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.
00:02:57.740A U.S. is hostile government, deliberate destruction of global allegiances, and the stability that our country has relied on.
00:03:06.520We have a Conservative Party of Canada's own, Unity Mitford, who is attempting to freelance negotiations with the American president right now.
00:03:13.880Danko's reference to Unity Mitford refers to a notorious British woman who worshipped Hitler and joined the fascist movement.
00:03:23.160By comparing Javani to Mitford, Danko is, by extension, comparing Trump to Hitler.
00:03:28.620All this just months away from talks aimed at salvaging Canada's free trade deal with the United States.
00:03:34.240A group that defends the rights of refugees says blaming mass immigration for the housing crisis is dangerous talk.
00:03:43.300The 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.
00:03:52.520The narratives wrongly blame current pressures on housing and social systems.
00:03:56.900They're not only false, it's dangerous, and it undermines confidence in the immigration and refugee system.
00:04:02.020I just wanted to go back to something you said earlier.
00:04:05.320You claim that there's no correlation between rapid immigration growth of the last several years and the decrease of Canada's available housing supply.
00:04:17.960So you think that, like, even though we had millions of people come in that had no impact on housing supply or prices in Canada?
00:04:25.240I'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.
00:04:40.240You 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.
00:04:51.980I'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.
00:04:58.100Meantime, Conservative leader Pierre Polyev says, if asylum claimants commit serious crimes in Canada, they should be kicked out of the country.
00:05:09.780Our guest today is Michelle Rempel-Garner, MP for Calgary Nose Hill and Conservative immigration critic.
00:05:18.820We have a proposal out there now to deal with the ongoing extortion issue.
00:05:24.440I 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.
00:05:35.680You think that tough action should be taken on this matter.
00:06:15.420And 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.
00:06:29.320So 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.
00:06:50.660I 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.
00:07:07.400Now, I'm really glad that you raised this because I tabled a private member's bill on this, too.
00:07:12.480So 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.
00:07:29.300And, you know, somebody who's a guest in Canada, they have an obligation to uphold the law, as any Canadian would as well.
00:07:36.180But our laws also say that a non-citizen who is convicted of a serious crime should leave the country.
00:07:43.820But many judges have been using a loophole to prevent that from happening.
00:07:50.580My 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.
00:07:57.600And I think restore common sense and order to the justice system.
00:08:01.180And, 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.
00:08:11.160But 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.
00:08:23.160Now, 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.
00:08:33.260I mean, you were perplexed by that answer.
00:08:36.020I mean, the laws of supply and demand would suggest that more people coming in.
00:08:40.760And if you don't meet the demand with more supply, the prices are going to go up.
00:08:45.340Were you surprised that you got the answer you did?
00:08:47.580I would like to say yes, but the answer is no.
00:08:53.020The reality is, I'm glad you raised this.
00:08:55.480We often see, particularly at the Immigration Committee, I call them the, you know, immigration intelligentsia in Canada.
00:09:05.300Like, 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.
00:09:23.460Like, 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.
00:09:38.260And those sorts of statements that are patently false, which is why I questioned her.
00:09:46.060I gave her the opportunity to sort of recant or clarify what she said.
00:09:49.480But 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.
00:10:03.660Of course, that's going to have an impact on housing availability.
00:10:06.700Like, it's, like you said, basic laws of supply and demand.
00:10:09.580So, 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.
00:10:18.080So, 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.
00:10:30.640So just sort of repeating talking points from over a decade ago is not going to get to the point where we need to get.
00:10:38.960Well, she not only said there was no correlation, she said that any discussion on the issue is dangerous.
00:10:45.380So the danger of the talk, she used that word, suggesting that you shouldn't bring it up.
00:10:49.780It seemed to be a case of her chastising anybody who would even suggest such a thing.
00:10:54.640Well, you know, how I would characterize it, and again, I did give her a chance to clarify these comments, is it's gaslighting, right?
00:11:02.500But what was interesting that the liberal, none of the liberal members challenged these statements, right?
00:11:08.920And, you know, to me, it marks a clear contrast with my party.
00:11:12.080We are saying, look, Canada's immigration system, we didn't have the type of conversation that we're having right now under conservative governments.
00:11:21.560That's because conservatives understand that you can't bring in more people than our housing, health care, and, you know, jobs economy can support.
00:11:32.040And that's exactly what the liberals did.
00:11:33.840They blew those numbers way out of the water, and that's not fair to anybody.
00:11:37.820So to have somebody say, like, okay, sort of present a factual inaccuracy and then say it's dangerous to question that,
00:11:46.440that's kind of the textbook definition of gaslighting, and that's not productive.
00:11:52.160And 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.
00:12:05.120Well, she said it was undermining trust in the current system and saying that that was a dangerous thing to do.
00:12:12.440I mean, we've seen some polling recently suggest that there's less support by Canadians.
00:12:17.640Canadians used to be all open for, you know, refugees and allowing people into the country and immigration.
00:12:24.500There's never really been a whole lot of controversy around that.
00:12:28.360But lately there's been, I would say, dropping support, dropping levels of support for that,
00:12:36.060which kind of feeds into the her point, which is, you know, are we undermining trust in the current system?
00:12:41.480I 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?
00:12:50.340I don't, it's somebody who wants to come to Canada to build a better life.
00:12:54.700I mean, there's hundreds of millions of people around the world who would love to come to Canada and resettle.
00:13:00.400I don't blame anybody who wants to do that.
00:13:03.380I 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.
00:13:13.200So the question now is we have to fix the mess that the Liberals have created.
00:13:19.200And 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?
00:13:41.760It'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.
00:13:54.780Talking 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,
00:14:08.260including 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.
00:14:19.320Like, that's how we should be moving forward.
00:14:22.560So, no, it wasn't a constructive exchange on her part.
00:14:27.220And, you know, I would just challenge that organization to perhaps think a little bit differently.
00:14:32.480And also, you know, like, don't infantilize members of Parliament.
00:14:40.960And 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.
00:14:50.960There's election talk, and you commented yourself on that recently.
00:14:56.280Do you think, first off, that we're going to get an election, possibly in May?
00:15:00.900And to what degree will immigration be an issue on the campaign?
00:15:08.780Well, I think the Liberals are trying to do everything to manufacture an unnecessary destabilizing election, the second election, in one year.
00:15:19.700You know, you think about previous to that, the Liberals prorogued Parliament.
00:15:26.340I think it was the least amount of sitting days in almost 100 years last year.
00:15:32.600So, you know, I don't think that there's a lot of appetite from that from Canadians.
00:15:36.800On our part as Conservatives, we've been trying to put forward constructive amendments in a minority parliament to make it work to major bills.
00:15:44.780The 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.
00:15:55.060And, you know, I look at Bill C-12, a bill I worked on as an example.
00:15:57.760But you talked about immigration as a concern.
00:16:00.920Public polling shows that consistently it's a top five issue for voters right now in Canada.
00:16:08.000Major public polling firms have shown that.
00:16:11.620But 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.
00:16:19.060We're putting forward constructive solutions, concrete policies to say, nope, this is how we need to change things.
00:16:25.800This 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.
00:16:41.040So, 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,
00:16:54.500but also proposing concrete solutions.
00:16:57.060And that's how Parliament should work.
00:16:59.520I mean, considering the state of housing right now, could that policy include a freeze on immigration?
00:17:09.260Well, I actually, we were talking about Immigration Committee.
00:17:11.960We 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.
00:17:29.100The Liberals have set immigration levels, assuming that those people will leave, but they have no plan to get them to leave.
00:17:37.560And 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.
00:17:49.040I 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?
00:18:04.380So this is a question that I raised in the House of Commons this week.
00:18:08.600Of course, I got the Immigration Minister's hallmark word salad response, but we'll keep pushing on them for sure.
00:18:16.360Because 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.
00:18:25.940That is a pretty common sense position, I think, a vast majority of Canadians would agree with across political lines.
00:18:34.380Especially if the ones who are extending their stay don't leave or aren't leaving.
00:18:42.020That's right. So temporary needs to mean temporary, per the law.
00:18:46.060So if you are here on a temporary visa and your visa has expired, our Canadian law says you need to leave.
00:18:52.160And 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.
00:19:02.740And, you know, for them to say, like, oh, well, you know, we're changing immigration levels.
00:19:08.380Well, 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.
00:19:19.820And the Liberals have no idea if they are or not.
00:19:22.480I'll just close with this on that point.
00:19:24.040The Liberals only removed 22,000 people last year, according to statistics we received as parliamentarians.
00:19:32.780So millions minus 22,000 people is still what?
00:19:38.760So 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.
00:19:50.620Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show.