Jamil Jivani on “Liberal racism” in Canada’s institutions
Episode Stats
Harmful content
Toxicity
1
sentences flagged
Hate speech
5
sentences flagged
Summary
A conservative MP says it s time to do away with the practice of recognizing a day or month in honour of any particular ethnic group or heritage group, like Black History Month or Pride Month. Jamil Ganani is chairing a task force looking at things like government-mandated diversity practices. He s also sponsoring a petition that reads in part: These forms of empty virtue signaling tokenize ethnic communities. This tokenism undermines social cohesion and does not promote Canadian identity and citizenship.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
A conservative MP says it's time to do away with the practice of recognizing a day or month
00:00:13.040
in honor of any particular ethnic group or heritage group, like Black History Month,
00:00:18.480
for instance, or even Pride Month. Jamil Giovanni is chairing a task force looking at things like
00:00:24.740
government-mandated diversity hiring practices. He's also sponsoring a petition that reads in part
00:00:32.260
these forms of empty virtue signaling tokenize ethnic communities. This tokenism undermines
00:00:40.420
social cohesion and does not promote Canadian identity and citizenship. Jamil Javani is our
00:00:47.780
guest today. He's the conservative MP for Bowmanville Oshawa North. Welcome, sir.
00:00:54.900
Okay, is it really such a bad thing to honor particular groups like Black groups or Pride groups?
00:01:04.360
Well, the federal government has this perpetual habit of creating more and more of these heritage months or commemorative days.
00:01:12.780
And all it really does is sort of divide us up into separate groups based on our identity or where our parents come from.
00:01:20.060
what i think a lot of canadians are concerned about is this is happening at the cost of a
00:01:25.400
united canadian identity and an understanding of what canadian culture or citizenship means
00:01:31.160
so when you know some of the some citizens approached me about sponsoring this petition
00:01:36.140
i thought it was a perspective that people need to take seriously because we are an increasingly
00:01:41.120
diverse society where i don't know how clear we are what we actually share with each other and
00:01:48.760
Yeah, in fact, the prime minister, though, he believes that we're a mosaic, not a melting pot.
00:01:54.300
And he said as much, I believe, when he was in Ireland.
00:01:57.440
How does that align with the view that we should be honoring all these different groups?
00:02:03.240
I think your petition mentioned something like 20 of them.
00:02:07.200
Yeah, that's 20 that the federal government currently recognizes.
00:02:10.260
And I'm telling you, they're adding more all the time.
00:02:16.220
And I think it's time that we sort of pause and say, you know, whether Mark Carney wants to talk about melting pots or mosaics, to me, I think we all can recognize we need assimilation.
00:02:26.900
You know, people come from all over the world to this country, including my father, my grandparents, and they want to be part of Canada.
00:02:33.440
It is our responsibility as the federal government to provide an understanding of what being part of Canada looks like.
00:02:39.420
And I think that means honoring what makes us Canadian, our common bonds, our common heritage, our common history.
00:02:46.480
These months and these days get us away from that.
00:02:49.540
And I think that's the point that people need to take seriously.
00:02:52.100
If we want a strong nation, we have to have a strong sense of who we are.
0.97
00:02:56.360
Yeah, unfortunately right now, Jamil, you might agree with me.
00:02:59.720
It really feels like this country is very divided right now.
00:03:04.060
And unfortunately, we're seeing a growing amount of opposition to immigration.
00:03:09.420
I mean, my parents came over from Italy back in the 1950s.
00:03:14.880
You yourself have that kind of background as well.
00:03:18.340
And unfortunately, when you have a situation where people are not encouraged to accept Canadian values and just hold on to your own,
00:03:27.780
then we end up in a situation where people bring their own particular grievances from the old country and they become part of our country.
00:03:39.420
Yeah, and that's why I think Mark Carney is insincere when he talks about these issues.
00:03:45.780
On one hand, he'll go to Toronto and do a speech at a synagogue talking about the need
00:03:50.440
to not bring your conflicts from other parts of the world into the streets of Canada.
00:03:56.320
And then on the other hand, he'll say, well, we don't have assimilation here.
00:03:59.440
It's like, yeah, he's not actually solving the problem he's describing.
00:04:03.360
The reason we have people fighting in the streets of Canada over issues that exist many,
00:04:07.760
many kilometers away from here is because we don't have proper assimilation. And people need
00:04:12.800
to realize you should have more in common with a fellow Canadian citizen than you do with somebody
00:04:18.040
from another country. And that's what a healthy society looks like. And unfortunately, the
00:04:22.800
numerical aspect comes into play to just the sheer volume of people that have come in over the last
00:04:29.140
11 years or so. There is a strong sense that we went overboard. In fact, even in some official
00:04:35.600
quarters. Even the government itself has acknowledged, well, maybe we went too far.
00:04:40.580
But it's created an enormous amount of tension. And you add to that crises around housing,
00:04:47.580
for instance, the jobs issue where you have growing resentment amongst Canadians who are
00:04:53.180
unable to find jobs. And then they see work awarded to foreigners through various programs,
00:05:00.940
work programs and temporary programs and so all of this is adding to the tensions in the country
00:05:07.340
and it's it sounds like you want to remind everybody that no this is actually a country
00:05:13.100
you're not coming to a place where the nation doesn't really exist that this is an actual
00:05:19.340
country with an actual culture and actual values is that where you're going with this yes that's
00:05:25.500
exactly right we have founding nations english and french we have a history of common law we have a
00:05:31.580
constitutional history we have been a place where people could proudly say they could guarantee
00:05:37.100
their kids a better quality of life if they worked hard and made a good living here some of these
00:05:42.300
things are i feel like they're under attack today in terms of our identity in terms of social
00:05:47.500
mobility here and we've got to preserve and protect that and that means honoring who we are as people
00:05:53.180
what you've rightly picked up on is what i would call the difference between immigration
00:05:57.820
versus mass immigration immigration at a certain level has always worked in canada because you've
00:06:03.340
been able to bring people together and assimilate people from different backgrounds when you reach
00:06:08.380
the level of mass immigration we've had for several consecutive years now you just can't
00:06:14.060
assimilate that number of people and i'll tell you mark i have people in my home community in oshawa
1.00
00:06:19.100
for example, who will come to me from different parts of the world and they'll say, I want to be
00:06:24.360
a Canadian. I don't feel like I'm part of this country. How do I become part of this country?
00:06:29.560
And that is not an immigration system that works. Yeah. I mean, there may be a certain stigma
00:06:35.840
attached to it, signing a petition like this, at least according to some who say, well, you sign a
00:06:42.600
petition like this and basically you're just anti-immigration. You're a racist. You don't
0.97
00:06:47.220
believe in other cultures you know that sort of thing is going to come out from those who oppose
00:06:52.940
what you're doing what do you think well i i certainly have no fear of being smeared by people
00:06:59.860
who disagree with me on this stuff the reality is i think this is what's in the best interest of our
00:07:04.080
country and our people and we've got to be able to tell the truth i know that there's been you know
00:07:09.060
stigma people being called racist and all sorts of other names for a long time now for wanting to
00:07:14.540
talk about immigration or wanting to talk about culture i think we should be over that and you
00:07:19.540
know part of my responsibility as a member of parliament is to do what i think is best to
00:07:23.980
represent my constituents and fight for the future of canada that i believe in and i don't believe
00:07:29.780
that a country where we're all divided and we have nothing in common is going to be good for us or my
00:07:34.760
future children or their future children and we have to keep the you know the best interest of
00:07:39.800
nation in mind. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, your views, like 180 degrees from, say, some of
00:07:47.460
those expressed by Justin Trudeau, for instance, who took shots at the fact that we have a European
00:07:53.500
background and he wanted to destroy it, all of this. And you're saying, no, this is part of the
00:07:59.200
forming of our country. Let's be proud of it and let's champion it. So I think that's where you're
00:08:04.500
going but it's probably going to take a change in government for that position to change uh is this
00:08:11.460
by the way part of your party's position your leader's position or is it yours or how where does
00:08:18.760
this come from well the way petitions work is uh you know citizens can write them and then ask a
00:08:25.000
member of parliament to sponsor them so it's not an official position that i'm taking on behalf of
00:08:29.960
anyone. It's me saying these citizens who are concerned about this issue deserve to have their
00:08:35.220
voice heard and the House of Commons should receive that petition and have to respond to it.
00:08:40.700
And that's what I'm most looking forward to is seeing what is the House of Commons, what is the
00:08:44.420
Carney administration going to say to these Canadians? Are they going to say that they think
00:08:48.780
we need 10, 20, 30, 40 more of these heritage months? Or are they going to acknowledge that
00:08:54.100
we need to draw some lines here about who we are as a country and make sure that we're bringing
00:08:58.300
people together not dividing them apart and how soon will people be able to read the petition
00:09:05.580
and sign it if they decide that it's the right thing for them to do well we formally sponsored
00:09:11.420
it so now we're just waiting on the house of commons to put it online it should happen at
00:09:14.860
any moment and as soon as it's online we'll send it over to you and we'll also make sure we blast
00:09:19.500
it out on social media as well okay uh on another matter we have the industry minister melanie
00:09:25.420
traveling to China this week, supposedly to expand our country's electric vehicle sector.
00:09:34.100
We are already importing 49,000 of their vehicles. Do you know what they're up to? And
00:09:39.900
since you're plugged into what's going on in the United States with your friend J.D. Vance,
00:09:44.720
for instance, the vice president, you know, how is this flying south of the border?
00:09:48.640
well you know canadians are rightly concerned about how importing these vehicles will impact
00:09:56.740
our auto manufacturing but also our national security because we know these vehicles will
1.00
00:10:01.580
have the ability to spy on canadians and retrieve our data and share it with the chinese communist
00:10:07.300
government the americans are also concerned about how that's going to affect them i've heard from
00:10:12.680
americans saying well if someone owns one of these byd vehicles in toronto do they think they're
00:10:18.160
be able to drive that across the border because americans have refused to allow these vehicles
00:10:23.840
in their own country so there's a lot of problems here that are posed with the integration of our
00:10:28.960
of the canadian and american economy when you bring in something that is so disruptive
00:10:34.240
not just for workers but also for national security reasons i have no idea what minister
00:10:39.520
joe lee is up to but every time the carny government and china get in a room together
00:10:43.600
it doesn't seem to produce good outcomes for Canada so I am concerned. Yeah I mean we're heading
0.71
00:10:48.880
to the first deadline I guess July the 1st I think it is. I think that is the first
00:10:55.680
news mud deadline and which is not to say that it's over but a decision has to be made at some
0.90
00:11:00.880
point. The president has come out and you've heard him we've all heard him say we don't
00:11:05.760
need anything from Canada you know they need to deal more than us. How do you think this
00:11:12.560
is playing out now because we're we're kind of getting close to very close to that deadline and
00:11:18.240
we're still doing things that we know is irritating the trump administration is that a wise approach
00:11:26.080
in the midst of negotiations well the thing that i like to remind canadians of is that we have
00:11:32.640
another example to point to which is that mexico has dealt with a lot of the same challenges
00:11:38.480
of the united states as we have in terms of rhetoric in terms of tariffs and yet mexican
00:11:44.080
leadership has approached it in a much more constructive manner instead of getting emotional
00:11:49.040
or trying to exploit the politics of division between them in the united states they focused
00:11:55.760
on doing what's right by their workers and their businesses unfortunately in canada our government
00:12:00.320
has not taken that approach in fact what you're seeing now as we get closer to the july 1st
00:12:05.600
deadline for the review is we see in mark carney a leader who is trying to now convince the canadian
00:12:11.840
people that he's been doing enough and he's been trying his best the reality is for months and
00:12:17.200
months now dating back to october of last fall uh the canadian government has not taken this very
00:12:23.280
seriously has not done what they should do and now we're going to be dealing with the uncertainty of
00:12:28.320
when this deal gets renewed how long does it take that has had a tremendously negative effect on
00:12:34.160
investment in our country so you know carney may benefit from all this drama politically but the
00:12:39.680
canadian people lose out in the end when it comes to economics and security yeah we have a prime
00:12:45.920
minister who seems to be saying very different things depending on the audience so if you're
00:12:51.360
speaking to one group it's about the new world order which is going to come out of europe you
00:12:56.080
know the obvious implication is it's not going to be the united states you know we're going to be
00:13:02.000
pivoting towards europe and then when he talks to the americans at other times he's talking
00:13:07.920
about strengthening he's talking about you know new bonds with america um how do you
00:13:13.840
account for just the very different messaging that's going on depending on which audience he's
00:13:19.520
addressing well i think uh mark harney's strategy is what i would call flood the zone you put so
00:13:27.600
much stuff out there that you allow people to kind of see in him what they want to see if there's an
00:13:33.520
elbows up liberal who wants to see him as you know fighting up against donald trump then he's put
00:13:39.040
enough out there to please that person if there's someone who's maybe more pragmatic who wants to
00:13:43.680
see progress in their relationship with the united states he's trying to put that message out there
00:13:48.080
too he's trying to be as many things to as many people as he possibly can because at the end of
00:13:53.200
of the day, he has no results to point to. And really, that's what we should want from our
00:13:58.000
government leaders. We should be judging them by results, not what they say. Mark Harney would very
00:14:02.700
much like to keep saying whatever people want to hear, because that is all he has to offer right
00:14:07.560
now. And of course, there's also a growing sense by Canadians, and we're seeing that just in the
00:14:15.200
recent polling, that patience is starting to run out. We had a lot of promises being made during
00:14:21.160
election campaign people bought in 43 percent of canadians voted liberal in the last um federal
00:14:28.200
election and you know they gave him the benefit of the doubt it was going to take some time
00:14:33.480
so now we're well into year two and none of those promises have materialized are you find
00:14:41.560
are you finding that there's a growing sense of frustration around the promises that were made
00:14:50.120
Yeah, I think especially since Mark Carney got his majority,
00:14:56.220
I mean, the guy has the ability to pass almost any bill that he wants.
00:15:00.400
He can move things through committee efficiently.
00:15:03.580
And so whereas they used to use the opposition parties as an excuse
00:15:07.280
and say, oh, they're obstructing us, he's got no excuse now.
00:15:12.620
now that you've got nothing standing in your way,
00:15:14.680
what are you able to achieve? He just lacks a vision for growing this economy. And that's why
00:15:21.080
he spends so much of his political capital on these weird bills about controlling the internet
00:15:26.840
and dictating what you can say and what you can read and what, you know, because I just don't
00:15:31.860
think they have a lot of ideas. He sold himself as this guy who is a master economist. And now
00:15:37.360
people are realizing he just doesn't have that much to offer. And he signs these MOUs in other
00:15:42.760
countries and he flies all around the world and comes home and whose life has gotten any better
00:15:47.640
since he's become prime minister i think it's a pretty short list maybe limited to the board of
00:15:52.380
directors at brookfield so as we wrap things up jamil um i just wanted to ask you since you brought
00:15:58.980
it up about freedom of speech issue and bill c 344 uh 34 rather um concerns around that and how
00:16:08.660
that's going to be received by the Americans when you're looking at the big tech companies. And
00:16:14.300
obviously, Trump has been a major defender of those companies. You know, how is that going to
00:16:21.380
possibly affect our trade negotiations? Well, we know that the last attempt, which is continuing
00:16:29.040
to control our speech, Bill C-22, got a lot of negative pushback from American businesses that
00:16:36.900
employ a lot of people in Canada. And so I would expect C34 will raise similar concerns.
00:16:42.820
What's interesting about C34 is they're taking a concern that a lot of people have, which is the
00:16:48.180
overexposure of minors to social media, and adding to that a whole host of ideas that would
00:16:55.460
actually restrict the speech of adults. And so I think it's going to be the source of a lot of
00:17:01.460
debate. And I can't imagine it's going to be popular in Canada or in the United States when
00:17:11.620
Jamil Javani, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:17:19.460
consider supporting great independent journalism
00:17:24.800
Please go to junonews.com backslash straight up.