Juno News - December 29, 2025
Liberals' immigration mess continues?
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Summary
As we begin to wrap up the holiday season, and I hope that you and yours are enjoying a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah, we re again diving headfirst in one of the most pressing issues facing our nation: immigration. Michelle Rempel-Garner, immigration critic and shadow minister on that most essential of files, joins us again, and we re thankful for her time.
Transcript
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Hi, Juno News. Alexander Brown here back for another episode. Hope you're having a Merry
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Christmas. I'm the host of Not Sorry. I'm a writer, communicator, director of the National
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Citizens Coalition. While you're here, take advantage of our promo code. Go to junonews.com
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slash not sorry for 20% off. As we begin to wrap for the holiday season, and I hope that you and
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yours are enjoying a Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah, we're again diving headfirst in one of
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the most pressing issues facing our nation. Immigration, or should I say mass immigration,
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the breaking of immigration, the chaotic, out of control immigration system that's been spiraling
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under the liberals for too long. Michelle Rempel-Garner, immigration critic and shadow
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minister on that most essential of files, she joins us again, and we're thankful for her time.
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A few weeks back, I appeared before Immigration Committee to be questioned by Michelle and others,
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and to share the common sense concerns of organizations like the National Citizens Coalition,
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as well as our audience, who know that we're on a path that isn't sustainable,
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and that we can no longer ignore the massive second-order effects from including unvetted
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access to Canada like it's some stocking stuffer, and we can no longer ignore that it's vitally
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important to send home those on expired and expiring papers who never planned to leave in the
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first place. Our population, for the first time in a long time, it's decreasing, but that's still
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decreasing from record highs. We need to put together many years of outflow, high productivity
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inflow, and return this program to what it once was under the Harper years to get this country back
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on track on so many levels. The conservatives haven't always gotten this right. They'll admit
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that leading into the Trudeau years, some of the loosening of the reins on immigration, it was a mistake.
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Corporate lobbyists and disloyal businesses have become addicted to cheap foreign labor,
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and many of those influences remain. And yet, Michelle and others have been relentless in pushing
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for real reforms to fix this mess. They've scored serious wins. The numbers are coming down, but we
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know that still doesn't go far enough, and we know some of those numbers are depending on the fact that
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people are just going to leave willingly, and we know that's not the case. So let's not pop the champagne
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yet. A new report from the Globe and Mail shows, for example, that there's a rise of birth tourism in
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Canada. And we know that liberal chain migration, this bill that's now law, to the concern of many,
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including the conservatives, it could pose a real problem there. Let's talk to Canada's most
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important shadow minister. And first, a word from our sponsor. Folks, I want to take a minute to thank
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today's sponsor, which is Macamie College. So Macamie College has an applied politics and public
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affair program. It's a two-year evening online program available across Canada. Students have the
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opportunity to learn to run political campaigns, organize grassroots movements, and push policy in
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the right direction. Students will also have hands-on placements in their community or with the party
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they believe in. So when they graduate, they have real job-ready experience. Applicants only need a high
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school diploma or homeschooling equivalent to apply. Intake starts in September and January. And folks,
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we are very excited to announce that anyone who applies and is successful in enrollment will get
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a $500 scholarship from Juno News. So apply using our link. It's in the description. You can go to
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CandiceMalcolm.com slash Macamie. That's M-A-K-A-M-I. And if you apply through that link and you're
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successful, you get a $500 Juno News scholarship. You know, I went to the University of Alberta and studied
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political science. And the thing you realize when you're doing a university degree is that it doesn't
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lead you to a job. And so for me, after three years of being a political science student, I looked
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around and realized I had no job skills. I had never worked in politics. Everything was theoretical. It
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was all in the classroom. And I had to start working on political campaigns just to get my foot in the
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door. The hard thing about politics is that you need experience to get a job, but jobs require
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experience. And so doing something like this, I mean, the fact that you can do it online, the fact that you
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do it on the evening is really helpful. If you're interested in politics and you're watching the
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show, I presume you are. This is something that you really might want to consider, or hey, maybe
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one of your adult children might be interested in doing something like this. So again, check out
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this link at CandiceMalcolm.com slash Macamie College. Michelle Rumpel-Garner joins us. Michelle is
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the shadow immigration minister, the immigration critic. Michelle, thanks for coming back on the show.
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Thanks for having me. You've been really busy, Michelle. You've been fighting the good fight.
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One thing I wanted to touch on, I was reading the Globe and Mail report today and recording this on
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December 18th, which is that they found this rise in birth tourism. I believe the number is there's
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a 44% increase in non-resident births at some hospitals. How do you believe this trend sort of
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undermines the value of Canadian citizenship, the work to reform the immigration system at large,
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and what policies could we advocate for to better address this?
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The Globe and Mail article that you're talking about, not only does it talk about the increase
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in birth tourism, it also highlights some information that we got from Statistics Canada
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out of a line of questioning that I had earlier in the year on the amount of overall births to
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non-citizens. That number is up quite dramatically. That shouldn't be a shock to anybody because
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the Liberals increased the number of non-permanent residents by millions in a very short period of
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time. We started to see this trend in birth tourism. That's people basically on visitor visas who come to
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Canada, particularly to give birth so that their children have citizenship. But, you know, we've
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also seen things like hospitals, particularly in regions where there are colleges in Ontario that
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have utilized and really juiced the numbers of temporary student visas. They've started to charge
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people for having children there. So, you know, this is why earlier in the fall, we said, the Conservatives
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announced, we actually moved it in an amendment to Bill C-3, that we believe, in alignment with
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virtually every other peer country in the world, that in order for somebody to pass citizenship down
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to their descendants, at least one of the two parents have to have at minimum a permanent residency
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in Canada. And that's just to show that there is a connection to Canada, especially now in light
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of Liberal Bill C-3, which we sought to amend. This is the Liberals' chain migration bill, which allows
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people to pass citizenship down virtually with almost no connection to Canada, generation after
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generation. There needs to be a value to Canadian citizenship. And I think that this is a common
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sense proposal that a lot of Canadians across the political spectrum get behind.
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Yeah, I think so. And at a time of talking here, there are some who are celebrating that Canada's
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population has declined, that we are finally seeing that, you know, we're sort of over the mountain.
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But one thing I want to highlight to our audience is that StatsCan's assumptions are based on people
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leaving when their visas expire. That's right. It's, you know, it's nice to be encouraged by a population
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report showing our numbers are going down from record highs. But why might we not be getting the full
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picture here? Well, first of all, this fall, again, the Globe and Mail reported that there was at least
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500,000 people in Canada who have no status whatsoever, so are completely undocumented.
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And then there was a news article just actually in the last couple of weeks that showed that
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Statistics Canada themselves had undercounted the amount of permanent or non-citizens in Canada by a
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huge percentage in the last census. And then, you know, you've watched me, you've even appeared at
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the Standing Committee at Immigration yourself. I did.
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You've watched me question officials on data. And it's very clear that the government is not
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considering things like the amount of people who, you know, an incredible number of people, over 3
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million people in Canada who are on temporary visas right now, those visas are about to expire, they don't
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have a plan to remove them. What does that mean going forward? And those numbers aren't accounted for
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in a lot of planning. And even it's not even accounted for by the government's own emission and
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things like health care capacity. So I think that we need better data, of course, but also, you know,
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the reality is, is the Liberals welcome too many people to Canada too fast for housing, health care
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and jobs to keep up. And of course, that's going to have an impact on both the economic infrastructure
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and Canada's social infrastructure as well. So we'll need to continue to address these issues
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in a sort of a macro way, like you were talking about, talking about integration, aspects of
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integration, but also in the programmatic aspects of the immigration process in Canada as well to
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everything from ensuring that people are removed from Canada when their visas expire, that non-citizens
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who are convicted of serious crimes are deported, and that also that immigration levels are set
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fairly. People who play by the rules are the ones who are welcomed in first, and that the numbers
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are set at a lower level, because we've seen the strain that the high levels have, and unsustainable
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levels have placed on, you know, both Canada's economic infrastructure, and again, our social fabric
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as well too. Yeah, they sure have. And I was lucky enough to appear before a committee virtually, so maybe
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it wasn't as scary. But in my remarks to yourself and your esteemed colleagues, I wanted to hit on
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outflow, because we hear so much about, you know, bringing in all these people, but there seems to be
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this like deliberately obtuse approach from Lina Diab and the liberals that they're just not addressing
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the elephant in the room, that if so many people came here over the last few years under a certain
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pretense of staying forever, that we're going to need to work really hard to actually get them out
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the door. And they're not, they're not putting that on paper. They're not, they're not telling
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you there's an exit plan. And which tells me that there is a an amnesty plan, a sit back and, and don't
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worry about a plan. And I even think of the work that you've highlighted recently, where really
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important stuff, because like, we're not even deporting people convicted of serious crimes like sexual
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assault. Do you like do these current enforcement efforts, like we know that they're not sufficient,
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but like what, what can you move? How can the public help you move something in the new year
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to further crack down on not just deportations, which are necessary, but really putting the boots
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to some of these scumbags who are taking advantage of our laws? Well, I just want to,
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the last thing you said here, I want to be clear, the vast majority of people who come to Canada,
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they play by the rules, they understand the responsibilities associated with being in
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Canada, as well as the privileges. And so it's not fair to them, or to anybody who's already in
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Canada, to have immigration law, the spirit of immigration law, just completely ignored by the
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government. And what's what what is already in the law, what is a foundational principle
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of the fairness of Canada's immigration system is that if you are here on a temporary visa,
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you need to leave at the end of your temporary visa, number one. And number two, if you don't
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uphold the rule of law, if you are a non citizen, and you are convicted of a serious crime, you should
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leave. Those are the two things that are already in Canadian law, they're just not being enforced by
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the government. And they're also being in some cases really perverted by the judiciary. So you know,
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you and I've talked about this already, I have a bill in front of Parliament right now to end the
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practice of judges giving leniency to non citizens convicted of serious crimes like sexual assault,
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so that they can be that they can stay in Canada. We don't want that to happen. If somebody's convicted
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of a serious crime, and they're a non citizen, they should be removed. It shouldn't be a judge,
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an activist judge saying, well, we want them to stay in Canada. No, that's we want the spirit of the
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law to be upheld, number one. And number two, we, you know, you watched me try to amend Bill C12,
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the Liberals border bills over 30 times with significant changes to streamline the efficacy
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of the removals process for people who have no legal reason to be in Canada, everything from
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ensuring that people who have no legal reason to be in Canada don't make bogus asylum claims,
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that people don't have the ability to make endless appeals to removal orders,
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unless you know, there's a significant change in circumstance in their country.
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That's there's, we weren't just opposing the government this fall, we were also proposing
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common sense measures. And I hope the government comes to their senses and steals some of these
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measures. Because the fact that the Liberals aren't doing them, that's what's undermining
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the consensus for immigration in Canada right now.
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Yeah, and so much of what I do, I suppose, on the immigration file is try to communicate the
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extent of some of the, the extent of some of the monkey business that's happened here. I was talking
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to a former immigration official the other night. And they told me that after Trudeau changed the visa
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requirement with Mexico, for example, they would be the immigration officials would be at the
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airport, like politicians would be there to study this phenomenon, half of the plane would be arriving
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and making an asylum claim and claiming asylum. And like you would have, I'm not even kidding,
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like you would have a husband and wife with three kids, just just with like a thing where it's like
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he's saying, like, I'm a persecuted homosexual, I'm claiming asylum. And it's like, hold on a second,
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like you're here with your wife and three kids, like it's it just immediately overnight became became such
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a thing. And that that is still occurring to the day to today. And what a failure there and what a failure
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on. I also think of one click virtual citizenship. I know that that yes, that's sticking with you. How the heck
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can we change that? And, and, and surely that is undercutting sort of Canadian cohesion or limiting that
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buy in that immigrants are supposed to feel to to our country.
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So those you're talking about two proposals that that I've worked hard on this fall. So first of all,
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we proposed, I think the most substantive set of reforms to the asylum system, we propose these this
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fall that we've seen in decades to prevent the abuse of the system. So everybody, everything from
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disincentivizing people from making bogus claims to begin with, you know, common sense policies, like if
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somebody is making an asylum claim, when they arrive in Canada, they should state their reasons on the
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record immediately, to so that they can't game the system by unscrupulous through unscrupulous
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consultants and lawyers. We've seen this happen many times. Also, you know, just just ensuring that
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people aren't overstaying their visas, and then getting federal benefits that many Canadians aren't
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entitled to. So we moved in a proposal to ensure that people who are who have made bogus asylum
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claims, they, you know, flat out said, like, their claims have been rejected, that they shouldn't be
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able to continue to claim federal benefits. And then I want to get to the the whole value of Canadian
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citizenship thing in a second. But I think it's really important to note, Alex, that, like, you talked
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about the Mexican visa lift, right? I was the immigration critic back in 2016, when the Liberals made this
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change. And I remember sitting in the immigration committee going, why this is going to result in
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a mass of asylum claims that are bogus and fraudulent, it's gonna have a huge cost to taxpayers,
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and I was called racist, but I was right. I don't want to be right in these scenarios. But it just it
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proves that we need safeguards briefly on the one click citizenship ceremony thing. You know, you've
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started to talk about this, I want to hear your thoughts more. But we do need to start talking about
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the value of Canadian citizenship. So low hanging fruit in this was that the Liberals allowed moved so
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that people could just click a box online to become a citizen instead of going and giving the oath in
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person. I think that that that physical in person demonstration of the understanding of the
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responsibilities of Canadian citizenship is a unifying experience. There's no reason why something
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it is a beautiful thing. I mean, I was one of those school kids who, you know, every now and then you
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get a citizenship event at a ceremony like at your assembly. And I think you know, you that see teachers
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crying. It was wonderful. We lost so much over the last few years through zoom. I mean, I, I get to do
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this show through, you know, webcam. And I think that's terrific. But yeah, but no, it this has to mean
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something if we're going to properly integrate people if we're going to prevent them from balkanizing,
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if we're going to prevent them from just being lost in the shuffle, that we're supposed to all
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be coming together here. And it strikes me as just such a foundational failure.
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I'm actually writing a piece right now, trying to get the thought right. But, you know, I've heard so
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many people, even even, you know, former conservatives and stuff, they talk about immigration solely from
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an economic perspective, right? And there is a benefit to Canada's economy to, you know, attracting
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people who are very skilled. But oftentimes, where immigrant economic immigration has gone in the last
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decade under the liberals is to bring in low skilled foreign laborers, keep them in an indentured
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situation and allow, you know, corporate profits to be juiced. And in that scenario, there's another
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concept of immigration that has, I think, been really lost over the last decade, with the focus of
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talking about immigration, just from an economic perspective, and that's integration. You know, we
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need, you can't just talk about immigration from an economic perspective, you have to talk about
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processes in a way that is also talking about, well, how are we nation building through immigration? And
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so all the things you and I've just talked about, I think it all just fits under that umbrella, things
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like, if you come to Canada, and you're a non citizen, and you commit a serious crime, you should be
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removed, because you haven't adhered to the rule of law, you haven't adhered to Canadian cultural norms,
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as they're enshrined in the Immigration Refugee Protection Act, you've lost the privilege of being
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here. And so, you know, just when you hear these debates, and these arguments about economic
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immigration, like, it's, it's sort of hollow, it's sort of cold. Yeah, we have to talk about
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immigration in the context of Canadian pluralism and Canadian identity. And that's where I think
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I'm going to be pushing some of my writing and my policies, we've got so many policies that we
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rolled out, but it kind of falls under that umbrella. And so you're going to hear me talking
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about that more in the new year. And I look forward to that, because I think of,
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because that's the last piece. It's like, we're just kind of just stuck in the maw of this, like,
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GDP go up, go up machine, but we're not, we're not, golly, like this used to kind of mean something.
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And I think of what the TFW program, for example, used to be used for, which was like fruit pickers in
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Kelowna. And they would, they would live in a bunkhouse for a couple months, and there'd be some pros and
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cons to the program, but it was, they were sort of kept away. And it was like, deliberately,
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they weren't integrating because it was like, this is seasonal employment. But now we've launched
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our entire immigration program on that on, you know, you're forced into sort of a co-ethnic network,
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you're not properly adopted by the community, you are taken advantage of and overly beholden to your
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employer. And then we turn around and go like, gee, why are people so upset, including immigrants,
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about the fact that this wave, it's not fair to anybody, it's not fair to anyone, we're inviting
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them in to, we, you know, we haven't made the bed, we haven't, we haven't gotten our house in order.
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And then of course, they're going to fail. Of course, this is going to fail and make everybody,
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everybody has a harder time. And it's not fair to anybody. If you don't think about the overall
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macro level system that we're asking newcomers to integrate to and, you know, again, like I'm kind
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of noodling with this on a piece, I'm trying to write this, this concept, but people will say,
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well, Canada is a nation that's, you know, full of immigrants, and it's the descendants of
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immigrants. It's true. However, previous waves of major immigration, like, you know, you see it
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pre and post war, you know, early 1900s, you can't compare current immigration to that context,
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because, you know, you have air travel, you have global, you know, global communities that
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it's, it's not like we're a bunch of people where you have to figure out how to speak a common
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language and, you know, work with each other, unless the country puts effort into that now. And I feel
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like there's a lot of people, particularly, you know, sort of left leaning industry leaders who have
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really relied on high levels of indentured foreign labor, which isn't fair to them either.
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They talk about it, like, like, like the integration component, like it just magically happens.
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Yeah, where it's like, it's like, well, no, we haven't built, we haven't built out enough
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healthcare infrastructure. How, you know, I look in Alberta, I saw some really startling statistics in
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my home province of Alberta here, where it's like, I think it was 30% or higher of children
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who are in primary education don't need ESL training. And like, so how are we dealing with
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that? And like, I want to be very clear, I'm not pointing the finger at newcomers who want to come
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to Canada to a point to build a better life. And I think that a lot of Canadians feel the same way.
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Yeah, we do need to look at the government, the lobbyists that have implemented these poorly
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designed policies and, and levels that have set everybody up to fail, not just from an economic
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perspective, but also from this, you know, more integrative national identity perspective. And,
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you know, I think, you know, you've addressed this a lot. But the question of how do we maintain
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Canada's pluralism in the aftermath of a decade of post nationalism from the liberals from mass
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immigration from the liberals is something that we have to be seized with it. Otherwise,
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it will collapse, we're seeing it start to collapse. And so we have to fix it, right?
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Yeah. And who's defending the Canadian worker? Like, I know that you are, I've sat in your committee,
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but I was struck by the fact that when I was in committee for my my little appearance and wrestling
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promo that I got to cut, which was the other witnesses, much respect to them. They were just
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talking about more TFWs and more and like, no one was mentioning the Canadian worker. And I'm sitting
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there going, like, I guess I have to be the bad guy. Because there's a gentleman from Quebec asking
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for more welders. And I can appreciate that, you know, sometimes you can't find the right skill. But
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it's why are we not spending more time talking about training our people about exactly our people?
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Like, where's the exactly if we waste billions of dollars on saving the spotted owl and Micronesia?
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Why are we not spending money on training young people on on interprovincial mobility for our
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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,
00:24:49.780
Yeah, why do they have to be from a country like India?
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
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.
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.
00:25:58.580
The best, some of the best New York chefs are Dominican and like, they're not, I know,
00:26:01.860
Dominican food and it, no, it's, you have these, these, these corporations too,
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
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
00:26:33.460
heck to prevent, to, to protect this like $16 an hour abuse system.
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,
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
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.
00:27:49.220
Like it is like, no, we have to remove the crutch, which is high levels of temporary foreign labor
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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.