Juno News - Liberals' immigration mess continues？

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juno News. Alexander Brown here back for another episode. Hope you're having a Merry

00:00:06.560 Christmas. I'm the host of Not Sorry. I'm a writer, communicator, director of the National

00:00:11.300 Citizens Coalition. While you're here, take advantage of our promo code. Go to junonews.com

00:00:16.680 slash not sorry for 20% off. As we begin to wrap for the holiday season, and I hope that you and

00:00:22.180 yours are enjoying a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah, we're again diving headfirst in one of

00:00:27.480 the most pressing issues facing our nation. Immigration, or should I say mass immigration, 0.82

00:00:32.040 the breaking of immigration, the chaotic, out of control immigration system that's been spiraling 0.94

00:00:37.420 under the liberals for too long. Michelle Rempel-Garner, immigration critic and shadow

00:00:41.900 minister on that most essential of files, she joins us again, and we're thankful for her time.

00:00:47.800 A few weeks back, I appeared before Immigration Committee to be questioned by Michelle and others,

00:00:52.100 and to share the common sense concerns of organizations like the National Citizens Coalition,

00:00:57.480 as well as our audience, who know that we're on a path that isn't sustainable,

00:01:02.520 and that we can no longer ignore the massive second-order effects from including unvetted

00:01:08.300 access to Canada like it's some stocking stuffer, and we can no longer ignore that it's vitally

00:01:13.840 important to send home those on expired and expiring papers who never planned to leave in the

00:01:19.640 first place. Our population, for the first time in a long time, it's decreasing, but that's still

00:01:25.420 decreasing from record highs. We need to put together many years of outflow, high productivity

00:01:32.320 inflow, and return this program to what it once was under the Harper years to get this country back

00:01:38.560 on track on so many levels. The conservatives haven't always gotten this right. They'll admit

00:01:44.100 that leading into the Trudeau years, some of the loosening of the reins on immigration, it was a mistake.

00:01:49.560 Corporate lobbyists and disloyal businesses have become addicted to cheap foreign labor,

00:01:53.780 and many of those influences remain. And yet, Michelle and others have been relentless in pushing

00:02:00.360 for real reforms to fix this mess. They've scored serious wins. The numbers are coming down, but we

00:02:06.420 know that still doesn't go far enough, and we know some of those numbers are depending on the fact that

00:02:11.340 people are just going to leave willingly, and we know that's not the case. So let's not pop the champagne

00:02:16.300 yet. A new report from the Globe and Mail shows, for example, that there's a rise of birth tourism in

00:02:21.840 Canada. And we know that liberal chain migration, this bill that's now law, to the concern of many,

00:02:27.800 including the conservatives, it could pose a real problem there. Let's talk to Canada's most

00:02:32.580 important shadow minister. And first, a word from our sponsor. Folks, I want to take a minute to thank

00:02:37.860 today's sponsor, which is Macamie College. So Macamie College has an applied politics and public

00:02:43.300 affair program. It's a two-year evening online program available across Canada. Students have the

00:02:49.160 opportunity to learn to run political campaigns, organize grassroots movements, and push policy in

00:02:54.180 the right direction. Students will also have hands-on placements in their community or with the party

00:02:59.380 they believe in. So when they graduate, they have real job-ready experience. Applicants only need a high

00:03:04.340 school diploma or homeschooling equivalent to apply. Intake starts in September and January. And folks,

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00:03:22.600 CandiceMalcolm.com slash Macamie. That's M-A-K-A-M-I. And if you apply through that link and you're

00:03:29.360 successful, you get a $500 Juno News scholarship. You know, I went to the University of Alberta and studied

00:03:35.580 political science. And the thing you realize when you're doing a university degree is that it doesn't

00:03:40.020 lead you to a job. And so for me, after three years of being a political science student, I looked

00:03:45.400 around and realized I had no job skills. I had never worked in politics. Everything was theoretical. It

00:03:50.140 was all in the classroom. And I had to start working on political campaigns just to get my foot in the

00:03:55.520 door. The hard thing about politics is that you need experience to get a job, but jobs require

00:04:00.460 experience. And so doing something like this, I mean, the fact that you can do it online, the fact that you

00:04:04.180 do it on the evening is really helpful. If you're interested in politics and you're watching the

00:04:07.780 show, I presume you are. This is something that you really might want to consider, or hey, maybe

00:04:11.480 one of your adult children might be interested in doing something like this. So again, check out

00:04:17.020 this link at CandiceMalcolm.com slash Macamie College. Michelle Rumpel-Garner joins us. Michelle is

00:04:23.640 the shadow immigration minister, the immigration critic. Michelle, thanks for coming back on the show.

00:04:28.760 Thanks for having me. You've been really busy, Michelle. You've been fighting the good fight.

00:04:33.380 One thing I wanted to touch on, I was reading the Globe and Mail report today and recording this on

00:04:39.800 December 18th, which is that they found this rise in birth tourism. I believe the number is there's

00:04:45.880 a 44% increase in non-resident births at some hospitals. How do you believe this trend sort of

00:04:52.260 undermines the value of Canadian citizenship, the work to reform the immigration system at large,

00:04:57.720 and what policies could we advocate for to better address this?

00:05:04.140 The Globe and Mail article that you're talking about, not only does it talk about the increase

00:05:08.540 in birth tourism, it also highlights some information that we got from Statistics Canada

00:05:13.660 out of a line of questioning that I had earlier in the year on the amount of overall births to

00:05:20.760 non-citizens. That number is up quite dramatically. That shouldn't be a shock to anybody because

00:05:30.760 the Liberals increased the number of non-permanent residents by millions in a very short period of

00:05:39.300 time. We started to see this trend in birth tourism. That's people basically on visitor visas who come to

00:05:47.020 Canada, particularly to give birth so that their children have citizenship. But, you know, we've

00:05:55.160 also seen things like hospitals, particularly in regions where there are colleges in Ontario that

00:06:01.880 have utilized and really juiced the numbers of temporary student visas. They've started to charge

00:06:07.960 people for having children there. So, you know, this is why earlier in the fall, we said, the Conservatives

00:06:15.960 announced, we actually moved it in an amendment to Bill C-3, that we believe, in alignment with

00:06:21.620 virtually every other peer country in the world, that in order for somebody to pass citizenship down

00:06:26.920 to their descendants, at least one of the two parents have to have at minimum a permanent residency

00:06:31.520 in Canada. And that's just to show that there is a connection to Canada, especially now in light

00:06:38.120 of Liberal Bill C-3, which we sought to amend. This is the Liberals' chain migration bill, which allows

00:06:44.540 people to pass citizenship down virtually with almost no connection to Canada, generation after

00:06:50.660 generation. There needs to be a value to Canadian citizenship. And I think that this is a common

00:06:56.040 sense proposal that a lot of Canadians across the political spectrum get behind.

00:07:01.840 Yeah, I think so. And at a time of talking here, there are some who are celebrating that Canada's

00:07:08.880 population has declined, that we are finally seeing that, you know, we're sort of over the mountain.

00:07:14.100 But one thing I want to highlight to our audience is that StatsCan's assumptions are based on people

00:07:19.660 leaving when their visas expire. That's right. It's, you know, it's nice to be encouraged by a population

00:07:25.340 report showing our numbers are going down from record highs. But why might we not be getting the full

00:07:30.460 picture here? Well, first of all, this fall, again, the Globe and Mail reported that there was at least

00:07:37.000 500,000 people in Canada who have no status whatsoever, so are completely undocumented.

00:07:43.220 And then there was a news article just actually in the last couple of weeks that showed that

00:07:46.640 Statistics Canada themselves had undercounted the amount of permanent or non-citizens in Canada by a

00:07:55.020 huge percentage in the last census. And then, you know, you've watched me, you've even appeared at

00:08:00.880 the Standing Committee at Immigration yourself. I did.

00:08:02.640 You've watched me question officials on data. And it's very clear that the government is not

00:08:08.760 considering things like the amount of people who, you know, an incredible number of people, over 3

00:08:14.840 million people in Canada who are on temporary visas right now, those visas are about to expire, they don't

00:08:19.760 have a plan to remove them. What does that mean going forward? And those numbers aren't accounted for

00:08:26.480 in a lot of planning. And even it's not even accounted for by the government's own emission and

00:08:31.280 things like health care capacity. So I think that we need better data, of course, but also, you know,

00:08:38.360 the reality is, is the Liberals welcome too many people to Canada too fast for housing, health care

00:08:45.300 and jobs to keep up. And of course, that's going to have an impact on both the economic infrastructure

00:08:50.680 and Canada's social infrastructure as well. So we'll need to continue to address these issues

00:08:56.480 in a sort of a macro way, like you were talking about, talking about integration, aspects of

00:09:01.220 integration, but also in the programmatic aspects of the immigration process in Canada as well to

00:09:06.800 everything from ensuring that people are removed from Canada when their visas expire, that non-citizens 1.00

00:09:13.860 who are convicted of serious crimes are deported, and that also that immigration levels are set

00:09:19.240 fairly. People who play by the rules are the ones who are welcomed in first, and that the numbers

00:09:25.580 are set at a lower level, because we've seen the strain that the high levels have, and unsustainable

00:09:31.220 levels have placed on, you know, both Canada's economic infrastructure, and again, our social fabric

00:09:37.240 as well too. Yeah, they sure have. And I was lucky enough to appear before a committee virtually, so maybe

00:09:43.760 it wasn't as scary. But in my remarks to yourself and your esteemed colleagues, I wanted to hit on

00:09:52.620 outflow, because we hear so much about, you know, bringing in all these people, but there seems to be

00:09:57.820 this like deliberately obtuse approach from Lina Diab and the liberals that they're just not addressing

00:10:04.260 the elephant in the room, that if so many people came here over the last few years under a certain

00:10:10.480 pretense of staying forever, that we're going to need to work really hard to actually get them out

00:10:15.660 the door. And they're not, they're not putting that on paper. They're not, they're not telling

00:10:19.620 you there's an exit plan. And which tells me that there is a an amnesty plan, a sit back and, and don't

00:10:26.440 worry about a plan. And I even think of the work that you've highlighted recently, where really

00:10:31.740 important stuff, because like, we're not even deporting people convicted of serious crimes like sexual

00:10:36.580 assault. Do you like do these current enforcement efforts, like we know that they're not sufficient,

00:10:42.700 but like what, what can you move? How can the public help you move something in the new year

00:10:48.000 to further crack down on not just deportations, which are necessary, but really putting the boots 0.93

00:10:54.020 to some of these scumbags who are taking advantage of our laws? Well, I just want to, 0.92

00:11:00.760 the last thing you said here, I want to be clear, the vast majority of people who come to Canada,

00:11:05.100 they play by the rules, they understand the responsibilities associated with being in

00:11:10.540 Canada, as well as the privileges. And so it's not fair to them, or to anybody who's already in

00:11:16.320 Canada, to have immigration law, the spirit of immigration law, just completely ignored by the

00:11:22.400 government. And what's what what is already in the law, what is a foundational principle

00:11:26.240 of the fairness of Canada's immigration system is that if you are here on a temporary visa,

00:11:31.600 you need to leave at the end of your temporary visa, number one. And number two, if you don't

00:11:39.180 uphold the rule of law, if you are a non citizen, and you are convicted of a serious crime, you should

00:11:45.480 leave. Those are the two things that are already in Canadian law, they're just not being enforced by

00:11:49.820 the government. And they're also being in some cases really perverted by the judiciary. So you know,

00:11:55.680 you and I've talked about this already, I have a bill in front of Parliament right now to end the

00:12:00.840 practice of judges giving leniency to non citizens convicted of serious crimes like sexual assault,

00:12:07.540 so that they can be that they can stay in Canada. We don't want that to happen. If somebody's convicted

00:12:12.860 of a serious crime, and they're a non citizen, they should be removed. It shouldn't be a judge, 0.90

00:12:17.200 an activist judge saying, well, we want them to stay in Canada. No, that's we want the spirit of the

00:12:22.480 law to be upheld, number one. And number two, we, you know, you watched me try to amend Bill C12,

00:12:29.080 the Liberals border bills over 30 times with significant changes to streamline the efficacy

00:12:36.260 of the removals process for people who have no legal reason to be in Canada, everything from

00:12:41.220 ensuring that people who have no legal reason to be in Canada don't make bogus asylum claims,

00:12:46.840 that people don't have the ability to make endless appeals to removal orders,

00:12:52.260 unless you know, there's a significant change in circumstance in their country.

00:12:57.360 That's there's, we weren't just opposing the government this fall, we were also proposing

00:13:01.680 common sense measures. And I hope the government comes to their senses and steals some of these

00:13:06.560 measures. Because the fact that the Liberals aren't doing them, that's what's undermining

00:13:10.460 the consensus for immigration in Canada right now.

00:13:14.280 Yeah, and so much of what I do, I suppose, on the immigration file is try to communicate the

00:13:19.700 extent of some of the, the extent of some of the monkey business that's happened here. I was talking

00:13:23.780 to a former immigration official the other night. And they told me that after Trudeau changed the visa

00:13:30.680 requirement with Mexico, for example, they would be the immigration officials would be at the

00:13:35.160 airport, like politicians would be there to study this phenomenon, half of the plane would be arriving

00:13:40.680 and making an asylum claim and claiming asylum. And like you would have, I'm not even kidding,

00:13:45.660 like you would have a husband and wife with three kids, just just with like a thing where it's like

00:13:51.660 he's saying, like, I'm a persecuted homosexual, I'm claiming asylum. And it's like, hold on a second,

00:13:56.900 like you're here with your wife and three kids, like it's it just immediately overnight became became such

00:14:02.480 a thing. And that that is still occurring to the day to today. And what a failure there and what a failure

00:14:08.480 on. I also think of one click virtual citizenship. I know that that yes, that's sticking with you. How the heck

00:14:15.320 can we change that? And, and, and surely that is undercutting sort of Canadian cohesion or limiting that

00:14:22.700 buy in that immigrants are supposed to feel to to our country. 0.99

00:14:25.480 So those you're talking about two proposals that that I've worked hard on this fall. So first of all,

00:14:34.180 we proposed, I think the most substantive set of reforms to the asylum system, we propose these this

00:14:41.920 fall that we've seen in decades to prevent the abuse of the system. So everybody, everything from

00:14:46.900 disincentivizing people from making bogus claims to begin with, you know, common sense policies, like if

00:14:52.940 somebody is making an asylum claim, when they arrive in Canada, they should state their reasons on the

00:14:57.460 record immediately, to so that they can't game the system by unscrupulous through unscrupulous

00:15:03.940 consultants and lawyers. We've seen this happen many times. Also, you know, just just ensuring that

00:15:11.300 people aren't overstaying their visas, and then getting federal benefits that many Canadians aren't

00:15:17.780 entitled to. So we moved in a proposal to ensure that people who are who have made bogus asylum 1.00

00:15:23.420 claims, they, you know, flat out said, like, their claims have been rejected, that they shouldn't be

00:15:28.560 able to continue to claim federal benefits. And then I want to get to the the whole value of Canadian

00:15:34.960 citizenship thing in a second. But I think it's really important to note, Alex, that, like, you talked

00:15:39.800 about the Mexican visa lift, right? I was the immigration critic back in 2016, when the Liberals made this

00:15:46.640 change. And I remember sitting in the immigration committee going, why this is going to result in

00:15:50.980 a mass of asylum claims that are bogus and fraudulent, it's gonna have a huge cost to taxpayers,

00:15:56.960 and I was called racist, but I was right. I don't want to be right in these scenarios. But it just it

00:16:02.720 proves that we need safeguards briefly on the one click citizenship ceremony thing. You know, you've

00:16:08.480 started to talk about this, I want to hear your thoughts more. But we do need to start talking about

00:16:12.720 the value of Canadian citizenship. So low hanging fruit in this was that the Liberals allowed moved so

00:16:19.680 that people could just click a box online to become a citizen instead of going and giving the oath in

00:16:25.140 person. I think that that that physical in person demonstration of the understanding of the

00:16:32.140 responsibilities of Canadian citizenship is a unifying experience. There's no reason why something

00:16:37.140 it is a beautiful thing. I mean, I was one of those school kids who, you know, every now and then you

00:16:42.180 get a citizenship event at a ceremony like at your assembly. And I think you know, you that see teachers

00:16:47.940 crying. It was wonderful. We lost so much over the last few years through zoom. I mean, I, I get to do

00:16:54.580 this show through, you know, webcam. And I think that's terrific. But yeah, but no, it this has to mean

00:16:59.460 something if we're going to properly integrate people if we're going to prevent them from balkanizing,

00:17:03.460 if we're going to prevent them from just being lost in the shuffle, that we're supposed to all

00:17:08.080 be coming together here. And it strikes me as just such a foundational failure.

00:17:12.500 I'm actually writing a piece right now, trying to get the thought right. But, you know, I've heard so

00:17:17.920 many people, even even, you know, former conservatives and stuff, they talk about immigration solely from

00:17:24.120 an economic perspective, right? And there is a benefit to Canada's economy to, you know, attracting

00:17:30.280 people who are very skilled. But oftentimes, where immigrant economic immigration has gone in the last

00:17:37.540 decade under the liberals is to bring in low skilled foreign laborers, keep them in an indentured 0.99

00:17:45.020 situation and allow, you know, corporate profits to be juiced. And in that scenario, there's another

00:17:51.900 concept of immigration that has, I think, been really lost over the last decade, with the focus of

00:17:57.680 talking about immigration, just from an economic perspective, and that's integration. You know, we

00:18:03.660 need, you can't just talk about immigration from an economic perspective, you have to talk about

00:18:08.420 processes in a way that is also talking about, well, how are we nation building through immigration? And

00:18:17.340 so all the things you and I've just talked about, I think it all just fits under that umbrella, things

00:18:21.760 like, if you come to Canada, and you're a non citizen, and you commit a serious crime, you should be

00:18:27.500 removed, because you haven't adhered to the rule of law, you haven't adhered to Canadian cultural norms,

00:18:35.740 as they're enshrined in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act, you've lost the privilege of being

00:18:41.240 here. And so, you know, just when you hear these debates, and these arguments about economic

00:18:47.180 immigration, like, it's, it's sort of hollow, it's sort of cold. Yeah, we have to talk about 1.00

00:18:55.760 immigration in the context of Canadian pluralism and Canadian identity. And that's where I think

00:19:01.040 I'm going to be pushing some of my writing and my policies, we've got so many policies that we

00:19:06.500 rolled out, but it kind of falls under that umbrella. And so you're going to hear me talking

00:19:10.480 about that more in the new year. And I look forward to that, because I think of,

00:19:16.560 because that's the last piece. It's like, we're just kind of just stuck in the maw of this, like,

00:19:20.580 GDP go up, go up machine, but we're not, we're not, golly, like this used to kind of mean something.

00:19:27.500 And I think of what the TFW program, for example, used to be used for, which was like fruit pickers in

00:19:33.680 Kelowna. And they would, they would live in a bunkhouse for a couple months, and there'd be some pros and

00:19:39.820 cons to the program, but it was, they were sort of kept away. And it was like, deliberately,

00:19:44.320 they weren't integrating because it was like, this is seasonal employment. But now we've launched

00:19:49.140 our entire immigration program on that on, you know, you're forced into sort of a co-ethnic network,

00:19:56.680 you're not properly adopted by the community, you are taken advantage of and overly beholden to your

00:20:02.660 employer. And then we turn around and go like, gee, why are people so upset, including immigrants, 0.72

00:20:07.460 about the fact that this wave, it's not fair to anybody, it's not fair to anyone, we're inviting

00:20:12.460 them in to, we, you know, we haven't made the bed, we haven't, we haven't gotten our house in order.

00:20:18.100 And then of course, they're going to fail. Of course, this is going to fail and make everybody,

00:20:22.240 everybody has a harder time. And it's not fair to anybody. If you don't think about the overall

00:20:29.000 macro level system that we're asking newcomers to integrate to and, you know, again, like I'm kind

00:20:36.340 of noodling with this on a piece, I'm trying to write this, this concept, but people will say,

00:20:40.380 well, Canada is a nation that's, you know, full of immigrants, and it's the descendants of

00:20:45.700 immigrants. It's true. However, previous waves of major immigration, like, you know, you see it

00:20:51.600 pre and post war, you know, early 1900s, you can't compare current immigration to that context,

00:21:00.000 because, you know, you have air travel, you have global, you know, global communities that

00:21:06.740 it's, it's not like we're a bunch of people where you have to figure out how to speak a common

00:21:11.600 language and, you know, work with each other, unless the country puts effort into that now. And I feel

00:21:19.160 like there's a lot of people, particularly, you know, sort of left leaning industry leaders who have

00:21:24.260 really relied on high levels of indentured foreign labor, which isn't fair to them either.

00:21:32.780 They talk about it, like, like, like the integration component, like it just magically happens.

00:21:37.620 Yeah, where it's like, it's like, well, no, we haven't built, we haven't built out enough

00:21:41.860 healthcare infrastructure. How, you know, I look in Alberta, I saw some really startling statistics in

00:21:48.280 my home province of Alberta here, where it's like, I think it was 30% or higher of children

00:21:54.040 who are in primary education don't need ESL training. And like, so how are we dealing with

00:22:01.180 that? And like, I want to be very clear, I'm not pointing the finger at newcomers who want to come

00:22:07.600 to Canada to a point to build a better life. And I think that a lot of Canadians feel the same way.

00:22:14.480 Yeah, we do need to look at the government, the lobbyists that have implemented these poorly

00:22:21.420 designed policies and, and levels that have set everybody up to fail, not just from an economic

00:22:28.640 perspective, but also from this, you know, more integrative national identity perspective. And,

00:22:35.980 you know, I think, you know, you've addressed this a lot. But the question of how do we maintain

00:22:41.340 Canada's pluralism in the aftermath of a decade of post nationalism from the liberals from mass

00:22:48.200 immigration from the liberals is something that we have to be seized with it. Otherwise, 0.98

00:22:51.940 it will collapse, we're seeing it start to collapse. And so we have to fix it, right?

00:22:57.100 Yeah. And who's defending the Canadian worker? Like, I know that you are, I've sat in your committee,

00:23:02.160 but I was struck by the fact that when I was in committee for my my little appearance and wrestling

00:23:07.780 promo that I got to cut, which was the other witnesses, much respect to them. They were just

00:23:13.840 talking about more TFWs and more and like, no one was mentioning the Canadian worker. And I'm sitting

00:23:19.860 there going, like, I guess I have to be the bad guy. Because there's a gentleman from Quebec asking 0.93

00:23:24.280 for more welders. And I can appreciate that, you know, sometimes you can't find the right skill. But

00:23:28.340 it's why are we not spending more time talking about training our people about exactly our people?

00:23:34.740 Like, where's the exactly if we waste billions of dollars on saving the spotted owl and Micronesia?

00:23:41.380 Why are we not spending money on training young people on on interprovincial mobility for our

00:23:46.020 trades? Like, why aren't we looking in house instead of just looking for replacement cogs?

00:23:50.660 Because for the last decade, multinational fast, fast food chain owners have been able to convince the

00:24:01.460 liberal government as well as like a vast swath of immigration consultants, immigration advocates

00:24:07.860 that all profit off of low skilled temporary foreign labor coming in in an indentured servitude model,

00:24:15.460 profiting off that system. And then all of a sudden, people are like, well, why do we have a 20%

00:24:19.860 youth unemployment rate? Well, it's like, maybe this has something to do with it? Of course it does.

00:24:26.260 And you're right, like you when we were sitting in that committee meeting together,

00:24:30.580 you know, I think I asked one of the people who were there, well, what about betting on Canadian kids?

00:24:35.620 You know, what about that? You know, I hear I hear fast food chain workers saying like, well,

00:24:42.740 I just, you know, I need to hire I need to hire a cook from, you know, this ethnic background,

00:24:48.340 because there's no possible way.

00:24:49.780 Yeah, why do they have to be from a country like India? 0.98

00:24:52.660 Why don't you just teach a kid how to cook? Like, like, that's, it's pretty anti Canadian to say,

00:24:59.940 I'm not going to teach a Canadian kid how to cook in Canada. Like, and we need to just start calling 1.00

00:25:05.860 out the emperor for having no clothes, these myths that the left has perpetuated, these lobby groups

00:25:11.060 have perpetuated. It's like, no, enough, enough. We're not the United Arab Emirates. We don't have a,

00:25:17.060 we shouldn't have a secondary class of citizen that's doing certain types of jobs. That's not

00:25:21.780 fair to newcomers coming to Canada. And it's not fair to our kids enough. 1.00

00:25:25.220 Yeah, yeah, we're not. I've heard this recently from immigration officials as well past past and

00:25:30.580 present or where, yeah, you now have these restaurants going like, well, I need a chef

00:25:35.940 of this descent. And it's like, what are you talking about? Like, we, we have a very vibrant,

00:25:40.500 diverse culture, like you can go find this kid, like the best chefs in New York don't have to be

00:25:45.300 Italian. Japan sends their, their cooks abroad to train. It's like, it's such a shoddy argument.

00:25:51.540 Well, some of the best, I mean, like also some of the best French chefs I know are

00:25:55.540 Japanese. I mean, like, it's, I digress. You're right. 1.00

00:25:58.580 The best, some of the best New York chefs are Dominican and like, they're not, I know, 1.00

00:26:01.860 Dominican food and it, no, it's, you have these, these, these corporations too,

00:26:06.980 like a, let's say a Tim Hortons who,

00:26:09.300 I'll be mean to them if you'd like, I'll take that one on the chin. Cause I don't,

00:26:13.780 I don't buy their food anymore. I think it sucks now, but they, they will refuse to,

00:26:18.980 to adjust their wages. Like instead of being competitive, it's like their lobbying will be 0.84

00:26:22.980 like, instead of just realizing like the market is asking for more and better and that like our,

00:26:27.860 our Canadian kids deserve to not be making peanuts. They'll just, they'll just fight like 0.99

00:26:33.460 heck to prevent, to, to protect this like $16 an hour abuse system. 0.98

00:26:38.020 Yeah. And, and just, you know, briefly on that point, the other thing that I hear from

00:26:43.460 certain franchise owners is, well, Canadian kids don't want to show up for work. It's like, 0.55

00:26:47.540 we'll make them show up for work, teach them the value of work. And on the other hand, like,

00:26:52.740 you know, there's, there's a lot of young Canadians now who don't have the same

00:26:56.420 hope of achieving major adult milestones in their twenties. Like,

00:27:00.820 let's say I would have, for example, owning a home or, you know, getting married and starting

00:27:05.380 a family and be able to afford it in their twenties. So, and, and a lot of that is to do

00:27:09.700 with the fact that over the last five to 10 years, the government has allowed the suppression of wage

00:27:16.180 growth in certain industries because they've brought in too many foreign laborers too fast.

00:27:21.860 It's not fair to the foreign laborers who are getting paid low, low wages and are stuck to one 1.00

00:27:26.580 employer. It's not fair to Canadian kids who are having that, that first job opportunity taken

00:27:32.980 away from them. So like the whole system, like these talking points, like, oh, well,

00:27:39.780 nobody wants to move here and do the job or, oh, I can't find a kid that has this experience or,

00:27:44.660 oh, you know, Canadian kids don't want to do these jobs. It's complete bull. 1.00

00:27:49.220 Like it is like, no, we have to remove the crutch, which is high levels of temporary foreign labor 1.00

00:27:56.820 that don't have places to live. We don't have the healthcare capacity to absorb and we don't

00:28:00.980 have the jobs for in order for that situation to improve. I mean, it's no brainer to me.

00:28:07.300 Unless you're an upside down underwater welder, I don't want to hear like, unless that's the need,

00:28:13.700 I don't want to hear that you need to go to a certain network for a certain person who you can 0.97

00:28:18.660 treat like crap, who's not going to integrate. So I wanted to end on this then. So, so how can, 0.79

00:28:24.100 because we know the excuse, we know the players, we know their game. Like how should, heck, the new

00:28:29.300 US ambassador works for a mass immigration lobby. Uh oh, how should Canada balance these apparent labor 0.86

00:28:35.700 needs, these apparent labor excuses without inviting unsustainable and non-integrated increases to its

00:28:42.180 workforce? Like what to you is the number there that makes sense? Heck, like, is there a year

00:28:47.060 that you can think of where it's like, this was the number that worked. This is exactly what we

00:28:51.140 should be going back to. Well, for starters, the temporary foreign worker program should be 0.99

00:28:56.340 completely abolished outside of legitimately hard to fill seasonal agricultural labor. We called for

00:29:02.980 that in September. And then the same thing goes for, um, you know, like I would just say that the whole

00:29:09.140 foreign student, uh, program where, you know, Sean Frazier, the former immigration minister,

00:29:14.580 bragged about setting it at unsustainable levels. That needs to be brought way under control. Um,

00:29:21.220 but then, you know, there's a couple of other things that we need to think about. First of all,

00:29:25.940 you know, you talked about high skilled labor that the government's like, well, we want to attract more

00:29:30.740 foreign researchers. Okay. But here's the reality. Most of the intellectual property that's generated at 0.95

00:29:37.940 Canadian universities and at Canadian companies, it gets exported out of the country. Those patents

00:29:43.620 get bought up or sent out to be operationalized or commercialized outside of Canada. So that there's

00:29:49.620 a whole issue there that needs to be addressed and also productivity. I mean, um, without an endless supply

00:29:56.900 of temporary foreign indentured labor, maybe Canadian industry would start investing in productivity

00:30:03.140 measures. And, you know, maybe there's an opportunity for the government to create incentives

00:30:07.700 or tax incentives or whatnot there, but that's where the public policy should be structured rather

00:30:14.020 than just, you know, senior public servants, politicians on the left saying, yep, we're going

00:30:18.900 to listen to an industry lobby that asks for more foreign labor. We should be, they should be,

00:30:22.980 the lobby should be going, how do we address productivity? How do we address retention of

00:30:27.300 intellectual property? How do we address skills training? As you said, for Canadian youth labor

00:30:33.620 mobility across the country from high unemployment areas to low unemployment areas. That's where the

00:30:39.380 public policy debate needs to go. Um, but no, the whole, like, yeah, we just need more TFWs and

00:30:45.380 foreign students and whatnot enough. Um, you know, the Canadian economy and our social fabric can't handle 1.00

00:30:51.140 that. The last five years have shown that. And, um, I'm going to continue being a thorn in the liberal side

00:30:56.980 on that front proposing concrete policy, whole suite of policies we put forward and legislative

00:31:03.300 proposals as well, but also opposing their bad decisions. Yeah. And we're thankful for that.

00:31:08.100 The lobbyist excuses, they're not going to fly anymore. The majority of Canadians want, you know,

00:31:13.620 more and more change. We're seeing it in the polls from, from all different kinds of communities,

00:31:17.700 whether it's the old stock or, or new immigrants who know that this isn't working. And so, Michelle,

00:31:22.420 you're doing important work. Thanks for this and, uh, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

00:31:26.580 Merry Christmas.

Juno News - December 29, 2025

Liberals' immigration mess continues？

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