Juno News - ‘Conservative’ Ford stumbles on immigration

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juno News. My name is Alexander Brown. I am a director of the National Citizens Coalition.

00:00:10.860 I'm a writer. I'm a columnist. I have a best-selling substack that goes by the name

00:00:15.520 Acceptable Views. And I am thrilled to be presenting Not Sorry to You, a new show on

00:00:21.480 Juno News. And thank you to Candice Malcolm. Thank you to the whole team here, just industry

00:00:27.480 leaders and independent media. And I'm thrilled to be a part of it. And why Not Sorry? Because,

00:00:34.940 gee, we're in a moment of speaking plain truths and speaking up for Canadian values, no longer

00:00:41.320 apologizing profusely. When someone bumps into you on the street and you offer that Not Sorry,

00:00:51.520 now it's government messing with you. It's government bumping into you. And we throw out

00:00:56.000 this not, we throw out a sorry. We can't be sorry. This is a moment of recovery. This

00:01:01.700 is a moment to get our country back and to do a better job on all these issues. And there's

00:01:08.920 no bigger issue right now than immigration. It's the topic of the day. It's been the topic

00:01:15.780 of weeks, even during a summer slowdown. And I want to thank Juno and Candice for letting

00:01:23.300 me focus on immigration right now and to open the show. And I have a terrific promo code

00:01:28.040 to offer you, JunoNews.com slash Not Sorry for 20% off. Doug Ford is in the news. Doug Ford

00:01:37.240 is in the news for all the wrong reasons, as he often tends to be. And that can be a tremendous

00:01:43.080 disappointment. On Friday, he made an ill-advised, haphazard asylum comment that all but waived the,

00:01:53.280 the matador red for the country's asylum seekers and global asylum seekers to come to Canada

00:01:59.760 to receive up to 100,000 asylum claimant work permits during an employment crisis and during

00:02:08.960 a youth unemployment crisis, where no group of youth across the country is getting it worse

00:02:15.280 right now than Ontario 15 to 24s. In Toronto, for example, right now, youth unemployment is 20%. And

00:02:22.960 the real number is actually believed to be much higher. And so I want you to listen to Ford's comments.

00:02:28.160 Premier Ford, I'm wondering if you could expand on some of what you were talking about regarding the

00:02:32.680 conflict between the federal government and the provinces over immigration.

00:02:36.320 I'll give you an example. I have a tremendous amount of asylum seekers that are up in Etobicoke and in the

00:02:43.320 hotels. They're healthy, they're willing to work, they're hardworking people, but they're waiting over

00:02:49.240 two years. And they're just sucking off the system nonstop, not their fault. The fault falls under

00:02:56.440 immigration, that it takes over two years to get a work permit. I'm not waiting any longer. We're

00:03:01.880 issuing work permits in Ontario for these folks to give back and contribute to society in Ontario.

00:03:09.800 Now, these were understandably very concerning to many. A question must be asked amongst many others,

00:03:18.840 and has been asked by policymakers, industry experts, folks behind the scenes. I've talked to MPs, MPPs,

00:03:25.880 going, wait, who the heck was asking for this, especially during this youth unemployment crisis?

00:03:31.320 And during a moment where, to the federal liberals limited credit, they are making some

00:03:36.840 adjustments to immigration, immigration adjustments that have been fought for by groups like the

00:03:41.640 National Citizens Coalition, folks like myself, all kinds of great efforts. The shadow minister of

00:03:49.320 immigration right now, Michelle Rempel has done a terrific job. So who the heck was asking for this? 0.97

00:03:55.800 Thankfully, you know, common sense Canadians, those like yourself who are watching this right now,

00:04:01.320 we've been up in arms because this was, if we had just taken one step forward on immigration,

00:04:06.840 and we're starting to bring down this foreign student number, the temporary foreign worker numbers,

00:04:12.200 that they're adjusting the PR, which is still too high annually, let's be honest. This would have been

00:04:18.120 one step forward and then two steps back. And thanks to pressure from common sense Canadians, from,

00:04:26.920 let's be honest, real conservatives on this issue, Ford has walked this back. He walked it back to start

00:04:34.040 Monday. And I want you to listen to what he had to say about his asylum, needless asylum debacle.

00:04:44.440 What I heard last week was, we're taking over the issue of permits for people who are claiming

00:04:51.160 refugee status. What I'm hearing today is, no, we're not doing that. That's too complicated.

00:04:56.280 And you misspoke last week. Can you explain why?

00:04:58.920 Well, yeah, so what I'm saying, we aren't taking it over. But the people that are there,

00:05:06.600 that are sitting there collecting, oh, we're collecting welfare, they're collecting

00:05:10.760 free schooling, free health care and everything. I want them working.

00:05:13.720 Premier, so what changed between last Wednesday and today? When last Wednesday,

00:05:19.960 you were fairly unequivocal, you said it multiple times that Ontario will start issuing work permits

00:05:24.360 to asylum seekers. So today, you're saying that's no longer going to happen? Well, we want to work

00:05:29.240 with the federal government. We don't want to take over the immigration system, per se.

00:05:33.800 Can you explain how this got into the final communique of all the premiers last week?

00:05:38.040 You said you all wanted to. Yeah, we said there was overlap between federal and provincial

00:05:43.240 responsibilities under Section 95 of the Constitution. And now you're walking the whole

00:05:47.480 thing back and it's just no way for more support. No, you know something, Rob, we're frustrated.

00:05:52.600 The issue at hand here, beyond freaking people out, and we already have kids across the country,

00:06:03.800 but particularly in Ontario, who are handing in hundreds of resumes and getting absolutely nowhere,

00:06:09.640 is twofold. One, funnily enough, is Ford, this was a dramatic misinterpretation

00:06:17.560 of even his own asylum file. In his Friday statement, in his statement going into the weekend,

00:06:25.000 Ford mentioned that no one understands this more than the premiers. We understand our immigration

00:06:30.600 file and our asylum claims, and we're going to start setting our own numbers here. But he actually

00:06:36.680 failed to understand, and I've heard from experts on this, that asylum claimants can get a work permit

00:06:44.040 within just two weeks. We're not talking two years. So there are already those who are claiming asylum

00:06:52.440 who have these work permits or choosing not to get them because they're getting a whole lot of

00:06:57.640 money to sit on their hands. So that's problem one. Problem two was that, much like an infamous

00:07:04.840 Justin Trudeau tweet after he was first elected that sort of launched, you know, a thousand ships

00:07:11.640 towards Roxham Road. Ford was opening the potential floodgates for all asylum claimants inside of 0.96

00:07:19.080 Canada to come to Ontario right away. And this wave would have just crashed down on youth unemployment

00:07:27.400 and all these positions even harder. And even encourage those who were, you know, looking around

00:07:33.880 and what country to go to, to go to Ontario and to compound these problems at the exact same time

00:07:42.200 that the federal government is about to open up additional visas for parents and grandparents of new

00:07:49.800 arrivals in the tens of thousands. So not only was, you know, is our public service buckling,

00:07:56.920 is it harder than ever for folks to find jobs? Are we seeing issues with crime and chaos and

00:08:04.600 letting in just a whole bunch of predominantly young men who we've never let in before? Some as

00:08:12.680 legitimate students, but many as fake. And now many are filing fake claims for asylum when their visa is

00:08:20.360 running out and they're being told they have to go back because the fake degree they got that isn't worth the

00:08:27.320 the paper it's printed on, isn't proving fruitful in the job market. They were going to start

00:08:33.960 welcoming hundreds of thousands of more. And, and wow, even the feds had started to do a little

00:08:41.640 something here. And Ford was once again showing why Ontario conservatives, real Ontario conservatives,

00:08:48.440 real Canadian conservatives are increasingly frustrated by the actions of his government.

00:08:54.840 Um, I was happy to be in the hub on Monday morning, first thing in the morning before this walk back

00:09:01.640 started with Matt spoke of project Ontario. And we together were writing about, you know,

00:09:09.160 how the first job is disappearing and young Canadians deserve better with a particular focus on Ontario and 0.85

00:09:15.560 the Ontario job numbers that are grim. And it builds on the advocacy that I have engaged in with the

00:09:24.120 National Citizens Coalition, which is Canada's sort of founding conservative nonprofit advocacy group

00:09:30.920 founded in 1967 by my grandfather. And he would have been appalled with what happened, you know,

00:09:37.640 with what's happened over the last sort of what we refer to as a lost liberal decade. But he would have been

00:09:43.560 particularly appalled by the fact that the companies now claiming to, you know, that want you to buy

00:09:50.840 Canadian and some of these folks waving new flags that they just bought on Amazon or Timu and anywhere,

00:09:58.520 you know, you know, pay for our stuff for cheaper. They're not hiring Canadian. And what Ford just attempted to do

00:10:06.760 was compound that problem. There is a case to be made that yes, having all these asylum seekers and 1.00

00:10:13.640 hotels and the feds are finally set to pull funding for this. What the heck is he supposed to do with

00:10:20.920 the problem that has largely been put on his front door by the federal government, but it wasn't this,

00:10:26.760 no one was asking for this, except for maybe, maybe some shadowy lobby groups, such as the Century

00:10:35.080 Initiative, which is Canada's sort of mass immigration advocacy effort, which their corporate sponsors

00:10:42.600 include three of the major banks and the Globe and Mail. Maybe this was dreamed up over his supposed

00:10:52.120 late night campfire tale with Mark Carney during that first minister's week. This is a man that he

00:10:59.880 ostensibly endorsed during the federal election while Ford and some of his inner circle were busy

00:11:07.160 lobbing bombs at the federal conservatives. And I know you don't recall asking for what he just tried

00:11:13.240 to pull. And so many groups like the Coalition, now Project Ontario, they're fighting for the little guy

00:11:22.200 here, Michelle Rempel, the shadow minister of immigration in the House. She's been absolutely

00:11:27.960 terrific. And the real concern here right now is that we don't want to be talking about immigration 1.00

00:11:35.240 during a summer slowdown. There's supposed to be one. It's July. But there's a concerted effort

00:11:42.360 to further undercut these kids, to further undercut our working class, our missing middle. 0.52

00:11:51.640 And it's almost like they're trying to get away with it because they think you're going to be

00:11:54.920 at the cottage right now. Well, many of you can't afford a cottage anymore because this is now a

00:12:00.920 country that works for very, very few. And it seems that that very, very few are trying to pull a fast

00:12:08.360 one over July and August. And so it falls to us. It falls to well-informed Juno viewers and readers.

00:12:16.680 It falls to the third-party folks like me, the writers, the columnists. Brian Lilly wrote a really

00:12:22.760 good piece, too. There's been great reporting in Juno News to try to course correct for this, to boop

00:12:29.640 them on the nose. And it's been great to see Ford walk this back. But a conservative wouldn't have

00:12:35.960 put this forward in the first place. And at what point do we throw up our hands and go,

00:12:45.080 just say you're liberal. Just say you're an Ontario liberal. And the question that I've heard lately

00:12:51.240 from experts and those in government, MPs, MPPs, government relations is, and shockingly so,

00:13:02.120 is like in the fight to sort of bring all this back to something more resembling the country once

00:13:08.840 knew and that is more normal and productive. And maybe we actually do build these energy projects

00:13:15.720 or a few of them and pick a few more winners than we do losers for a change. Could Doug Ford

00:13:24.440 be the last vestige of the Trudeau years? David Eby in British Columbia is certainly threatening to do

00:13:31.160 the same. Wab Canoe wants to evidently stand in the way of a few of these projects, despite certain

00:13:37.000 claims to the contrary. But if Carney is serious, and doubts of course remain, I have them myself,

00:13:45.400 about rebuilding this country and getting it back on track. Ontario was and is by and large the

00:13:53.080 dumping ground of all the bad ideas of the last decade. The Ford Conservatives were all in on the

00:13:59.560 Trudeau EV mandates. They've gone all in on the diploma mills and the temporary foreign worker programs

00:14:06.280 and have abdicated on key issues. They abdicated massively, as many of us know, during COVID. And

00:14:15.000 part of why I do what I do and have expanded my work and I've been able to reach this audience is

00:14:20.680 because COVID mandates, particularly Ontario, where I was living at the time, lit a real fire under me,

00:14:27.160 where I'm looking at this conservative government going, you're the one guy who's supposed to have

00:14:31.240 your head screwed on straight. Why aren't you a bit more like Daniel Smith right now? And that he

00:14:36.920 isn't is the concern. And even the feds now are working to adjust these numbers. And Doug Ford

00:14:45.240 is shooting from the hip and evidently shooting from the hip, not on behalf of the Canadian worker,

00:14:54.360 not on behalf of unemployment that risks in Ontario going as high as 10%,

00:14:59.240 where youth unemployment is 20% in Toronto, where towns have been transformed by these fake schools

00:15:07.800 and just overrun by temporary foreign workers and foreign students at institutions like Conestoga,

00:15:15.160 where they're all but studying basket weaving and hairdressing instead of STEM, you know, medicine,

00:15:24.200 the sciences, the in demand, high trades. And they talk about growing the economy,

00:15:32.920 they talk about standing up in the face of tariffs, the premiers do. Well, when Ontario's

00:15:39.400 premier is standing up in the face of tariffs and growing the economy, the only thing that he is doing

00:15:45.960 is growing low wage, foreign labor replacement. The only thing they're growing is low skill and low wage.

00:15:57.880 And so that GDP slightly goes up just because you're throwing bodies at it. But but productivity is

00:16:06.200 is next to flatlined and worse than lowly Mississippi, worse than Alabama. Ontario is continually the sick man 0.98

00:16:19.080 of North America economically. And immigration plays a massive part of that. It needs to change. And as an 0.90

00:16:29.960 informed viewer and reader, I hope you read this. I hope you share it. I hope you give them

00:16:35.960 a really hard time because they deserve it. And why are we seeing certain policy wins or walkbacks

00:16:44.680 from the Ford government, even changes to some of the proposed changes to federal immigration,

00:16:50.680 which some have taken into effect, but others are expected for the fall. Unfortunately, it's not

00:16:57.720 because they come to their senses. It's because you never lost yours. It's because ordinary

00:17:05.640 Canadians notice how crazy this has gotten and continue to make a fuss. And it's, it's such a shame

00:17:15.320 that we, we have to do so, but it's incredibly valuable. There was a leisure poll published last

00:17:22.600 week that showed that 57% of Canadians still feel that revised, the revised liberal immigration targets

00:17:33.000 are too high. But the real interesting thing within that poll and talk to anybody in the public square,

00:17:39.960 follow anybody, but the subsidized media. And you know, this is true is that it is actually our proud

00:17:48.040 immigrant communities, first, second, third generation Canadians who have a bigger problem with this.

00:17:56.040 They, in that poll, if 57% of Canadians think immigration targets, it's still too many.

00:18:03.320 60% of those who identify as immigrant Canadians, recent immigrant Canadians,

00:18:10.360 they have an even bigger problem with it. And why do they have a bigger problem with it? There's an obvious reason for that.

00:18:17.000 They came the right way. They came on points and shared values. They came for higher level opportunities

00:18:26.360 for, to build a home, to, to share in the Canadian culture. And now they are watching

00:18:33.480 as 19% of the Canadian workforce has suddenly been made temporary. And they are seeing that that

00:18:43.320 includes a group of, let's be honest again, and let's be not sorry, a group of characters who

00:18:52.520 are trouble. There's been really important reporting here in Juneau news about some of these lenient

00:19:01.800 sentences and, and some of these crime sprees committed by foreign students or temporary foreign workers 0.99

00:19:09.160 and how they're even getting just a boop on the nose because, you know, these liberal appointed judges

00:19:15.720 are not, you know, when they're sentencing them, they're like, oh,

00:19:19.160 I don't want them to be kicked out of the country. No, if you're a guest, you should be kicked out of

00:19:23.400 the country. And what an insult it is to our proud immigrant communities that they are potentially 1.00

00:19:31.720 lumped in with this graduating class from the university of Sean Frazier, Mark Miller, and now Lena Diab

00:19:41.160 who sully what was and should be again, one of the world's great immigration systems. 0.99

00:19:48.280 My grandfather who founded the National Citizens Coalition in 1967, in his very first ad he put

00:19:54.840 out to concerned taxpayers, this was during Trudeau one, he finished with a sort of a call to action

00:20:02.120 where he said, if you share my alarm, your support is welcome. From there, Canada's trailblazing

00:20:09.480 conservative advocacy group was born. This is a moment for all of us. And I'm, and I'm really thrilled to be

00:20:17.000 taking this message to Juneau news and for all you to join me. This is a moment for all of us where

00:20:22.680 like, if you share our alarm here at Juneau at, you know, at groups like the NCC, you know, amongst the

00:20:31.000 common sense community where we're all bigger than we think, your support is most welcome. Sharing this

00:20:37.400 work is most welcome. Your continued advocacy in your community, online, most welcome. And to do all that

00:20:45.720 here at Juneau news, I would encourage you to take advantage of my promo code, very generous promo code.

00:20:52.200 It's www.junownews.com slash not sorry for 20% off. You are more than welcome to check out my work with the

00:21:01.400 National Citizens Coalition at www.nationalcitizens.ca. And you can find me on Substack at acceptableviews.substack.com.

00:21:11.640 I have been Alexander Brown. Thank you for watching. Not sorry.

Juno News - July 29, 2025

‘Conservative’ Ford stumbles on immigration

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