Juno News - February 10, 2026


Carney SCRAMBLES as Trump threatens to halt Canadian bridge


Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

162.59787

Word count

3,288

Sentence count

190

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Trump threatens to block the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge between the United States and Canada unless certain conditions are met. A liberal MP is comparing Conservative MP Jamil Javani to a Nazi-loving anti-Semite. A group that defends the rights of refugees says blaming mass immigration for the housing crisis is dangerous talk.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Well, Prime Minister Carney has asked President Trump not to block the opening of a new bridge
00:00:10.020 between the United States and Canada.
00:00:12.340 Trump threatened to stop the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge between Windsor
00:00:17.180 and Detroit unless certain conditions are met.
00:00:20.900 He and Carney spoke today.
00:00:22.940 So the first thing to say is there's a big game today.
00:00:25.900 And the President and I discussed the Canada-U.S. game.
00:00:31.340 And, of course, we're all behind our team.
00:00:35.640 Secondly, we discussed a number of issues, international issues.
00:00:40.460 Thirdly, we discussed the bridge.
00:00:42.740 I explained that Canada, of course, paid for the construction of the bridge over $4 billion,
00:00:48.600 that the ownership is shared between the state of Michigan and the government of Canada,
00:00:53.440 and that in the construction of the bridge, obviously, there's Canadian steel, Canadian workers,
00:00:59.880 but also U.S. steel, U.S. workers that are involved.
00:01:03.240 This is a great example of cooperation between our countries.
00:01:06.200 Look forward to it opening.
00:01:07.420 And what is particularly important, of course, is the commerce and the tourism
00:01:13.640 and the voyages of Canadians and Americans that will go across that bridge.
00:01:17.900 So the conversation turned to a series of issues that we will raise and we're going to follow up on.
00:01:24.540 I'm not going to go into detail on those issues.
00:01:26.680 These would be specific issues in parallel to the Kuzma negotiations.
00:01:32.100 Final point is the President asked appropriately that his ambassador, who's from Michigan,
00:01:39.060 of course, play a role in smoothing the conversation in and around the bridge.
00:01:44.180 So it was a positive conversation.
00:01:45.620 It's a big game today, and we're going to win.
00:01:49.980 Among other things, Trump is demanding half ownership of the $6.4 million structure.
00:01:55.940 He wrote this on Truth Social.
00:01:58.500 With all that we have given them, we should own perhaps at least one half of this asset.
00:02:05.420 The revenue is generated because of the United States market will be astronomical.
00:02:11.260 Premier Doug Ford says he has no doubt the bridge will open.
00:02:14.440 I'm very happy to hear that the Prime Minister spoke to President Trump.
00:02:19.960 And as for the bridge and President Trump's comments, make no mistake about it.
00:02:26.320 As sure as I'm talking to you, I'm very confident this bridge is going to open.
00:02:30.280 I'll tell you the reason why it's going to open, because it's in the best interest of the American economy,
00:02:35.180 the Americans, the 13 congresspeople that are going for re-election.
00:02:41.020 A liberal MP is comparing conservative Jamil Javani to a Nazi-loving anti-Semite.
00:02:47.320 MP John Paul Danko dismissed conservative MP as a freelancer after Javani met with President Trump.
00:02:55.800 Let's listen.
00:02:57.740 A U.S. is hostile government, deliberate destruction of global allegiances, and the stability that our country has relied on.
00:03:06.520 We have a Conservative Party of Canada's own, Unity Mitford, who is attempting to freelance negotiations with the American president right now.
00:03:13.880 Danko's reference to Unity Mitford refers to a notorious British woman who worshipped Hitler and joined the fascist movement.
00:03:23.160 By comparing Javani to Mitford, Danko is, by extension, comparing Trump to Hitler.
00:03:28.620 All this just months away from talks aimed at salvaging Canada's free trade deal with the United States.
00:03:34.240 A group that defends the rights of refugees says blaming mass immigration for the housing crisis is dangerous talk.
00:03:43.300 The chair of the Canadian Council for Refugees says there's no connection between the influx of millions of foreigners and the higher cost of housing.
00:03:52.520 The narratives wrongly blame current pressures on housing and social systems.
00:03:56.900 They're not only false, it's dangerous, and it undermines confidence in the immigration and refugee system. 1.00
00:04:02.020 I just wanted to go back to something you said earlier.
00:04:05.320 You claim that there's no correlation between rapid immigration growth of the last several years and the decrease of Canada's available housing supply.
00:04:13.620 Is that correct?
00:04:16.000 Yes, more or less.
00:04:17.040 I think they are.
00:04:17.960 So you think that, like, even though we had millions of people come in that had no impact on housing supply or prices in Canada?
00:04:25.240 I'm saying that the factors that drive the cost of housing and the availability of housing are much more related to the questions of the financialization of housing as an asset, rent control.
00:04:38.600 So policies that are...
00:04:40.240 You don't think bringing in millions of people in a very short period of time, like, that had no impact on housing, even though, like, major economists and most Canadians lived experiences otherwise.
00:04:51.980 I'm just asking from a perspective so that we can qualify your comments in a further report, because that seems a little bananas to me.
00:04:58.100 Meantime, Conservative leader Pierre Polyev says, if asylum claimants commit serious crimes in Canada, they should be kicked out of the country.
00:05:09.780 Our guest today is Michelle Rempel-Garner, MP for Calgary Nose Hill and Conservative immigration critic.
00:05:15.460 Welcome to the show, Michelle.
00:05:16.860 Thanks for having me.
00:05:17.620 It's a pleasure.
00:05:18.820 We have a proposal out there now to deal with the ongoing extortion issue.
00:05:24.440 I mean, we've seen it grow over the last few years, and it stems from some of the activities from people who are here as possible refugee claimants or asylum claimants.
00:05:35.680 You think that tough action should be taken on this matter.
00:05:38.300 Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:05:40.080 Yeah, and it's just not...
00:05:40.800 It's not just me or, you know, Conservative leader Pierre Polyev calling for this.
00:05:44.380 It's also NDP Premier from British Columbia, David Eby.
00:05:47.880 The extortion crisis, as you talked about, is rightly out of control in British Columbia.
00:05:52.360 There's, you know, small businesses are having their storefront shot.
00:05:57.460 Homes are becoming riddled with bullets.
00:05:59.560 And there's a whole series of failures that led to this point.
00:06:02.780 First of all, the Liberals put forward two bills over the last decade that have weakened penalties for serious crimes.
00:06:10.420 The whole catch-and-release Liberal bail system.
00:06:13.960 They haven't repealed those.
00:06:15.420 And then what we've seen recently is non-citizens who have been arrested for serious crimes like extortion and firearms violence going forward and making asylum claims, bogus asylum claims, and abusing the immigration system.
00:06:29.320 So the motion that we're currently debating in the House of Commons is to basically do a very non-partisan thing that even Premier David Eby talked about, which is to close these asylum abuse loopholes, as well as to make the streets safer for people who are living in communities that have been really targeted by extortionists.
00:06:50.660 I mean, there's been some judgments from the bench, from judges, who've sort of given some people sort of a break because they're going through immigration proceedings.
00:07:04.920 To what degree does that trouble you?
00:07:07.400 Now, I'm really glad that you raised this because I tabled a private member's bill on this, too.
00:07:12.480 So what you're talking about is that there's now an almost decade-long practice of judges giving more lenient sentences to non-citizens who have been convicted of serious crimes simply to allow them to avoid deportation.
00:07:29.300 And, you know, somebody who's a guest in Canada, they have an obligation to uphold the law, as any Canadian would as well.
00:07:36.180 But our laws also say that a non-citizen who is convicted of a serious crime should leave the country.
00:07:42.000 That's pretty common sense.
00:07:43.820 But many judges have been using a loophole to prevent that from happening.
00:07:50.580 My bill, which is supported by the Conservative Party of Canada, is a one-line, simple change to the criminal code, which would end that practice.
00:07:57.600 And I think restore common sense and order to the justice system.
00:08:01.180 And, you know, I think that not having these types of rules in place, which the Liberals could pass unanimously today, get that done, but they're not.
00:08:10.320 They're obstructing it.
00:08:11.160 But I think that that would speak to some of the challenges that people who are now having more hardened positions against immigration in Canada, you know, might be experiencing.
00:08:23.160 Now, you were at that committee proceeding when the chair of the Canadian Council for Refugees saw no real connection between the influx of millions of foreigners and the higher cost of housing.
00:08:33.260 I mean, you were perplexed by that answer.
00:08:36.020 I mean, the laws of supply and demand would suggest that more people coming in.
00:08:40.760 And if you don't meet the demand with more supply, the prices are going to go up.
00:08:45.340 Were you surprised that you got the answer you did?
00:08:47.580 I would like to say yes, but the answer is no.
00:08:51.640 I wasn't surprised.
00:08:53.020 The reality is, I'm glad you raised this.
00:08:55.480 We often see, particularly at the Immigration Committee, I call them the, you know, immigration intelligentsia in Canada.
00:09:05.300 Like, they're people who come from non-governmental organizations, whatnot, like, oftentimes they're powerful lobby groups who, in some cases within these organizations, have good intentions, but they repeat dogma that just isn't true.
00:09:23.460 Like, so the person that you're referring to, I was really sort of taken aback because she came in and led with the statement of essentially that bringing millions of people into Canada didn't have any impact on Canadian housing.
00:09:38.260 And those sorts of statements that are patently false, which is why I questioned her.
00:09:43.400 I gave her an opportunity.
00:09:44.760 I didn't just lay into her.
00:09:46.060 I gave her the opportunity to sort of recant or clarify what she said.
00:09:49.480 But those statements, like, they have to be challenged because, like, I mean, major economists, even the Bank of Canada have said that, you know, hey, the Liberals brought in millions and millions of people in a very short period of time.
00:10:03.660 Of course, that's going to have an impact on housing availability.
00:10:06.700 Like, it's, like you said, basic laws of supply and demand.
00:10:09.580 So, I mean, I would just encourage people who are particularly coming to the Immigration Committee, where we have a big landmark study that we're undertaking right now.
00:10:18.080 So, you know, using talking points from 2010, like, I think we all need to work together collaboratively to fix the fact that the immigration system is broken.
00:10:30.640 So just sort of repeating talking points from over a decade ago is not going to get to the point where we need to get.
00:10:37.780 We need constructive solutions.
00:10:38.960 Well, she not only said there was no correlation, she said that any discussion on the issue is dangerous.
00:10:45.380 So the danger of the talk, she used that word, suggesting that you shouldn't bring it up.
00:10:49.780 It seemed to be a case of her chastising anybody who would even suggest such a thing.
00:10:54.640 Well, you know, how I would characterize it, and again, I did give her a chance to clarify these comments, is it's gaslighting, right?
00:11:02.500 But what was interesting that the liberal, none of the liberal members challenged these statements, right?
00:11:08.920 And, you know, to me, it marks a clear contrast with my party.
00:11:12.080 We are saying, look, Canada's immigration system, we didn't have the type of conversation that we're having right now under conservative governments.
00:11:20.780 We just didn't.
00:11:21.560 That's because conservatives understand that you can't bring in more people than our housing, health care, and, you know, jobs economy can support.
00:11:32.040 And that's exactly what the liberals did.
00:11:33.840 They blew those numbers way out of the water, and that's not fair to anybody.
00:11:37.820 So to have somebody say, like, okay, sort of present a factual inaccuracy and then say it's dangerous to question that,
00:11:46.440 that's kind of the textbook definition of gaslighting, and that's not productive.
00:11:52.160 And so, of course, conservatives are going to call that out and not let those sorts of comments that impede progress on coming up with constructive solutions to stand.
00:12:05.120 Well, she said it was undermining trust in the current system and saying that that was a dangerous thing to do.
00:12:12.440 I mean, we've seen some polling recently suggest that there's less support by Canadians.
00:12:17.640 Canadians used to be all open for, you know, refugees and allowing people into the country and immigration.
00:12:24.500 There's never really been a whole lot of controversy around that.
00:12:28.360 But lately there's been, I would say, dropping support, dropping levels of support for that,
00:12:36.060 which kind of feeds into the her point, which is, you know, are we undermining trust in the current system?
00:12:41.480 I want to ask if that's actually going on and, you know, what are you seeing in your district over there in Calgary-Nose Hill?
00:12:49.180 I would just say this.
00:12:50.340 I don't, it's somebody who wants to come to Canada to build a better life. 0.98
00:12:54.700 I mean, there's hundreds of millions of people around the world who would love to come to Canada and resettle.
00:13:00.400 I don't blame anybody who wants to do that.
00:13:03.380 I think, though, what, where the Liberals went wrong is that, like I said earlier, they brought in too many people too fast for housing, health care and jobs to keep up.
00:13:13.200 So the question now is we have to fix the mess that the Liberals have created.
00:13:19.200 And when we talk about undermining trust, it was actually the action taken by the Liberals to bring in millions of people without thinking about things like how are they going to get health care?
00:13:30.460 Where are they going to live?
00:13:33.500 Are there enough jobs?
00:13:35.580 Those are the things that actually undermine public trust and broke Canada's immigration consensus. 0.55
00:13:40.320 I will say this.
00:13:41.760 It's not helpful to fix the problem to say that talking about the issue that everybody is living in Canada right now in a constructive way is somehow dangerous.
00:13:53.420 It's the opposite.
00:13:54.780 Talking about these issues in a constructive way, which we're trying to do at the Immigration Committee, come up with smart public policy positions, which, you know, I've released dozens of, you know, very, I think, constructive, conservative policies over the last six months,
00:14:08.260 including abolishing the TFW programs, requiring at least one parent to have at minimum a permanent residency before citizenship can be passed along, these sort of things.
00:14:19.320 Like, that's how we should be moving forward.
00:14:22.560 So, no, it wasn't a constructive exchange on her part.
00:14:27.220 And, you know, I would just challenge that organization to perhaps think a little bit differently.
00:14:32.480 And also, you know, like, don't infantilize members of Parliament.
00:14:37.460 I mean, we can see what's going on.
00:14:40.960 And if, you know, there's something that you want to present as a witness, at least contextualize it within factual data, like data that's been presented by the Bank of Canada.
00:14:50.960 There's election talk, and you commented yourself on that recently.
00:14:56.280 Do you think, first off, that we're going to get an election, possibly in May?
00:15:00.900 And to what degree will immigration be an issue on the campaign?
00:15:08.780 Well, I think the Liberals are trying to do everything to manufacture an unnecessary destabilizing election, the second election, in one year.
00:15:19.700 You know, you think about previous to that, the Liberals prorogued Parliament.
00:15:23.400 They had a leadership race.
00:15:25.080 They didn't let the House sit.
00:15:26.340 I think it was the least amount of sitting days in almost 100 years last year.
00:15:32.600 So, you know, I don't think that there's a lot of appetite from that from Canadians.
00:15:36.800 On our part as Conservatives, we've been trying to put forward constructive amendments in a minority parliament to make it work to major bills.
00:15:44.780 The Liberals haven't tabled a lot of legislation, but where they have had, we've been trying to do our job as opposition and not apologize for it, improve legislation, have constructive feedback.
00:15:55.060 And, you know, I look at Bill C-12, a bill I worked on as an example.
00:15:57.760 But you talked about immigration as a concern.
00:16:00.920 Public polling shows that consistently it's a top five issue for voters right now in Canada.
00:16:08.000 Major public polling firms have shown that.
00:16:11.620 But this is where, you know, I think in contrast to the Liberals, I serve as the Shadow Minister for Immigration for the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:16:19.060 We're putting forward constructive solutions, concrete policies to say, nope, this is how we need to change things.
00:16:25.800 This is why I'm in the House of Commons today debating a motion to, I have a, like, again, we talked about my private member's bill to end the practice of judges giving leniency to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes to avoid deportation.
00:16:41.040 So, you know, I'm trying, we're all, Conservatives are all trying to do our jobs in opposing bad policy that the government might have, that need to be held to account for,
00:16:54.500 but also proposing concrete solutions.
00:16:57.060 And that's how Parliament should work. 0.96
00:16:59.520 I mean, considering the state of housing right now, could that policy include a freeze on immigration?
00:17:06.860 Is that something you'd look at?
00:17:09.260 Well, I actually, we were talking about Immigration Committee.
00:17:11.960 We had another witness yesterday where I asked a question that I think we're going to be leaning more into, which is the Liberals, we're now in a position where there's about 3 million people who, by the end of this year in Canada, will either have expired or expiring temporary visas.
00:17:29.100 The Liberals have set immigration levels, assuming that those people will leave, but they have no plan to get them to leave.
00:17:37.560 And we're starting to see spikes in fake asylum claims, people sort of falling off the map, like, you know, and that's not great for anybody because, you know, people are working in dangerous conditions.
00:17:49.040 I digress. But my question is, is like, why are they bringing in new permits if they have 3 million people, which is roughly the size of Toronto, that need to leave but haven't?
00:18:04.380 So this is a question that I raised in the House of Commons this week.
00:18:08.600 Of course, I got the Immigration Minister's hallmark word salad response, but we'll keep pushing on them for sure.
00:18:16.360 Because certainly, like, when there's millions of people who need to leave and they aren't, the government probably shouldn't be bringing in hundreds of thousands of more people.
00:18:25.940 That is a pretty common sense position, I think, a vast majority of Canadians would agree with across political lines.
00:18:34.380 Especially if the ones who are extending their stay don't leave or aren't leaving.
00:18:42.020 That's right. So temporary needs to mean temporary, per the law.
00:18:46.060 So if you are here on a temporary visa and your visa has expired, our Canadian law says you need to leave.
00:18:52.160 And the government now, because they brought in millions of people without any ability to track them or even track their exits, they need to get on that pretty quickly.
00:19:02.740 And, you know, for them to say, like, oh, well, you know, we're changing immigration levels.
00:19:08.380 Well, no, they're still set at historic highs, while there's a population that is roughly the equivalent of the size of Toronto, who by the end of this year will need to leave Canada.
00:19:19.820 And the Liberals have no idea if they are or not.
00:19:22.480 I'll just close with this on that point.
00:19:24.040 The Liberals only removed 22,000 people last year, according to statistics we received as parliamentarians.
00:19:32.780 So millions minus 22,000 people is still what?
00:19:36.840 Still millions of people.
00:19:38.760 So it's up to the government to tell Canadians why they're still issuing millions of or hundreds of thousands of new temporary permits with no plan to get people who are on expired permits to leave.
00:19:50.620 Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:19:52.620 We appreciate it.
00:19:53.760 Thank you so much.
00:19:55.560 Michelle Rempel-Garner is MP for Calgary Nose Hill.
00:19:59.760 And that is it for this edition of this show.
00:20:01.860 I appreciate you tuning in, my friends.
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