Juno News - Jagmeet Singh says Trudeau has ＂failed＂

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show

00:01:15.540 this is the Andrew Lawton Show

00:01:18.580 brought to you by True North

00:01:20.040 hello and welcome to you all

00:01:26.700 Canada's most irreverent talk show

00:01:28.320 the andrew lawton show on true north great to have you tuned into the program on this tuesday july

00:01:35.100 23rd hope you're having a great week so far and i we the olympics are coming up now i will be

00:01:41.420 perfectly candid i do not care about the olympics from time to time i watch the opening ceremonies

00:01:47.020 but i say from time to time i'm now wondering if i did it like at all since 2012 which i believe

00:01:54.180 were the Olympics in London and I think I only watched because the Spice Girls were performing so

00:01:58.680 take from that that's the most embarrassing thing I've ever said on the show but anyway they did a

00:02:03.080 bang-up performance and the Olympics are coming up anyway on the 26th so you're going to get that

00:02:07.280 barrage of Canadiana from time to time now this year I did note that Hamas has said it's going

00:02:13.600 to be attacking the Olympics now I'm assuming this is just bluster but I trust the security

00:02:18.540 will be taken as seriously as it deserves and I hope the security at the Olympics is taken

00:02:23.500 more seriously than wardrobe is by the Canadian Olympic Committee. Now, I just want to give you

00:02:29.700 some contrast here. No, Sean was worried because he just told me he thought Hamas was going to have

00:02:36.320 an Olympic team. So it would be basically, I'm trying to think of a quick joke that's not

00:02:42.240 horrendously offensive. I don't have one. So no, no, Sean, there's no Hamas Olympic team this year.

00:02:47.660 But you know what? There is a team for the state of Israel and good for them for rising up above

00:02:53.340 what's happened to that country since October 7th. There was one year, I'm trying to remember when it

00:02:58.340 was, I saw the clip, because sometimes the sports stuff penetrates into my world. It was an

00:03:03.960 Olympic wrestling match, and I want to say it was Israel versus Iran, and the Iranian wrestler

00:03:11.560 wouldn't shake the Israeli wrestler's hand. And I imagine we're probably going to see more displays

00:03:16.660 like that from several athletes that get just their asses handed to them by Israelis and don't

00:03:22.660 want to be sportsman-like about it. But anyway, what I was going to say is that I hope that more

00:03:26.640 thought has been given to the security of the Olympics than the Canadian Olympic team wardrobe.

00:03:32.020 Now, I want to just give you a sense of contrast here. This is Team USA. So this is what the

00:03:37.760 American athletes are wearing. This is their official getup. I don't know if it's intentional,

00:03:42.540 but it looks very astronaut-like. It looks like they could be leading some mission to the moon,

00:03:48.260 some mission to outer space. Good on them. And then you look at the contrast. This is the

00:03:53.020 Lululemon-inspired Canadian Olympic outfits, which I'm confused. I mean, the dog looks all right,

00:04:02.180 because the dog just has the red handkerchief. Some of them look like blood splatters. I saw

00:04:06.780 someone on social media say they reminded him of something you'd see on the show, Dexter. Dexter

00:04:11.160 was the blood spatter analyst at whatever it was, Miami Metro Homicide. But then I just couldn't

00:04:18.160 help but see this familiar scene from cinema history yeah that's uh that's carrie who's

00:04:24.600 actually an olympic pole vaulter in paris 2024 for team canada so uh good on you carrie we look

00:04:30.860 forward to seeing you take home the gold there uh anyway all that notwithstanding i mentioned

00:04:35.880 yesterday justin trudeau was taking a beach holiday he was off to his favorite spot tofino

00:04:41.860 usually he goes there on the national day for truth and reconciliation this time he got a bit

00:04:46.700 of an early jump on it, having a little family vacay, which I do not begrudge him. I said

00:04:52.260 yesterday, and I've said in the past, if he were to spend all his time on vacation, Canada would

00:04:57.560 be in a better place. But he was not entirely away from the prying eyes of the media. Kian Bexty,

00:05:04.840 who is a fellow independent journalist in this country, Kian Bexty, I don't know if he was just

00:05:09.040 on vacation in Tofino, or if he hopped on a plane and went there knowing Trudeau would be there.

00:05:14.380 But Kian Bexty tracked Justin Trudeau down on a beach in Dofino.

00:05:19.760 Trudeau has had me arrested for the crime of attending a press conference.

00:05:23.080 Kian writes, his officers have pushed me into traffic and I've had to sue to gain access to election scrums.

00:05:28.300 This time he couldn't get away.

00:05:30.360 I mean, he could have run fast, but maybe Kian could run as fast.

00:05:33.280 For 10 minutes, I grilled him on the beach publishing tomorrow.

00:05:37.240 There's a beach barbecue for you.

00:05:38.600 Grilling Justin Trudeau on the beach.

00:05:40.060 So I haven't seen the interview yet.

00:05:42.160 I don't know.

00:05:42.940 I mean, it looks like he's actually responding.

00:05:44.820 It looks like Trudeau is not just giving him the cold shoulder.

00:05:47.700 That was, he's taken yesterday.

00:05:49.200 Now, all of the conspiracy theorists online, I find it hilarious because I've met Kian

00:05:53.200 a number of occasions and all the conspiracy theorists that think he's like some Trudeau

00:05:57.060 plant, some controlled opposition, people saying that basically Trudeau and Kian had

00:06:04.060 arranged this so it looks like Trudeau is facing scrutiny.

00:06:07.940 And I'm thinking like, is this really where collaboration has gotten now?

00:06:11.680 that Justin Trudeau and Kian Bextie are secret BFFs partying it up on Tofino saying,

00:06:17.080 I know what we can do to make people think we've really pulled the wool under their eyes. But

00:06:19.920 anyway, the thing that has come up here, which is interesting, is that all of the people online are

00:06:25.320 like, how do you get close to him? You would be astonished at how lax security is in Canada. Now,

00:06:31.200 I believe that is a feature and not a bug. I like that in Canada, political assassinations are not

00:06:36.460 the norm, that assaulting politicians is not the norm. It's happened. You know, Darcy McGee was

00:06:41.440 assassinated, but we're going way, way back now, you know, about 140 years, I think, for the

00:06:46.800 assassination of Darcy McGee. And, you know, Trudeau, despite the hatred and animosity directed

00:06:52.240 towards him, the worst he's ever endured was having some gravel thrown at him. Now, there was,

00:06:57.100 again, someone who tried to bring a truck and firearms to Rideau Cottage, but didn't get anywhere

00:07:01.840 near him thankfully so in canada the fact that you can just walk up to your prime minister

00:07:07.280 is a hallmark of a free and accountable country and it says something that justin trudeau lets

00:07:13.520 his guard down when he's on his beach vacations what's interesting to me is that trudeau will as

00:07:19.200 kian writes there ban all journalists he doesn't like from covering him he will have police remove

00:07:25.040 journalists he doesn't like but uh sometimes you can catch him off guard so i look forward to seeing

00:07:29.120 the interview i will be watching it when it comes out tomorrow i don't know if there are going to be

00:07:32.800 any good answers in it or not but good on kian for going there and doing that when no other

00:07:38.960 journalists were and you know you could talk about the ethics of harassing someone on vacation but i

00:07:43.840 don't view it as that when it's a public figure walking out on a public beach and i will also

00:07:48.960 point out how amusing it is that if you were to like tell me don't give me any information

00:07:54.800 oh apparently they had like a romantic moment on the beach you're saying sean

00:07:58.400 there was this beauty oh that's beautiful look at that nice silhouette there uh in the shadows i'm

00:08:03.440 assuming that was at the beginning of the entered uh the exchange not the end but you never know

00:08:08.480 anyway that's a nice that's a nice little memento kian should have that framed his one and probably

00:08:13.440 only interview with justin trudeau but uh anyway the thing i was gonna say there before sean told

00:08:19.040 me we had that photo well i forgot what where was i going with that i had something else i was gonna

00:08:23.920 say it would have been great it would have been the best thing i ever said and you'll never get

00:08:27.280 to hear it now. Thanks, Sean. Hope you're happy about that. Oh, arrested. No, no, it wasn't about

00:08:31.840 the arrest. Anyway, we'll move on. The one point I'll raise here is that Justin Trudeau is still

00:08:38.740 in government. He is there probably until the next election. It seems like this momentum from his

00:08:44.740 caucus that we had hoped would be there to have a leadership review to get rid of him hasn't been

00:08:49.800 there at all. It was one MP and the rest were just former cabinet ministers and such. But the NDP

00:08:55.920 remain the most underutilized political force right now. Jagmeet Singh, if he wanted,

00:09:02.720 could be the most powerful man in Canadian politics. That would require having a bit of a

00:09:07.600 spine. It would require having a bit of courage. These are not things he's been able to find.

00:09:12.200 The story I've told, I don't like reusing jokes, but everyone laughs at it. So I should reuse it

00:09:17.820 until people stop laughing. I saw Jagmeet Singh leaving Parliament Hill once riding his bike.

00:09:21.940 And my first thought was, I didn't know you could do that without a spine. So I was impressed

00:09:25.560 I was impressed that he could do that, that he could stand upright and wasn't just like flopping

00:09:29.620 along as he was going down Wellington Street. But Jagmeet Singh had some very harsh words for

00:09:35.440 Justin Trudeau's government at a press conference yesterday. When it comes to housing, the North has

00:09:41.120 always felt neglected, ignored, like it doesn't matter. And now we've got a housing crisis,

00:09:47.920 all that negligence means people are really feeling that. You can't find a place that's

00:09:52.220 affordable. If you've got a place, you live in constant fear. If you lose it, you'll have nowhere

00:09:56.080 to go. And we know that Justin Trudeau has been in power for nine years, has ignored the door,

00:10:00.620 hasn't solved these problems. And I want to be very clear. He has had the opportunity to take

00:10:05.180 on corporate greed with corporate grocery stores, failed to do so. He had the opportunity to build

00:10:09.700 homes that are affordable for people, failed to do so. He has failed. Oh, he has failed. He's had

00:10:17.440 the opportunity to build homes. He's failed the opportunity to take on corporate greed. He's

00:10:21.920 failed. He's failed. He's failed. He's failed. These aren't my words. This is Jagmeet Singh,

00:10:27.000 the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, talking about Justin Trudeau's record as prime

00:10:32.880 minister. Well, one of the journalists who was at this scrum asked what I would say is,

00:10:37.600 no offense to the journalist, the obvious question in light of such a profound declaration of failure.

00:10:43.500 a lot of talk has been talked about uh your opposition the the uh the governing party

00:10:51.500 sounds like we are close to an election so are you ready to i guess end your uh partnership with

00:10:59.180 the liberals and put the words to action at the polls well either way we're ready we're getting

00:11:05.020 close to an election election is scheduled for the the by-law election date is going to be in 2025

00:11:11.180 So either way, we're close to an election.

00:11:13.200 We want people to know the choice.

00:11:14.720 That choice is really important.

00:11:15.900 We'll be ready to find an election whenever that happens.

00:11:18.860 And we want people to know what their choices are.

00:11:20.860 You got a choice between an out-of-touch liberal government that has let you down and a Justin Trudeau who has failed you on taking on corporate grocery prices,

00:11:29.720 failed you on building homes that people can afford.

00:11:32.220 He has failed.

00:11:32.760 he reiterates the failure message but the question was hey will you pull your support from the

00:11:40.720 liberals and Jagmeet Singh's like well what support there's already an election coming up

00:11:45.120 what are you talking to me about it for yeah we've got an election next year who cares what's

00:11:49.540 your rush what's your hurry so when Jagmeet Singh says this what he's saying is that there isn't

00:11:54.160 actually a choice that the NDP and the liberals are indistinguishable because his record is Justin

00:11:59.340 Trudeau's record. Jagmeet Singh would love to tell you that he has a record that stands apart

00:12:05.040 from the Prime Minister's, that his party has a record and a history and an identity that is

00:12:09.860 separate from that of the Liberals and that of the Liberal government. It's just not true. Jagmeet

00:12:15.620 Singh has not achieved anything. His greatest accomplishment could be holding out, pulling out

00:12:22.120 his support and taking down the most unpopular government in my lifetime anyway, certainly the

00:12:27.440 most unpopular government of the last 20 years. And he could do this very easily. One vote in the

00:12:36.100 House of Commons and Canadians will effectively be going to the polls because Justin Trudeau

00:12:41.280 would have stopped having the confidence to govern. So unless you imagine some scenario in

00:12:51.120 which the Bloc Québécois flip or whatever it is, that's not going to happen. So Jagmeet Singh could

00:12:56.740 do it. He could do it and is choosing not to. He is choosing not to. And this is to me where we as

00:13:04.480 Canadians have to put a lot more scrutiny and skepticism towards Singh. Now look, Justin Trudeau

00:13:09.760 is the guy who's in power right now. He's the guy that has to ultimately bear responsibility

00:13:13.320 for what the government of Canada has done that has been so problematic and troubling.

00:13:18.080 That being said, Jagmeet Singh cannot pretend that he is not a part of this. He cannot pretend

00:13:23.720 that he is not a quintessential part of this government and the fact that he didn't even get

00:13:28.880 a cabinet post out of it is hilarious like this is literally a coalition government by another name

00:13:34.460 the supply and confidence agreement which means that he is supporting the government and getting

00:13:39.200 nothing for it oh oh yes but we got pharma care we got national pharma care no you didn't you got

00:13:44.880 some diabetes drugs covered and the liberals were already promising those but good for you little

00:13:48.960 buddy good for that good for you you played hardball and you got something they were offering

00:13:53.200 anyway congratulations my goodness uh it's a wonder like jagmeet singh should be the one on

00:13:58.160 the beach in tofino uh you know going down and finding trudeau and trying to take him to the

00:14:03.120 carpet but instead he is basically just another limb to the trudeau government right now and not

00:14:08.560 a particularly useful one i want to shift from the political side of things to the judicial side

00:14:15.200 although increasingly there is a bit of a blurred line between these two bodies there was a supreme

00:14:21.600 court decision that came down on friday which is on the surface something that people might be

00:14:28.000 supportive of it's the supreme court saying the federal government does not have absolute immunity

00:14:32.960 from liability when parliament enacts laws that are later later overturned as unconstitutional

00:14:39.120 if you are a legal scholar which i don't pretend to be you might find some issues in this and if

00:14:44.560 you look more closely at the implications of it there are some big big problems that come about

00:14:50.240 from this and i want to talk to our good friend christine van gein who is the litigation director

00:14:54.720 for the canadian constitution foundation knows the law far better than i and i would say far

00:14:59.200 better than most judges in canada too but uh that's another discussion christine good to have

00:15:03.840 you back thanks for coming on today thanks for having me on andrew so you know you could look

00:15:08.400 at this and not be familiar with the context and say oh wow yes you know the court saying that

00:15:13.440 the government can be found liable if there are unconstitutional laws that sounds great

00:15:18.080 uh you know we don't want the government to skirt from this but there's a bigger

00:15:21.760 problem in this and i was hoping you could just explain what that is

00:15:25.760 so i actually don't think that it's a problem i think that it's a good thing

00:15:29.520 we interview okay i'm interested in this because a lot of your colleagues are saying the opposite

00:15:34.320 not my colleagues but there is a group who who on you know in canada who wants sort of unfettered

00:15:41.120 parliamentary power. And I think that Canada's history has shown that Parliament enacts laws

00:15:49.340 that can be abusive, can be enacted in bad faith. And while I am generally a skeptic of judicial

00:15:56.380 power, I'm also a skeptic of parliamentary power. And I think that the case power that we're

00:16:02.640 discussing, RRV power, gets that balance right. So for your listeners, for the context,

00:16:09.460 The question in power involved a man who had been convicted of some indictable offenses.

00:16:17.020 He had sought a pardon, but then there was a law that prevented him from getting this

00:16:22.300 pardon.

00:16:23.340 And the result was that he lost his job.

00:16:25.980 And he wanted to sue the government because that law that prevented him from getting the

00:16:31.480 pardon ended up being found to be unconstitutional.

00:16:34.060 So he did suffer damages.

00:16:36.420 He lost income.

00:16:37.680 He lost his job.

00:16:38.640 and he wants to sue the government for damages for this. Now, I don't think that this particular

00:16:44.820 case is an especially compelling one, maybe. I don't know that I'm convinced that he is eligible

00:16:51.900 for damages in his set of circumstances. But what the government had argued, the federal government

00:16:59.180 had argued, was that they have absolute immunity for ever being sued for damages for an unconstitutional

00:17:07.880 law. And the sort of dispute here is about the difference between parliament passing an

00:17:14.540 unconstitutional law, the act of passing the law, versus the executive action of perhaps

00:17:21.680 enforcing the law or a government acting in a particular way. So I'll give you two examples

00:17:28.660 to try to explain this. We all know that if you are subject to police brutality, if a cop beats

00:17:36.140 you up for no reason at all, you're minding your own business, and suddenly a police officer

00:17:41.380 assaults you, you can sue the state for damages. But what if instead of, and that's considered

00:17:48.860 executive state authority, but what if instead of a police officer beating you up,

00:17:55.480 Justin Trudeau, Parliament, passed a law that said Andrew Lawton is a terrible man. No one

00:18:01.740 should ever give Andrew Lawton a job. Andrew Lawton's neighbors should stop speaking to him.

00:18:06.820 In fact, maybe Andrew Lawton should be executed. Now, that is a law called a bill of attainder.

00:18:16.120 And they used to pass these in England that led to the execution of quite famous people in England.

00:18:22.100 And the question is, even if, say, maybe you aren't executed, but you suffer all kinds of

00:18:27.380 other damages. Because of this law, people stop speaking to you, you lose your job, you become a

00:18:32.440 social pariah, all because of this bill that was passed, this legislation that was passed by

00:18:37.240 parliament. Should you be able to sue for that? That is what the power case was about. And we

00:18:42.640 think that when there are laws that are enacted in bad faith, that are an abuse of power or

00:18:48.560 clearly unconstitutional, and that there are damages that flow from that, we think you should,

00:18:54.180 in those very exceptional circumstances be allowed to sue. We tend to, in conversation,

00:19:00.960 view the government in a more encompassing sense than it actually is. There is a difference between

00:19:07.880 the government and parliament, between the legislature and the executive. And one of the

00:19:11.680 criticisms I've seen of this is that this effectively blurs those lines. This is all of a

00:19:16.380 sudden the executive, which is, again, despite how we tend to view it as Canadians, it is a different

00:19:21.600 organ from the legislature is now accountable for what parliament is doing. Yes. So the criticism

00:19:28.680 of the case is that parliament has absolute immunity, that parliamentary supremacy and

00:19:34.420 sovereignty allows parliament to enact bills, including bills that we know have caused great

00:19:41.040 harm. And Canada's history tells us we have bills like this. We've seen the internment of Japanese

00:19:47.600 Canadians, the sterilization, forced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada. We know that

00:19:54.300 we have passed laws as a country that have hurt people. We think that there should be

00:20:00.140 damages that can flow from that, even if it's different from an executive act, like, for example,

00:20:06.960 a police officer assaulting a member of the public. We do think in those very, very high

00:20:12.560 and very exceptional circumstances, you know, by shielding the government of those most egregious

00:20:19.460 things, it would actually subvert the values and principles of government accountability. And

00:20:27.760 allowing people to sue for damages in those exceptional cases is a measure of accountability.

00:20:33.880 So let's talk about this dialogue, which I, you know, I'm getting triggered even thinking about

00:20:39.560 having studied this in school, this dialogue between courts and the legislature. It was one

00:20:43.940 of the theories advanced to kind of try to come up with an answer to this, which is supreme,

00:20:49.560 truly, the court or the legislature. And it was not the most convincing argument because at the

00:20:53.980 end of the day, someone has to have the last word here. And we can look at the flaws of judges in

00:20:59.880 the judiciary, and we can look at the flaws of politicians, but at least one is democratically

00:21:04.320 accountable. So why should, if we're giving one the final say, should it not be parliament?

00:21:10.380 Look, as I said, I'm also a skeptic of judicial power. I think judges get it wrong. Judges are

00:21:15.780 cloistered. Judges often don't understand real individuals' lives' experiences.

00:21:24.380 But on the other hand, as I said, I'm also a skeptic of government power, whether that's

00:21:29.600 legislative power or whether it's executive power. And as I said, we have a history of getting it

00:21:34.580 wrong as a, we have a history of parliament getting it wrong. That bill of attainder example

00:21:40.360 that I gave you, by the way, that, you know, I said that these were things that happened back

00:21:47.280 in England and in, you know, like the 1500s, I think 1542, there were a number of bills of

00:21:53.560 attainder passed in England, but we have a history of them in Canada too. Twice parliament has tried

00:21:59.300 to pass bills of attainder against specific individuals. Now, they were individuals that

00:22:05.540 I think we would all condemn. They were people who were notorious murderers. But still, we have

00:22:13.480 seen a willingness of parliament to go there. And I think that this is a limited check on the power

00:22:22.440 of parliament when they're doing something that's clearly wrong or abusive or in bad faith.

00:22:27.840 this is an appropriate and very limited check on that power. Look, Andrew, I'm a skeptic of all

00:22:35.680 power. I just do not want anyone telling me what to do, whether it's our legislature,

00:22:42.100 whether it's the executive, or whether it's the judiciary, and especially if it's the Senate.

00:22:47.660 Yeah. And to be fair, I mean, I would be inclined to side with, you know, if I have to pick judicial

00:22:53.140 supremacy or legislative supremacy, I would be inclined to say judicial supremacy if courts were

00:22:58.400 a lot more restrained in where they tend to go. And one of the challenges in Canada is that you

00:23:04.300 have a court that has historically liked to manufacture rights that do not exist and

00:23:09.160 manufacture interpretations of the constitution that there isn't really a basis for. And that's,

00:23:15.220 I guess, my concern that I have on this is that it is really the court, it seems like, expanding

00:23:19.660 its own view and or expanding its own mandate in judicial review so actually that's not what

00:23:26.280 the criticism is here of the power case i i'm very familiar with carrie son it was carrie son

00:23:32.220 made that point in the national post so i'm lifting his work in part i think that the main

00:23:36.060 criticism is actually more of a floodgates criticism than a criticism about um expanding

00:23:41.920 rights violations so typically we would have to no i was being in general about an issue i have

00:23:48.820 of course, but in this case, it's a valid point. Let me explain the criticism so I can address

00:23:53.500 it. I think that the main criticism of this decision is that it will open the floodgates

00:23:59.460 for litigants, class action lawyers to start suing the government for laws that they pass

00:24:07.540 that people don't like. And that is not what this case does. This case actually is an affirmation

00:24:13.840 of a pre-existing case that has already been in force for more than I think about 20 years. It's

00:24:20.060 a case called Mackin that set the threshold for when you can sue for an unconstitutional law

00:24:25.480 passed by parliament. And that case put that threshold high at clearly wrong,

00:24:31.540 clearly unconstitutional and abusive power and bad faith. And I mean, we have seen that precedent

00:24:38.740 enforced for 20 years. The floodgates did not open then. They have not been opened. This is

00:24:44.740 just an affirmation of the existing state of the law. The court talked about there is no need to

00:24:51.360 revisit Macken, that, you know, principles of negligence, for example, would not be enough

00:24:58.100 for you to be able to sue for damages for an unconstitutional law. So I think there's two

00:25:03.680 issues, one that you pointed to, you know, um, the judiciary taking an expansive view of rights

00:25:09.300 violations. Look, I share the concerns with, with that problem. Um, but it's a different issue from

00:25:15.360 what's it's what, what power is really about. Um, the issue in power was, I mean, it's, I think

00:25:23.860 your, your viewers might be more interested in, in the debate about whether that law that denied

00:25:29.220 power, his pardon should have been found unconstitutional or not. This was a person

00:25:35.320 who had been convicted of indictable offenses. Should he be eligible for a pardon? The issue

00:25:41.240 of the expansive court interpretation was whether that law was unconstitutional, not necessarily

00:25:47.880 the decision about whether or not he can sue for damages. I actually don't think under the

00:25:52.880 threshold in either Macken or this new case power that that threshold is actually met. I don't think

00:25:59.500 he'll be successful in his claim for damages. It's just that now he can pursue it. It's affirmed that

00:26:04.820 he can pursue it. What do you make of how close this was? Now, not that closeness necessarily

00:26:10.660 means anything more than who's on the bench at a particular time. I remember your right to tell

00:26:14.740 an offensive joke in Quebec was also a 5-4 decision, but 5-4, were you surprised by that?

00:26:20.500 uh based on watching the hearing no I think we saw where where Justice Rowe was going he was in

00:26:27.060 the dissent in this case I was not surprised that he was in the dissent um it looked like he was

00:26:32.660 going to dissent uh I I was not surprised we've seen this the court split uh a number of times

00:26:39.000 before this was a a split decision where there was a majority then a in part um dissent and then

00:26:45.680 there was a full dissent. So I encourage your viewers to read the online article. The online

00:26:54.020 publication, The Line, has run two competing op-eds, one by me and my colleague Josh DeHaz,

00:27:00.780 and another by lawyer Asher Honickman, where we kind of debate in public these kind of issues

00:27:06.680 that we're grappling with here today. But yeah, we intervened in this case, and the court sided

00:27:12.620 with our argument. So we're happy with that. I think that as a skeptic of state power, I come

00:27:18.680 down on the side of limiting state power. All right. Christine Van Gein, do read those pieces

00:27:23.820 in the line as well. Read everything in the line. They do some great stuff there. Christine from the

00:27:29.500 Canadian Constitution Foundation. Always good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:27:32.680 Thanks for having me on. All right. Thank you. I wanted to turn from one issue to another that has

00:27:39.060 become quite significant in Canada in the last little while, and that has been the immigration

00:27:45.000 system in this country, which has been under strain. Now, I should just say a couple of

00:27:50.040 months back, maybe six, eight weeks ago or so, Justin Trudeau himself acknowledged

00:27:53.780 the immigration system has become more than the country can handle, the volume of people coming

00:28:00.060 in. We've had Mark Miller, the immigration minister, talk about this in a very similar

00:28:03.980 context with an influx in international students. And you have to look at Pierre Polyev, for example,

00:28:10.080 the Conservative leader has said in response that he wants to really go back to basics here and have

00:28:14.920 a number that is tied to workforce, the labor market, housing market, social services, so that

00:28:22.820 the number of people that you admit into the country every year is in some way tied to that.

00:28:27.800 I'd be remiss to not point out that there was a recent report showing that the unemployment rate

00:28:32.360 for temporary residents in Canada hit 11% in June. Now, unemployment for temporary residents,

00:28:39.820 this includes foreign workers, international students, asylum seekers, is double the national

00:28:45.740 average. Now, some of these people are educated, qualified, skilled people that can't find work

00:28:50.800 in this country. What do you do about that? I want to welcome to the program immigration lawyer.

00:28:56.500 Well, I should point out not just an immigration lawyer, but also the chair of the Business

00:29:00.080 Immigration Committee for the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association, Siavash Shikarian. Siavash,

00:29:06.000 thanks for coming on today, good to speak to you. Hi Andrew, glad to be here. So let's just start

00:29:12.160 with that gap there. Why is that unemployment rate so different for the national standard that we see

00:29:19.680 and doubling that what we get for temporary residents in your view? Well it can have many

00:29:26.080 different different reasons but at the very least it's an indication that we're doing immigration

00:29:31.520 wrong like it's an it's an indication that our immigration system in general but in particular

00:29:37.440 immigration selection policy is broken and by broken i mean it's not working the way we want

00:29:42.480 it to work um and that discrepancy has a lot to say to that right um we if if we really want to

00:29:50.640 root cause this we have to go in deeper and look at the unemployment rate among high skill the job

00:29:57.120 vacancies low skill job vacancies but for the time being let's just stay general that's an indication

00:30:02.880 of a broken selection policy we do have a system i mean people often talk about the point system

00:30:10.960 we try to ensure that people who are coming to canada have you know a certain number of

00:30:14.960 aptitudes and capabilities education level skills we fill job vacancies specifically but you're

00:30:22.720 saying that that in and of itself is a flawed starting point on this of trying to fill individual

00:30:27.680 gaps in the labor market why yeah because okay so here's the thing we have this point system

00:30:34.240 which we wanted it to bring in the sharpest and the brightest and the best matches for what we have

00:30:40.960 on the ground and for our labor needs. I'm going to give you an example of how the system is flawed

00:30:47.040 in design. So we say we give candidates a score based on human capital factors. Age is there,

00:30:53.440 education is there, language proficiency is there. But let's take education, for example.

00:30:58.640 So we give points for education, but the system doesn't distinguish between a top school like

00:31:04.880 University of Waterloo, University of Toronto graduate, and a paper mill college. That's a

00:31:09.600 catastrophe because the employability of a top school graduate is radically different from the

00:31:15.120 employability of a paper mill college but nonetheless they get the same points same thing

00:31:19.680 happens with work experience we reward work experience but we thought we don't distinguish

00:31:24.400 where the work experience comes from right we don't even interview candidates anymore right

00:31:30.000 it's just a system nobody sees so we decide about the future of our country and the future of our

00:31:34.960 new immigrants just based on papers explain that i wasn't aware of that so work experience

00:31:41.520 is not distinguished based on what you've done can you just elaborate yeah work experience we

00:31:47.040 don't distinguish so if you're coming so if you work on this um highly highly sophisticated line

00:31:53.440 in nasa or google you get the same amount of points that if you really worked you know for

00:31:57.680 for your cousin's modest uh for your cousin's modest operation so the system doesn't really

00:32:02.320 distinguish the same thing that is happening in education right as i gave you an example regardless

00:32:06.640 of where you're educated from we just look at that degree but there's a lot more to say behind

00:32:11.440 the scenes that we don't look at so that's why you you you see other than this new report that says

00:32:16.960 okay we're looking at unemployment rate but a bigger catastrophe is the underutilization rate

00:32:23.680 right so you come to this country you say oh i'm a mechanical engineer at least on paper

00:32:27.520 right but i realized that you know the degree that i got is really not a good match for the

00:32:32.160 sophisticated market that we have in canada for high skill work therefore we see that the statistics

00:32:36.800 canada says that our stem um education that our stem graduates are 50 underutilized or in the

00:32:45.600 healthcare system too right 60 of them are underutilized so 60 of the people who have

00:32:50.240 health-related education are not working in that sector so we're doing something wrong yeah and

00:32:55.280 there are two issues i mean we've all seen the videos especially from the gta where some grocery

00:32:59.680 store will have a job fair and you've got you know a lineup for blocks and blocks and blocks

00:33:03.840 and blocks of people a lot of them immigrants new canadians temporary residents uh that are looking

00:33:08.720 for you know what's to be frank lower paid service uh service industry work but you're talking about

00:33:14.560 another aspect here which is people who are qualified educated you know people with engineering

00:33:19.040 degrees still can't find work themselves and and that to me is the ultimate in setting those people

00:33:24.640 up for failure if we as a country are admitting the guy with an engineering degree or the woman with

00:33:29.040 uh the medical degree or nursing degree and we can't find a job for them then what's the point

00:33:32.720 of it exactly there are two sides to this to this story right one side is you see queues

00:33:39.760 for low paid low skilled jobs you see a gig economy that is just you know booming and and

00:33:46.240 the on the other end of the spectrum you see qualified on paper under qualified in practice

00:33:52.080 crisis right so we're doing we're we're um i'm sad to say but we're doing we seem to be doing

00:33:58.880 everything wrong right because if you look at the low skilled one there's the that there's a

00:34:03.680 catastrophe there because if you look at the statistics right we say there's this there's

00:34:08.560 this topic okay what are we going to do about the the work the canadians are not willing to do right

00:34:13.760 now that that that's a that's a topic of interest when we get to these we're saying okay so for

00:34:18.880 those kind of work we have to bring in people who are willing to do the work but if you look at the

00:34:22.800 statistics we see that the temporary foreign worker program that we have at least based on

00:34:27.840 the most recent announcement that ircc had on curtailing the temporary residence we see that

00:34:32.880 only nine percent are coming from that program sixty percent are international students their

00:34:38.480 spouses and international students who are on pgwp so here in reality is what we're doing we're

00:34:46.560 promising prospective international students is like come to canada get top of the line education

00:34:52.000 find the best work possible they come here we exhaust them of their resources and i mean mental

00:34:58.720 and financial only for them to realize that the education that they got is is not going to get

00:35:05.600 them anywhere so they have to go to the economy to the gig economy or do a low skilled job so they

00:35:12.320 become depressed angry resentful and we hear stories that unfortunately we're sending coffins

00:35:19.920 back so we broke your dream we didn't give you what we promised you to do and end up process

00:35:25.840 we are also breaking on our our own system so the easy response to that and i don't want to

00:35:32.640 oversimplify just to look at it and say okay the number's too high lower the number problem solved

00:35:36.800 is it that simple of course not of course not we've been doing this all wrong i think from day

00:35:42.160 one, because we looked at it from a quantitative perspective, quantity is easy to understand,

00:35:49.020 right?

00:35:49.180 If I'm minister, I can say, oh, number, the more, the better.

00:35:52.020 So the higher the number, you know, I get to congratulate myself a lot and it's easy

00:35:56.520 to understand, but it's much, much more complicated than that.

00:35:59.880 Immigration is not a numbers game, right?

00:36:02.260 It's a very, very complicated issue that quantity, I think, is...

00:36:07.020 How is it not in a way, though?

00:36:09.360 because a lot of the economic problems you're describing can be quantified you have available

00:36:13.840 housing available jobs uh you know number of immigrants that that is a new i mean they're

00:36:18.640 humans but it is a numerical issue there is it not sure let's let's talk about it so you're saying if

00:36:24.720 if we were to say let's quantify immigration where does that number come from and let's agree

00:36:30.000 that for canada immigration is not a privilege right it's not saying oh this is an add-on that

00:36:35.280 we prefer to have it's our lifeline right 90 98 almost 100 of our population growth comes from

00:36:41.920 immigration so we have to do it so that's there and now that we have to do it how many is good

00:36:47.040 like who came up with one percent of the population where did that number come from are we compensating

00:36:52.640 for our birth deficit like i don't know we need to get 2.1 per mother with getting 1.3 or something

00:36:58.320 like that so there's a deficit there we are seeing people retiring in droves like 340 350 000 a year

00:37:06.960 so do we need to replace that so there's 350 000 there and if you start thinking about it from a

00:37:12.880 purely numerical way you see that oh we need a lot more people that we are currently bringing in but

00:37:18.400 it's not a numbers game because we are seeing the crisis right now does our can our healthcare

00:37:23.680 system handle the number we're bringing does our housing can handle the number that we're bringing

00:37:29.280 in so the the dilemma is we need them but do we want them and by wanting them i mean because we

00:37:38.400 want everybody to win you know we don't want bringing people here so they're sad they can't

00:37:42.240 find jobs they can get good health care they can find housing right well there's also a paradox

00:37:47.920 there and that you you have the government saying well we need immigrants to fill construction jobs

00:37:53.040 to build the houses that we need to house the immigrants and you're like well hang on

00:37:57.120 there's a circular logic you hear in that and you're right so so that's fair the numbers just

00:38:01.520 don't add up if you look at it purely in that perspective no they don't and then that's that's

00:38:06.400 why i'm saying that it's it's a much more complicated issue than just the numbers right

00:38:11.440 i'm going to give you another example uh houses are not just built by workers right you need

00:38:16.800 entrepreneurs developers that can come here and then you know they bring their ingenuity and they

00:38:21.280 They bring in their innovation to kind of revolutionize our current status of the industry.

00:38:27.000 But if you look at our selection system, we are completely, almost completely ignoring entrepreneurs, right?

00:38:34.600 We're focused on bringing in the workers.

00:38:36.400 But why are we not focused on bringing in the job creators?

00:38:40.600 That's like an issue that is so understated and nobody really talks about as often as we should.

00:38:46.680 because how many workers do you really want to bring to the economy

00:38:51.040 that has an entrepreneurial crisis?

00:38:54.600 And this is not me saying it.

00:38:56.680 BDC report after report.

00:38:58.780 First of all, they call us a nation of entrepreneurs.

00:39:02.220 The bedrock of our economy is small and medium-sized businesses.

00:39:05.940 So it's entrepreneurs, right?

00:39:07.920 And we see that their rate is on decline.

00:39:11.000 We have, they call it succession tsunami, right?

00:39:14.280 Our baby boomers are retiring.

00:39:15.580 they want to get rid of the businesses they don't have buyers immigration can be an obvious solution

00:39:20.380 but we're not using it so this is another misguided selection thing that we're doing we're not

00:39:25.420 we're not um we're not doing our immigration policy based on the reality on the ground that we see

00:39:31.660 i i know that the us has done this historically as i understand it quite well uh there are

00:39:36.540 problems with their approach canada does have entrepreneurial streams though they're just as

00:39:40.780 you were saying that i i looked up and i see different provinces have their own guidelines

00:39:45.100 where you can come to canada and start a business and get a work permit what's wrong with that that

00:39:50.460 or what is inadequate about the status quo in your view well let's take ontario for an example right

00:39:55.900 ontario had an entrepreneurial stream for business uh for entrepreneurs they closed it down december

00:40:01.340 2023 with no notice the reason they said it was the unsuccessful um appeal of the program it was

00:40:08.220 too complicated for no good reason why is that because the policy makers lock themselves behind

00:40:13.340 closed doors right they don't look at the they don't look at the reality of the ground they

00:40:17.340 don't appreciate that being an entrepreneur being a canadian-born entrepreneur in today's canada

00:40:22.860 is already a difficult difficult difficult task let alone if you're coming from a different

00:40:30.220 economy and let's be honest we're not the top destination for advanced economies right let's

00:40:35.580 not kid ourselves we are the top destination usually for economies that are much worse off

00:40:40.700 than we are so that gap must be filled in an economy that is already hard for canadian borns

00:40:48.460 to fill and if we are sitting behind closed door and making policy that doesn't take into

00:40:52.940 consideration all these real nuances we end up with what we have right now and i i gave you

00:41:00.780 ontario as a good example because it's the most popular and the most populous uh province that

00:41:05.100 we have in canada so by extension you can think about because all the other pmp entrepreneurial

00:41:10.460 streams those programs that are designed to target entrepreneurs were kind of modeled after the

00:41:16.140 ontario program is too much of a burden over the shoulders of a poor immigrant that is coming here

00:41:22.380 with all their votes their money and their resources with too little security right we

00:41:28.300 it's it's the way we do immigration at least on the entrepreneurial stream on the provincial level

00:41:35.020 is extremely selfish without regard to the reality on the ground again.

00:41:40.580 So it's not just a federal government's problem,

00:41:42.320 it's a provincial government problem as well.

00:41:45.000 What a contrast.

00:41:46.280 We bring in people through all of these streams

00:41:48.460 that end up having trouble finding work

00:41:50.060 and then shut down the one that lets people come in to create jobs.

00:41:53.380 A great set of priorities from our government here.

00:41:56.820 Well, it's great to talk to you.

00:41:58.220 A lot to unpack here, and I'm sure we'll revisit this in the future.

00:42:02.360 Siavash Shikarian, thank you so much for your time, sir.

00:42:05.020 my pleasure enjoy the rest all right thank you that does it for us for today we'll be back

00:42:10.020 tomorrow with more of the andrew lawton show here on true north thank you god bless and good day to

00:42:15.320 you all thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north

00:42:21.120 at www.tnc.news

00:42:35.020 We'll be right back.

00:43:05.020 We'll be right back.

Juno News - July 23, 2024

Jagmeet Singh says Trudeau has ＂failed＂ – but won't do anything about it

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