Juno News - Gov moving asylum seekers from hotels to long-term housing

00:00:00.000 The Canadian Security Intelligence Service's 2024 public report focuses heavily on painting

00:00:11.740 right-wing activism against gender ideology as an extremist threat while ignoring far-left

00:00:18.720 extremism. The federal government confirmed it plans to move approximately 485 asylum seekers

00:00:24.460 who taxpayers have been housing in hotels to long-term housing. A Squamish woman facing 0.97

00:00:30.200 terrorism-related charges after allegedly joining ISIS appeared briefly in the B.C. Supreme Court

00:00:36.300 as her case moves toward a jury trial. Hello candidates, Wednesday, July 30th and this is

00:00:43.180 the True North Daily Brief. I'm Cosmin Georgia. And I'm Adam Sultan. We've got you covered with

00:00:49.080 all the news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North

00:00:53.840 exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.

00:00:58.960 Canada's top intelligence agency has released its latest annual report on national security threats

00:01:05.280 and it conveniently leaves out any mention of far-left extremism, anti-semitism and violence.

00:01:11.280 The Canadian Security Intelligence Service's 2024 public report focuses heavily on painting right-wing

00:01:18.720 advocacy against gender ideology as an extremist threat. In the report, CSIS outlines its top domestic

00:01:25.520 concerns as, quote, religiously motivated violent extremism, ideologically motivated violent extremism,

00:01:33.280 and politically motivated violent extremism. But of those, ideologically motivated violent extremism

00:01:39.440 dominates the narrative as an umbrella category that lumps together racism, anti-government,

00:01:45.840 ideology, incels, and anti-gender ideology. CSIS warns that, quote, gender identity-driven violence

00:01:54.800 includes violent misogyny, including the incel movement, anti-2SLGBTQIA+, and anti-gender-driven

00:02:04.880 ideology violence. This is a subcategory of ideologically motivated violent extremism,

00:02:11.120 which the report says accounted for, quote, approximately 50% of all CSIS counter-terrorism

00:02:17.440 investigations in 2023. While gender-related threats are only one component of IMVE, they are

00:02:25.760 prominently highlighted in the report's discussion on domestic extremism. The report does not name left-wing

00:02:33.040 violent extremism. There is no mention of the rising threat of anti-Semitism, eco-terrorism,

00:02:39.200 antifa, multinational anti-capitalist organizing, and no reference to radical climate activists.

00:02:46.160 In a 2022 House of Commons Public Safety Committee, Public Safety Canada, and CSIS faced criticism for

00:02:53.200 omitting a wave of church burnings from national threat assessments. A CSIS official defended the

00:02:59.520 omission by noting that criminal investigations fall to the RCMP, but the exchange fueled concerns

00:03:06.400 over the agency's responsiveness to anti-Christian violence. Sir, I really think that I am not the

00:03:14.080 best person to answer that question. I just find it interesting because you do have extensive stuff in

00:03:19.440 your public report about ideologically motivated extremism, religiously motivated extremism, politically

00:03:25.200 motivated extremism, and yet 30 churches being burned down in Canada last year didn't merit a mention.

00:03:31.440 CSIS classifies anti-gender ideology views, among other beliefs, as dangerous even when non-violent.

00:03:39.600 Alex, I can think of a few examples where far-left climate activists have engaged in extremism,

00:03:48.080 whether it's property destruction, whether it's attacking people physically for opposing their views.

00:03:55.440 What are some things that come to mind for you that could have been included in this report,

00:04:01.760 but were entirely omitted by Canada's top intelligence agency?

00:04:06.960 Well, your question is very fresh of mind for me because I recently attended the

00:04:12.320 setting a sentencing date hearing for Tamara Leach and Chris Barber, and they are looking at seven

00:04:20.000 and eight years, respectively, in prison for engaging in what is relatively peaceful protest.

00:04:26.560 And by relatively, I mean very much in regards to the courts. Chris Barber's lawyer pointed out that

00:04:35.120 there was virtually zero property violence in terms of the quote-unquote mischief that occurred during

00:04:42.000 the Freedom Convoy of 2022 versus, let's say, the G20 protest in Toronto, where many people engaged in

00:04:49.120 very violent and destructive protests, including the smashing of police cars, the smashing of business

00:04:54.000 windows, so on and so forth. And so I think that your question is really relevant, and I think it's really

00:04:58.640 interesting, given the current context that we're in. Because as another example, I also attended the

00:05:05.200 trial matter with regards to the Coutts hearings. And in that case, there was again, zero property

00:05:11.200 violence and zero violence generally whatsoever. And those people also were not only facing, but

00:05:17.440 actually endured very, very lengthy prison terms. Interestingly enough, and relevant to the Coutts trial,

00:05:24.240 a woman named Barbara Perry, who is a frequent guest on the CBC, was actually brought in for the

00:05:30.080 pretrial hearings as a potential witness. And she was not laughed out of the room. I think that's been

00:05:35.920 misreported elsewhere. But she was actually deemed ineligible as a witness by what I think was a very

00:05:41.840 good judge, David LeBrens, who said that her views were ideologically possessed. And I'm obviously

00:05:50.240 paraphrasing here, and that therefore they were not valid. So not only is CSIS's report, I think,

00:05:57.120 too ideologically slanted to be taken seriously, it is also not valid enough for the courts to accept either.

00:06:05.840 Immigration's Refugees and Citizenship Canada confirmed last week that it will move approximately

00:06:10.800 485 asylum seekers, that taxpayers are housing in five hotels into long-term housing as it passes

00:06:17.760 responsibility for the program onto the provinces. This comes as the federal government plans to end

00:06:23.360 taxpayer-funded hotel stays for asylum seekers by the end of September. Despite this, taxpayers will 0.98

00:06:29.280 still be left to pick up the bill as it's only shifting the costly burden onto provinces and

00:06:33.360 municipalities. Hotel operations will cease on September 30th, and the IRCC says that it will

00:06:38.960 assist remaining claimants in finding long-term housing somewhere. The Department said this measure

00:06:44.160 was never meant to be permanent, and the IRCC is funded to continue hotel operations only until

00:06:49.120 September 30th. Critics of the move argue that the Liberal government has undermined political

00:06:53.440 confidence in the immigration system, especially during a housing crisis. Conservative immigration

00:06:58.400 critic Michelle Rempel-Garner said, quote, when the average Canadian hears that somebody with an asylum

00:07:03.360 claim is staying in a hotel, there's a justified sense of unfairness. These are the types of

00:07:08.480 expenditures that undermine Canadian acceptance for immigration during a housing crisis. Since 2017,

00:07:14.160 the federal government has spent more than $2.6 billion on housing asylum seekers, including $1.1

00:07:20.400 billion on hotel accommodations alone. Cosme, I know this is a difficult question to answer,

00:07:25.600 but how common is it for asylum seekers to be on, you know, what people would call the government dole?

00:07:31.520 And what makes the average Canadian hear about this and get so upset?

00:07:35.200 Well, Alex, it's more common than Canadians are actually being told. And it's not just about a

00:07:41.760 few emergency supports. It's actually long-term dependency that's funded by taxpayers. So I'm

00:07:49.280 going to point to some numbers. Last year, we put out a report based on a 2024 Statistics Canada study

00:07:56.160 that revealed there were nearly 70% of government-assisted Syrian refugees who arrived in 2016 were

00:08:05.040 still relying on social assistance four years after landing in Canada. Now, that's not a short-term

00:08:12.400 handoff. That's a systemic failure that is costing taxpayers an untold amount of money long-term. Even

00:08:21.200 going back to 2015, the year Trudeau launched what was then called Operation Syrian Refugee,

00:08:29.360 over half of those people brought in, 50.4% exactly, were still on welfare after five years in Canada.

00:08:37.520 And it's important to remember, these are government-assisted refugees, fully funded by

00:08:43.680 taxpayers, not privately sponsored refugees whose financial needs are covered by churches,

00:08:49.360 community groups, and private citizen groups. It's covered by you and I. The study also found that

00:08:55.920 the majority of those relying on welfare, 81.6% in 2016, came from Western Asia, which included the

00:09:04.320 bulk of the Syrian refugee influx. So when the average Canadian hears that asylum seekers are being

00:09:10.640 put up in hotels, they're receiving all these benefits, and that the federal government has spent

00:09:15.360 1.1 billion dollars just on hotels since 2017, they're not imagining things.

00:09:22.560 This is a huge cost and burden, and that's their money. And now that the feds are pulling out of

00:09:29.440 this program, that cost is just going to be downloaded onto provinces and cities, which

00:09:34.720 inevitably just means that taxpayers are still paying for it. It's just not at the federal level.

00:09:40.880 And if you think this is slowing down, think again, because Canada continues to be among the

00:09:47.760 number, like top five countries to accept refugees globally. So according to the UN's 2024 Global

00:09:56.800 Trends Report, Canada processed 174,000 refugee claims last year alone. That makes us the fourth

00:10:05.440 largest destination for asylum seekers globally. And think about this geographically, right?

00:10:12.240 We have nations in the Middle East in war zones now in Europe, right? Nations bordering Ukraine that 0.94

00:10:19.520 could take in refugees, especially in the Middle East. There are several Arab nations that are peaceful,

00:10:27.040 do not have an active war, and are more than capable to take in their neighbors. But Canada

00:10:34.400 is the fourth largest destination for asylum seekers globally. It's kind of outrageous when you think 1.00

00:10:39.920 about that. And adding on top of that, there's nearly 285,000 active claims still in the system,

00:10:47.840 and that doesn't even include temporary foreign workers or international students, which we know

00:10:53.520 there's millions of. So bottom line, the system is buckling, and taxpayers are footing the bill. So

00:11:02.720 when Canadians see these numbers, it doesn't mean they're anti-immigrant. They're asking a very basic

00:11:08.640 question. Is any of this sustainable? Well, just on the pure dollar amount as well,

00:11:14.640 1.1 billion dollars is almost hard to conceive. That's a thousand billion dollars.

00:11:20.800 Yeah, it's a lot of money, Alex. That is so crazy to me. Yeah.

00:11:28.080 A Squamish woman facing terrorism-related charges for allegedly joining the Islamic State

00:11:33.280 group in Syria appeared briefly in BC Supreme Court on Monday. Her case is progressing slowly

00:11:40.400 toward a jury trial. Last November, 51-year-old Kimberly Pullman chose a jury trial and a date 1.00

00:11:47.600 setting hearing had originally been scheduled for April. Her case has been repeatedly delayed, however,

00:11:53.680 in part due to disclosure issues involving the federal court and the application of national

00:11:59.840 security protections. Pullman faces two criminal code charges, one count of leaving Canada to participate

00:12:06.400 in the activity of a terrorist group, and one count of participating in the activity of a terrorist group.

00:12:12.880 The charges date back nearly a decade and stem from a long-running investigation by the RCMP's

00:12:19.280 Pacific Region Federal Policing Integrated National Security Enforcement Team. Police allege Pullman left

00:12:26.400 Canada in 2015 to join ISIS. Prosecutors allege Pullman was part of an all-female ISIS battalion, 0.97

00:12:34.320 Nusaiba Katiba, providing weapons training to other women dedicated to the cause. They also alleged she 1.00

00:12:41.760 was an informant for the ISIS secret police known as the MNI. The Crown submissions to the court last

00:12:48.320 year stated, quote, Miss Pullman's own son told investigators he would not be surprised if she

00:12:53.520 strapped a bomb to her chest. Alex, you wrote this article and you've been following the case of

00:13:00.240 Pullman quite closely. What exactly is her story to those Canadians not familiar with this individual

00:13:08.480 in British Columbia? And how does a woman, a Canadian woman from Squamish, end up traveling to Syria

00:13:16.560 fighting under the banner of an Islamist extremist terrorist group?

00:13:21.200 So this is a really interesting case, Cosmin, and I think that people would be surprised to realize

00:13:28.160 how normal this woman really appears just on first glance. She appears like my mother, frankly. I mean,

00:13:35.840 she's just a 51-year-old redheaded woman from Squamish. She says that she went to Syria on a naive

00:13:43.360 idea that she was marrying a man that she loved and was unfairly ensnared into a geopolitical conflict

00:13:52.720 that she didn't fully understand. And the evidence that I have seen in terms of video evidence showing

00:13:58.240 what the Crown purports to be, Kimberly Pullman, shows a woman wearing a niqab. And the reason that this 0.94

00:14:06.560 trial has been delayed as many months as it has, we were actually expecting a jury trial date to be set

00:14:11.200 back in April, is that the Crown says that it can't release certain elements of disclosure because

00:14:17.200 they're afraid that it would compromise Canadian national security. And the defence lawyer for Kimberly

00:14:22.480 Pullman, I think quite rightly, is upset about this because if they have disclosure, they should

00:14:28.960 disclose it. Otherwise, how will we proceed with a fair trial? And so my prediction is that this will

00:14:33.280 probably be Jordan Brueld. The woman who was repatriated alongside Kimberly Pullman in Quebec

00:14:40.560 was recently sentenced after a guilty plea to only a symbolic single day of prison. And so I actually

00:14:47.520 expect that this will probably just fall out entirely based off of the fact that the Crown is not willing

00:14:55.120 to disclose the information that they says would be necessary to gain a prosecution.

00:15:03.280 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by

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Juno News - July 30, 2025

Gov moving asylum seekers from hotels to long-term housing

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