind of

00:23:45.640 understand why they don't want to put her out. She was woefully unprepared for basic debate in the

00:23:51.760 House of Commons. She doesn't know her file, you know, like, it shouldn't it didn't take a rocket

00:23:57.160 scientist to figure out what I was going to ask her in the first session of Parliament, like,

00:24:02.420 like, it's literally in the newspaper every day. And she couldn't. So so like, anyway, sorry,

00:24:08.260 that was my therapeutic rant. I just I'm shocked they put such a weak minister in that position.

00:24:13.020 Yeah, because I mean, like, I'm going to butcher his name. So I'm just going to call him Gary A.

00:24:18.900 Well, like when it came to the public safety minister, too, it's like, he's in charge of,

00:24:22.540 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,

00:26:29.220 right? To, to crack down on that.

00:26:31.680 Yeah. And I should say, as much as I just, you know, ranted about her, I hope she succeeds.

00:26:35.260 She has to succeed, right?

00:26:37.180 Yeah, no kidding.

00:26:37.300 She has to succeed in reforming the system. 0.84

00:26:39.880 Yeah.

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

00:27:55.080 hit the ground running. Yeah.

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

00:28:59.040 liberals listen?

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 and fixing Canada after all that's been broken, take advantage of my promo code. It should be

00:32:59.440 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.

00:33:18.640 Thanks for being here.

00:33:24.640 Thank you.

Juno News - August 05, 2025

Canada’s immigration DISASTER

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