Jagmeet Singh says Trudeau has ＂failed＂ – but won't do anything about it
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Summary
On this episode of The Andrew Lawton Show, the Canadian Prime Minister is on a family vacation in Tofino, and the country is getting ready for the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Plus, a look at Team USA s new uniforms, and a look back at the Canadian Olympic outfits.
Transcript
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the andrew lawton show on true north great to have you tuned into the program on this tuesday july
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23rd hope you're having a great week so far and i we the olympics are coming up now i will be
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perfectly candid i do not care about the olympics from time to time i watch the opening ceremonies
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but i say from time to time i'm now wondering if i did it like at all since 2012 which i believe
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were the Olympics in London and I think I only watched because the Spice Girls were performing so
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take from that that's the most embarrassing thing I've ever said on the show but anyway they did a
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bang-up performance and the Olympics are coming up anyway on the 26th so you're going to get that
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barrage of Canadiana from time to time now this year I did note that Hamas has said it's going
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to be attacking the Olympics now I'm assuming this is just bluster but I trust the security
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will be taken as seriously as it deserves and I hope the security at the Olympics is taken
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more seriously than wardrobe is by the Canadian Olympic Committee. Now, I just want to give you
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some contrast here. No, Sean was worried because he just told me he thought Hamas was going to have
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an Olympic team. So it would be basically, I'm trying to think of a quick joke that's not
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horrendously offensive. I don't have one. So no, no, Sean, there's no Hamas Olympic team this year.
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But you know what? There is a team for the state of Israel and good for them for rising up above
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what's happened to that country since October 7th. There was one year, I'm trying to remember when it
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was, I saw the clip, because sometimes the sports stuff penetrates into my world. It was an
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Olympic wrestling match, and I want to say it was Israel versus Iran, and the Iranian wrestler
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wouldn't shake the Israeli wrestler's hand. And I imagine we're probably going to see more displays
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like that from several athletes that get just their asses handed to them by Israelis and don't
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want to be sportsman-like about it. But anyway, what I was going to say is that I hope that more
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thought has been given to the security of the Olympics than the Canadian Olympic team wardrobe.
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Now, I want to just give you a sense of contrast here. This is Team USA. So this is what the
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American athletes are wearing. This is their official getup. I don't know if it's intentional,
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but it looks very astronaut-like. It looks like they could be leading some mission to the moon,
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some mission to outer space. Good on them. And then you look at the contrast. This is the
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Lululemon-inspired Canadian Olympic outfits, which I'm confused. I mean, the dog looks all right,
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because the dog just has the red handkerchief. Some of them look like blood splatters. I saw
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someone on social media say they reminded him of something you'd see on the show, Dexter. Dexter
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was the blood spatter analyst at whatever it was, Miami Metro Homicide. But then I just couldn't
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help but see this familiar scene from cinema history yeah that's uh that's carrie who's
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actually an olympic pole vaulter in paris 2024 for team canada so uh good on you carrie we look
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forward to seeing you take home the gold there uh anyway all that notwithstanding i mentioned
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yesterday justin trudeau was taking a beach holiday he was off to his favorite spot tofino
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usually he goes there on the national day for truth and reconciliation this time he got a bit
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of an early jump on it, having a little family vacay, which I do not begrudge him. I said
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yesterday, and I've said in the past, if he were to spend all his time on vacation, Canada would
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be in a better place. But he was not entirely away from the prying eyes of the media. Kian Bexty,
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who is a fellow independent journalist in this country, Kian Bexty, I don't know if he was just
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on vacation in Tofino, or if he hopped on a plane and went there knowing Trudeau would be there.
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But Kian Bexty tracked Justin Trudeau down on a beach in Dofino.
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Trudeau has had me arrested for the crime of attending a press conference.
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Kian writes, his officers have pushed me into traffic and I've had to sue to gain access to election scrums.
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I mean, he could have run fast, but maybe Kian could run as fast.
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For 10 minutes, I grilled him on the beach publishing tomorrow.
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I mean, it looks like he's actually responding.
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It looks like Trudeau is not just giving him the cold shoulder.
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Now, all of the conspiracy theorists online, I find it hilarious because I've met Kian
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a number of occasions and all the conspiracy theorists that think he's like some Trudeau
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plant, some controlled opposition, people saying that basically Trudeau and Kian had
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arranged this so it looks like Trudeau is facing scrutiny.
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And I'm thinking like, is this really where collaboration has gotten now?
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that Justin Trudeau and Kian Bextie are secret BFFs partying it up on Tofino saying,
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I know what we can do to make people think we've really pulled the wool under their eyes. But
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anyway, the thing that has come up here, which is interesting, is that all of the people online are
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like, how do you get close to him? You would be astonished at how lax security is in Canada. Now,
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I believe that is a feature and not a bug. I like that in Canada, political assassinations are not
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the norm, that assaulting politicians is not the norm. It's happened. You know, Darcy McGee was
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assassinated, but we're going way, way back now, you know, about 140 years, I think, for the
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assassination of Darcy McGee. And, you know, Trudeau, despite the hatred and animosity directed
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towards him, the worst he's ever endured was having some gravel thrown at him. Now, there was,
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again, someone who tried to bring a truck and firearms to Rideau Cottage, but didn't get anywhere
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near him thankfully so in canada the fact that you can just walk up to your prime minister
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is a hallmark of a free and accountable country and it says something that justin trudeau lets
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his guard down when he's on his beach vacations what's interesting to me is that trudeau will as
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kian writes there ban all journalists he doesn't like from covering him he will have police remove
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journalists he doesn't like but uh sometimes you can catch him off guard so i look forward to seeing
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the interview i will be watching it when it comes out tomorrow i don't know if there are going to be
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any good answers in it or not but good on kian for going there and doing that when no other
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journalists were and you know you could talk about the ethics of harassing someone on vacation but i
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don't view it as that when it's a public figure walking out on a public beach and i will also
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point out how amusing it is that if you were to like tell me don't give me any information
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oh apparently they had like a romantic moment on the beach you're saying sean
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there was this beauty oh that's beautiful look at that nice silhouette there uh in the shadows i'm
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assuming that was at the beginning of the entered uh the exchange not the end but you never know
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anyway that's a nice that's a nice little memento kian should have that framed his one and probably
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only interview with justin trudeau but uh anyway the thing i was gonna say there before sean told
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me we had that photo well i forgot what where was i going with that i had something else i was gonna
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say it would have been great it would have been the best thing i ever said and you'll never get
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to hear it now. Thanks, Sean. Hope you're happy about that. Oh, arrested. No, no, it wasn't about
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the arrest. Anyway, we'll move on. The one point I'll raise here is that Justin Trudeau is still
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in government. He is there probably until the next election. It seems like this momentum from his
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caucus that we had hoped would be there to have a leadership review to get rid of him hasn't been
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there at all. It was one MP and the rest were just former cabinet ministers and such. But the NDP
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remain the most underutilized political force right now. Jagmeet Singh, if he wanted,
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could be the most powerful man in Canadian politics. That would require having a bit of a
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spine. It would require having a bit of courage. These are not things he's been able to find.
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The story I've told, I don't like reusing jokes, but everyone laughs at it. So I should reuse it
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until people stop laughing. I saw Jagmeet Singh leaving Parliament Hill once riding his bike.
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And my first thought was, I didn't know you could do that without a spine. So I was impressed
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I was impressed that he could do that, that he could stand upright and wasn't just like flopping
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along as he was going down Wellington Street. But Jagmeet Singh had some very harsh words for
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Justin Trudeau's government at a press conference yesterday. When it comes to housing, the North has
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always felt neglected, ignored, like it doesn't matter. And now we've got a housing crisis,
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all that negligence means people are really feeling that. You can't find a place that's
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affordable. If you've got a place, you live in constant fear. If you lose it, you'll have nowhere
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to go. And we know that Justin Trudeau has been in power for nine years, has ignored the door,
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hasn't solved these problems. And I want to be very clear. He has had the opportunity to take
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on corporate greed with corporate grocery stores, failed to do so. He had the opportunity to build
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homes that are affordable for people, failed to do so. He has failed. Oh, he has failed. He's had
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the opportunity to build homes. He's failed the opportunity to take on corporate greed. He's
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failed. He's failed. He's failed. He's failed. These aren't my words. This is Jagmeet Singh,
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the leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, talking about Justin Trudeau's record as prime
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minister. Well, one of the journalists who was at this scrum asked what I would say is,
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no offense to the journalist, the obvious question in light of such a profound declaration of failure.
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a lot of talk has been talked about uh your opposition the the uh the governing party
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sounds like we are close to an election so are you ready to i guess end your uh partnership with
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the liberals and put the words to action at the polls well either way we're ready we're getting
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close to an election election is scheduled for the the by-law election date is going to be in 2025
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We'll be ready to find an election whenever that happens.
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And we want people to know what their choices are.
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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,
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failed you on building homes that people can afford.
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he reiterates the failure message but the question was hey will you pull your support from the
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liberals and Jagmeet Singh's like well what support there's already an election coming up
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what are you talking to me about it for yeah we've got an election next year who cares what's
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your rush what's your hurry so when Jagmeet Singh says this what he's saying is that there isn't
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actually a choice that the NDP and the liberals are indistinguishable because his record is Justin
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Trudeau's record. Jagmeet Singh would love to tell you that he has a record that stands apart
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from the Prime Minister's, that his party has a record and a history and an identity that is
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separate from that of the Liberals and that of the Liberal government. It's just not true. Jagmeet
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Singh has not achieved anything. His greatest accomplishment could be holding out, pulling out
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his support and taking down the most unpopular government in my lifetime anyway, certainly the
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most unpopular government of the last 20 years. And he could do this very easily. One vote in the
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House of Commons and Canadians will effectively be going to the polls because Justin Trudeau
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would have stopped having the confidence to govern. So unless you imagine some scenario in
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which the Bloc Québécois flip or whatever it is, that's not going to happen. So Jagmeet Singh could
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do it. He could do it and is choosing not to. He is choosing not to. And this is to me where we as
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Canadians have to put a lot more scrutiny and skepticism towards Singh. Now look, Justin Trudeau
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is the guy who's in power right now. He's the guy that has to ultimately bear responsibility
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for what the government of Canada has done that has been so problematic and troubling.
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That being said, Jagmeet Singh cannot pretend that he is not a part of this. He cannot pretend
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that he is not a quintessential part of this government and the fact that he didn't even get
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a cabinet post out of it is hilarious like this is literally a coalition government by another name
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the supply and confidence agreement which means that he is supporting the government and getting
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nothing for it oh oh yes but we got pharma care we got national pharma care no you didn't you got
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some diabetes drugs covered and the liberals were already promising those but good for you little
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buddy good for that good for you you played hardball and you got something they were offering
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anyway congratulations my goodness uh it's a wonder like jagmeet singh should be the one on
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the beach in tofino uh you know going down and finding trudeau and trying to take him to the
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carpet but instead he is basically just another limb to the trudeau government right now and not
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a particularly useful one i want to shift from the political side of things to the judicial side
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although increasingly there is a bit of a blurred line between these two bodies there was a supreme
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court decision that came down on friday which is on the surface something that people might be
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supportive of it's the supreme court saying the federal government does not have absolute immunity
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from liability when parliament enacts laws that are later later overturned as unconstitutional
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if you are a legal scholar which i don't pretend to be you might find some issues in this and if
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you look more closely at the implications of it there are some big big problems that come about
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from this and i want to talk to our good friend christine van gein who is the litigation director
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for the canadian constitution foundation knows the law far better than i and i would say far
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better than most judges in canada too but uh that's another discussion christine good to have
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you back thanks for coming on today thanks for having me on andrew so you know you could look
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at this and not be familiar with the context and say oh wow yes you know the court saying that
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the government can be found liable if there are unconstitutional laws that sounds great
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uh you know we don't want the government to skirt from this but there's a bigger
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problem in this and i was hoping you could just explain what that is
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so i actually don't think that it's a problem i think that it's a good thing
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we interview okay i'm interested in this because a lot of your colleagues are saying the opposite
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not my colleagues but there is a group who who on you know in canada who wants sort of unfettered
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parliamentary power. And I think that Canada's history has shown that Parliament enacts laws
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that can be abusive, can be enacted in bad faith. And while I am generally a skeptic of judicial
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power, I'm also a skeptic of parliamentary power. And I think that the case power that we're
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discussing, RRV power, gets that balance right. So for your listeners, for the context,
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The question in power involved a man who had been convicted of some indictable offenses.
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He had sought a pardon, but then there was a law that prevented him from getting this
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And he wanted to sue the government because that law that prevented him from getting the
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pardon ended up being found to be unconstitutional.
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and he wants to sue the government for damages for this. Now, I don't think that this particular
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case is an especially compelling one, maybe. I don't know that I'm convinced that he is eligible
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for damages in his set of circumstances. But what the government had argued, the federal government
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had argued, was that they have absolute immunity for ever being sued for damages for an unconstitutional
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law. And the sort of dispute here is about the difference between parliament passing an
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unconstitutional law, the act of passing the law, versus the executive action of perhaps
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enforcing the law or a government acting in a particular way. So I'll give you two examples
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to try to explain this. We all know that if you are subject to police brutality, if a cop beats
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you up for no reason at all, you're minding your own business, and suddenly a police officer
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assaults you, you can sue the state for damages. But what if instead of, and that's considered
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executive state authority, but what if instead of a police officer beating you up,
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Justin Trudeau, Parliament, passed a law that said Andrew Lawton is a terrible man. No one
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should ever give Andrew Lawton a job. Andrew Lawton's neighbors should stop speaking to him.
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In fact, maybe Andrew Lawton should be executed. Now, that is a law called a bill of attainder.
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And they used to pass these in England that led to the execution of quite famous people in England.
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And the question is, even if, say, maybe you aren't executed, but you suffer all kinds of
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other damages. Because of this law, people stop speaking to you, you lose your job, you become a
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social pariah, all because of this bill that was passed, this legislation that was passed by
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parliament. Should you be able to sue for that? That is what the power case was about. And we
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think that when there are laws that are enacted in bad faith, that are an abuse of power or
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clearly unconstitutional, and that there are damages that flow from that, we think you should,
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in those very exceptional circumstances be allowed to sue. We tend to, in conversation,
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view the government in a more encompassing sense than it actually is. There is a difference between
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the government and parliament, between the legislature and the executive. And one of the
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criticisms I've seen of this is that this effectively blurs those lines. This is all of a
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sudden the executive, which is, again, despite how we tend to view it as Canadians, it is a different
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organ from the legislature is now accountable for what parliament is doing. Yes. So the criticism
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of the case is that parliament has absolute immunity, that parliamentary supremacy and
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sovereignty allows parliament to enact bills, including bills that we know have caused great
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harm. And Canada's history tells us we have bills like this. We've seen the internment of Japanese
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Canadians, the sterilization, forced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada. We know that
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we have passed laws as a country that have hurt people. We think that there should be
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damages that can flow from that, even if it's different from an executive act, like, for example,
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a police officer assaulting a member of the public. We do think in those very, very high
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and very exceptional circumstances, you know, by shielding the government of those most egregious
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things, it would actually subvert the values and principles of government accountability. And
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allowing people to sue for damages in those exceptional cases is a measure of accountability.
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So let's talk about this dialogue, which I, you know, I'm getting triggered even thinking about
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having studied this in school, this dialogue between courts and the legislature. It was one
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of the theories advanced to kind of try to come up with an answer to this, which is supreme,
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truly, the court or the legislature. And it was not the most convincing argument because at the
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end of the day, someone has to have the last word here. And we can look at the flaws of judges in
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the judiciary, and we can look at the flaws of politicians, but at least one is democratically
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accountable. So why should, if we're giving one the final say, should it not be parliament?
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Look, as I said, I'm also a skeptic of judicial power. I think judges get it wrong. Judges are
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cloistered. Judges often don't understand real individuals' lives' experiences.
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But on the other hand, as I said, I'm also a skeptic of government power, whether that's
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legislative power or whether it's executive power. And as I said, we have a history of getting it
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wrong as a, we have a history of parliament getting it wrong. That bill of attainder example
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that I gave you, by the way, that, you know, I said that these were things that happened back
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in England and in, you know, like the 1500s, I think 1542, there were a number of bills of
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attainder passed in England, but we have a history of them in Canada too. Twice parliament has tried
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to pass bills of attainder against specific individuals. Now, they were individuals that
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I think we would all condemn. They were people who were notorious murderers. But still, we have
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seen a willingness of parliament to go there. And I think that this is a limited check on the power
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of parliament when they're doing something that's clearly wrong or abusive or in bad faith.
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this is an appropriate and very limited check on that power. Look, Andrew, I'm a skeptic of all
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power. I just do not want anyone telling me what to do, whether it's our legislature,
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whether it's the executive, or whether it's the judiciary, and especially if it's the Senate.
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Yeah. And to be fair, I mean, I would be inclined to side with, you know, if I have to pick judicial
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supremacy or legislative supremacy, I would be inclined to say judicial supremacy if courts were
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a lot more restrained in where they tend to go. And one of the challenges in Canada is that you
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have a court that has historically liked to manufacture rights that do not exist and
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manufacture interpretations of the constitution that there isn't really a basis for. And that's,
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I guess, my concern that I have on this is that it is really the court, it seems like, expanding
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its own view and or expanding its own mandate in judicial review so actually that's not what
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the criticism is here of the power case i i'm very familiar with carrie son it was carrie son
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made that point in the national post so i'm lifting his work in part i think that the main
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criticism is actually more of a floodgates criticism than a criticism about um expanding
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rights violations so typically we would have to no i was being in general about an issue i have
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of course, but in this case, it's a valid point. Let me explain the criticism so I can address
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it. I think that the main criticism of this decision is that it will open the floodgates
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for litigants, class action lawyers to start suing the government for laws that they pass
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that people don't like. And that is not what this case does. This case actually is an affirmation
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of a pre-existing case that has already been in force for more than I think about 20 years. It's
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a case called Mackin that set the threshold for when you can sue for an unconstitutional law
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passed by parliament. And that case put that threshold high at clearly wrong,
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clearly unconstitutional and abusive power and bad faith. And I mean, we have seen that precedent
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enforced for 20 years. The floodgates did not open then. They have not been opened. This is
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just an affirmation of the existing state of the law. The court talked about there is no need to
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revisit Macken, that, you know, principles of negligence, for example, would not be enough
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for you to be able to sue for damages for an unconstitutional law. So I think there's two
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issues, one that you pointed to, you know, um, the judiciary taking an expansive view of rights
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violations. Look, I share the concerns with, with that problem. Um, but it's a different issue from
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what's it's what, what power is really about. Um, the issue in power was, I mean, it's, I think
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your, your viewers might be more interested in, in the debate about whether that law that denied
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power, his pardon should have been found unconstitutional or not. This was a person
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who had been convicted of indictable offenses. Should he be eligible for a pardon? The issue
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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
1.00
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
1.00
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
1.00
00:33:24.640
up for failure if we as a country are admitting the guy with an engineering degree or the woman with
0.96
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,
00:35:49.180
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.
00:36:02.260
It's a very, very complicated issue that quantity, I think, is...
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
1.00
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
0.99
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
1.00
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?
00:38:36.400
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
00:38:58.780
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.
00:39:11.000
We have, they call it succession tsunami, right?
00:39:15.580
they want to get rid of the businesses they don't have buyers immigration can be an obvious solution
1.00
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
1.00
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,
00:41:46.280
We bring in people through all of these streams
00:41:50.060
and then shut down the one that lets people come in to create jobs.
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00:41:53.380
A great set of priorities from our government here.
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