Juno News - NDP MPs are bailing

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:01:16.240 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:01:24.800 Oh, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

00:01:27.880 Did you hear the big news?

00:01:29.280 NDP stalwart Charlie Angus is getting out of politics. He was first elected in 2004. That's

00:01:36.320 the same election in which Pierre Polyev was elected. Things have gone a little bit differently

00:01:41.900 for the two of them. One is now the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition. The other is

00:01:46.980 an angry backbencher who generally spends his days shouting at clouds. Charlie Angus has evidently

00:01:52.460 had enough. He announced this morning he is getting out of politics. Charlie Angus will not

00:01:58.620 be seeking re-election. He has held the riding of Timmins James Bay in Northern Ontario for quite

00:02:04.760 some time. Moments later, two more NDP MPs announced they too would be getting out of it.

00:02:11.620 That is a bit of a cold open for us here. Welcome everyone to the Andrew Lawton Show,

00:02:16.160 Canada's most irreverent talk show on True North. I'm feeling especially irreverent today

00:02:20.740 with the NDPers deciding they are going to jump off the ship right now that is certainly

00:02:28.340 on its way down. Well, it's a green ship. It's powered by solar panels. It really hasn't gone

00:02:32.920 anywhere. But the NDPers have said they are getting out of it. Now, this is just three MPs.

00:02:37.580 I think that's like, what, 12% of the NDP's overall caucus that just in one day say they

00:02:44.000 are getting out of politics. Now, the NDP office, Jagmeet Singh, the leader, has, of course, put out

00:02:49.900 the statement saying, oh, yes, we thank them for their service on behalf of all new Democrats.

00:02:54.840 oh we have the statement there I want to thank Rachel Charlie and Carol for their years of

00:02:59.960 advocacy and dedication to serving working people I mean they weren't working themselves so they

00:03:05.240 were serving working people apparently they've all accomplished so much for Canadians and worked

00:03:09.320 tirelessly to make our country a fairer better place they've added so much to our party and well

00:03:14.420 we'll miss their contributions around the caucus table I want to wish my friends the very best when

00:03:19.120 each of them begins their next chapter. Now, Charlie Angus is very helpful in politics because

00:03:25.480 he always, he has no inside voice. Like he'll say exactly what he's thinking, which is a refreshing

00:03:30.600 quality in politics. It's a shame that what he's thinking is usually utterly bonkers. But when 0.95

00:03:35.740 Charlie Angus gave his resignation statement, he had said something that I wanted to share. Now,

00:03:41.680 this was from a Globe and Mail piece by Ian Bailey. Charlie Angus says, one political era

00:03:48.420 is ending and another begins. As part of this renewal, I have decided not to run for re-election.

00:03:56.620 There's something embedded in that that I find quite interesting. He's acknowledging that there

00:04:01.140 is a change in political era, and I don't think he just means Justin Trudeau getting voted out

00:04:05.840 and possibly, I mean, it seems like almost certainly Pierre Paulyev getting voted in.

00:04:11.120 I think he means that people like him are not relevant in Canadian politics. Now,

00:04:16.220 maybe he doesn't understand that. And I realize I'm extrapolating a fair bit from what he said

00:04:20.920 there. So take it with a grain of salt. But he's realizing that there is coming a point in

00:04:28.020 Canadian politics. We're basically at the beginning of that point now when things are changing. We're

00:04:34.060 beyond the point of just tweaking. And people like him actually realize it and are getting out

00:04:39.300 while they can. Other people involved, Rachel Blaney and Carol Hughes, not as prominent members

00:04:44.700 of the caucus, but nevertheless, it's a small caucus. So these sorts of things are certainly

00:04:49.360 notable when people jump down. Now, Jagmeet Singh, I feel bad in a way because I make fun of him and

00:04:56.880 I don't feel bad about it at all. The joke that someone recently brought up that I had just

00:05:01.940 mentioned a while back, I was in Ottawa, I think it was in the fall for some reason or another,

00:05:07.040 and after question period, all the cabinet ministers get in their limos and leave and a

00:05:11.000 lot of the MPs get out and walk. And I was walking back to my hotel and I looked up and I saw Jagmeet

00:05:15.780 Singh just like strolling by on his bicycle. And I remarked later how odd I found it that he was

00:05:21.100 able to bicycle without a functioning spine. And I mean, take whatever visual you want of just like

00:05:26.680 some limp spaghetti noodle trying to ride a bike down Wellington Street. But Jagmeet Singh has as

00:05:32.040 NDP leader taken a position that could have made him the most powerful man in Canada. He could have

00:05:39.660 had that. He is the one that holds the keys to the kingdom. He is the one that holds the balance

00:05:44.800 of power. It is only with his say-so that the liberals can pass legislation, really, because

00:05:50.820 the bloc have not been reliable dance partners. The conservatives are opposing. So Jagmeet Singh

00:05:55.300 is the guy that stands between Canadians and an election. And what has he gotten for that?

00:06:01.180 He got, oh, National Pharmacare. That was the big NDP flagship policy. Oh, wait,

00:06:05.780 it's birth control and a diabetes drug and it only applies to some people what about dental care

00:06:11.800 yeah it only applies to a handful of people okay so he has gotten his party nothing and if you're

00:06:19.120 the NDP you know you're never going to form government you know you're never going to get

00:06:23.120 elected the only thing you have are your principles the only thing you have are your beliefs and your

00:06:29.620 convictions if you give up those and get nothing in return what is the point of it all what were

00:06:35.660 you there for? So he actually had power. He had authority and he chose not to wield it. Or in his

00:06:42.620 mind, he thinks he has wielded it. I won't do the gag today, but there's kind of a running gag I've

00:06:47.420 done on the show in the past where I show Jagmeet Singh's stage entrance after the 2019 and 2021

00:06:53.160 elections when his party has just been trounced. And he comes on and does this like big, exciting

00:06:58.440 dance as though he was the real winner of it. It's like that meme of the guy who comes in third

00:07:03.160 place at a tournament, but he's like, you know, dumping champagne on himself and biting his

00:07:07.800 metal. It's basically that meme. And Charlie Angus also has a book coming out. So he is exiting

00:07:16.120 politics with a bit of a manifesto. Oh, we have it here. It's called The Great, sorry, Dangerous

00:07:22.320 Memory Coming of Age in the Decade of Greed. And it's about how the looting of the North American 0.69

00:07:27.840 working class was planned and carried out so it's basically an anti-capitalist manifesto which

00:07:34.320 makes me wonder if a part of his reason for leaving is that he believes the NDP is no longer

00:07:39.760 doing what it's supposed to do which is being that ideological voice for working class people

00:07:45.980 that would be the pure reason but there's another reason that I suspect may be factoring into this

00:07:51.280 as well. Charlie Angus is the Member of Parliament for Timmins James Bay. This is a riding that is

00:07:58.520 as New Democrat as it gets. This is a riding that has large Indigenous communities, it has

00:08:03.760 coal, not coal miners, but maybe it does have coal miners, I don't know, but it has miners,

00:08:08.540 unionized workers, it's NDP territory, Northern Ontario. You look at the latest projections in

00:08:13.460 338 Canada, Conservatives have a 56% likelihood of winning his seat, of winning that election.

00:08:22.440 Timmons James Bay is most likely, not a guarantee, without Charlie Angus, I think it's almost

00:08:28.680 certainly going to go Conservative. But Timmons James Bay is going Conservative in the next

00:08:33.420 election, it looks like. This is a riding, since it was created in 1997, has never gone Conservative.

00:08:40.720 The Liberals carried it during Chrétien's majority elections, 97 and 2000, but the NDP has had it ever since under Charlie Angus.

00:08:49.840 If you look at the ridings that were redistricted to become Timmons-James Bay, they were Liberals as well.

00:08:57.160 So this is not a riding in which the Liberals have ever, or sorry, it's not a riding the Conservatives have ever been a contender in,

00:09:04.580 but right now they are within spitting distance of actually getting there.

00:09:08.360 And there are a lot of ridings like this where liberal MPs are saying, I don't want to just spend my last six weeks in office getting pummeled and then losing an election.

00:09:18.880 Liberals are going to be jumping.

00:09:20.140 NDPers are in a very similar place.

00:09:23.240 Yeah.

00:09:23.400 Oh, OK.

00:09:24.160 I guess we're doing it.

00:09:24.940 Sean did.

00:09:25.500 Sean got the footage.

00:09:26.880 So this is Jagmeet Singh after winning the 2019 election.

00:09:38.360 Sorry, I'm told he didn't actually win the election.

00:10:00.280 No one told him, though, that he didn't win the election.

00:10:03.240 2021 was a little bit more of an austere victory dance but i he's he still thinks he won

00:10:09.640 i i just noticed like his wife's basically like okay cool like his wife's just had enough of it 1.00

00:10:23.660 at that point as well uh so yeah check me sick so he's gonna you you watch he's gonna be like

00:10:29.580 totally coming in on a trapeze and he's going to be popping champagne corks in, uh, the next

00:10:34.940 election. And so he'll be so enthusiastic about it. You'll look and be like, wait, did, did he

00:10:39.560 just, you know, get reduced down to like, you know, a small handful of seats and perhaps lose

00:10:43.860 his own. Let me look up Burnaby, uh, Burnaby North, because I actually am curious how his

00:10:49.160 riding is going to, is he Burnaby North or Burnaby South? Let's see. No, he's Burnaby South.

00:10:54.040 Burnaby North is liberal. So Burnaby South, yeah, that one's okay. That's shaping up to be

00:10:59.820 pretty much a guaranteed for the NDP. But even so, I mean, the Conservatives are polling at 32%

00:11:05.880 there on 338, which is only just six points behind the NDPs at 38%. So strange things could happen,

00:11:15.200 although I'm not expecting them too, too much there. But all of this is to say that the NDP,

00:11:20.000 it's easy to just pay no attention to them. It's easy to think they're irrelevant. It's easy to

00:11:25.120 think they, yeah, okay, fair enough. But they could be. They could be relevant. They could

00:11:31.220 actually wield a tremendous amount of influence if they had someone at the helm who was a legitimate

00:11:35.900 political operator. Now, Charlie Angus, again, I think most of what he stands for is absolutely

00:11:42.020 bonkers. But the guy was a legitimate member of that party. He's a much closer figure to the old

00:11:50.640 Jack Layton NDP in terms of its conviction than to the Jagmeet Singh iteration. And Charlie Angus,

00:11:56.660 I'd remind you, in 2017 actually sought the leadership of that party. But the party after

00:12:02.140 the last election held a leadership review. They voted for Jagmeet Singh. They voted to keep him at

00:12:07.440 the helm. So they ultimately have to be the ones to deal with the consequences of that. But what,

00:12:13.080 if you're a new Democrat in this country, you have to look at your party right now and say,

00:12:16.440 what have you delivered for me? It's one thing if you're the NDP and you've got your 35 seats and

00:12:22.280 it's a liberal majority or a conservative majority, and all you can do is really yell into the void.

00:12:27.960 The expectations there are going to be pretty low. But when the liberals have a minority and

00:12:33.580 they need a party that's going to pass legislation for them. And the NDP agrees to be that party.

00:12:38.760 If you're a new Democrat in this country, you have to look up and say, what on earth have I

00:12:42.480 gotten out of this? And I'm sorry, but birth control and diabetes drugs are not national

00:12:47.780 pharma care. A limited extension of dental benefits is not national dental care. Now,

00:12:53.240 I don't want national pharma care for many, many reasons. I don't trust government to do it well

00:12:57.680 or do it effectively. I don't want national dental care for the same reason. But here's the reality.

00:13:03.580 the NDP hasn't even delivered on those things. They could have said to the government,

00:13:07.400 you want our support, this is the cost, which is what they ostensibly did. But in the end,

00:13:12.360 we have a supply and confidence agreement that has given the Liberal government a blank check,

00:13:17.380 given the NDP nothing in return, and no wonder that the principled stalwarts of that party want

00:13:22.920 nothing to do with it going forward in the future. And I would also say no wonder that NDP voters

00:13:27.580 are just breaking ranks with the NDP. You're going to see a lot of pickup of traditional

00:13:33.140 NDP support by the conservatives this time around, because those lines are not as far from each other

00:13:39.280 as people may think, especially if you look at inroads that the right has made with labor,

00:13:44.700 with private sector, I mean, public sector unionized workers are a different story,

00:13:48.380 but with private sector unions, labor is definitely breaking NDP. And in a lot of cases,

00:13:54.000 it depends on the area going conservative. Look, anyone who's unionized, who's in the construction

00:13:59.180 sector. They realize that it's only the conservatives that right now are campaigning

00:14:03.560 on getting houses built, on getting construction. It's the Liberal and NDP base that has really

00:14:09.880 lost that core reliance on Labour that it's always been able to count on. So this is quite

00:14:16.440 an interesting development. We will see how many more. There's going to be a point probably this

00:14:20.680 summer when you're just going to see this deluge, this mass exodus of Liberals and New Democrats

00:14:25.880 that are just not running again, and we will certainly have the opportunity to talk about that

00:14:31.800 and cover that as it happens here. I want to shift gears to the inquiry underway. I spent a bit of

00:14:38.080 time yesterday talking about Aaron O'Toole and his comments on why the Conservatives really lost

00:14:43.780 the 2021 election, at least in his view. The backdrop for that comment was the public inquiry

00:14:50.660 into foreign interference in Canadian elections, which is a real issue. It's a serious issue,

00:14:55.340 and it's one that, you know, whatever you think of Aaron O'Toole, did disproportionately harm

00:14:59.740 conservative fortunes in the 2021 election. It did not cost most likely the conservatives the

00:15:05.200 election overall, but there were a number of seats in which you can make a case that foreign

00:15:10.200 interference may have played a key role in flipping those seats away from the conservatives.

00:15:16.760 I've seen some numbers that have said as much as nine seats. This is what Aaron O'Toole said in

00:15:22.140 the inquiry yesterday. And I think it's an interesting discussion to have because

00:15:26.920 foreign interference, oftentimes the liberals try to view it as something that is just in the

00:15:32.180 abstract where, oh yes, it happens and we don't like it and it's terrible. And China is trying 0.58

00:15:36.940 to meddle, maybe India, maybe all these other places, but they don't want to deal with the 0.99

00:15:40.600 specifics of it, which is that when China is interfering in Canadian democracy, when they're

00:15:46.100 interfering in a liberal nomination, when they're interfering in a general election, there's a

00:15:51.380 reason for it. It isn't just as a flex of the muscle because they can. It's because they have

00:15:57.800 a vested interest in the outcome. They either really don't want one particular person or party

00:16:03.660 to get in, or they really do want another party or person to get in. And in the case of China,

00:16:10.500 it was the Liberal Party that was the beneficiary. It was the Chinese Communist Party that said of

00:16:16.200 all the options we have around the world, of elections in which we think we could have a bit

00:16:20.300 influence, they wanted the liberals. And more importantly, they did not want the conservatives.

00:16:27.400 And I'm sympathetic to people like Aaron O'Toole, who, to his credit, has always had a very clear

00:16:33.040 and convicted position on China and understands the threat that China poses to democracy and to

00:16:39.900 the Western world. And to people like Kenny Chu, we've had him on the show. He is a former

00:16:44.480 Conservative Member of Parliament and was himself personally the target of interference. His

00:16:51.920 advocacy for democracy, for liberty, his criticism of the Chinese regime did not evidently endear him

00:16:58.400 to the Chinese regime. And I think this is where it's an issue that we need to have a big discussion

00:17:04.900 on. Now, the Liberals have tried to downplay a lot of this. They've tried to put out reports that

00:17:10.720 all of the media reporting from people such as Sam Cooper and the Globe and Mail are all,

00:17:15.680 oh, it's not like that. And oh, this intelligence report is, yeah, you got to take it with a grain

00:17:19.860 of salt. But much of what we've heard in testimony this week has actually vindicated Sam Cooper,

00:17:26.440 most notably in the case of Han Dong, who was a Liberal member of Parliament until these

00:17:32.100 allegations came to light. And then he ultimately backed up and is now sitting as an independent,

00:17:37.020 and he's wanted to rejoin the Liberal Party.

00:17:39.400 But we've heard evidence that really vindicates

00:17:41.780 that this guy had a very, very inappropriate relationship

00:17:45.500 with the Chinese government

00:17:47.520 while he was supposed to be serving Canada's interests.

00:17:50.620 I want to discuss this with Kenny Chu,

00:17:52.740 former Conservative MP,

00:17:54.400 and he is welcome back on the show at any time.

00:17:57.160 Kenny, good to see you.

00:17:58.260 Thanks very much for coming back on today.

00:18:00.520 Good morning, good afternoon, Andrew.

00:18:02.000 Can you hear me okay?

00:18:03.120 Yes, I can.

00:18:04.280 And thank you for being with us again.

00:18:05.760 you were talking about this issue when no one else was because you saw this firsthand in your

00:18:11.120 riding. It's affected your political career and your life. Do you feel a little bit of

00:18:16.320 vindication this week when we're really hearing a lot of support for what you were talking about

00:18:21.260 years ago? It's a tough question, Andrew. But yes, there is a deep sense of vindication

00:18:30.860 that i i had when the uh commissioner council team presented me all the uh declassified

00:18:42.780 reports and also information and analysis all that has proven that uh you know yes in 2021

00:18:53.260 i wasn't hallucinating um i wasn't daydreaming or uh like um miss uh jennifer o'connell

00:19:02.220 the liberal mp said that i'm being donald trump

00:19:08.540 when you were being subjected to this and i think the term that you used is that you were drowning

00:19:13.340 in a chinese election misinformation did you think you were a part of a of a story that was

00:19:19.100 was unfolding nationally or did you think this was just you that was being targeted based on

00:19:23.960 you know what you've you know the reasons that the Chinese regime obviously wouldn't want 0.98

00:19:27.620 someone like you in office at the time as a local candidate your eyes is fixated to uh your writing

00:19:35.280 you don't even have time to to consider you know so-called the air wall uh so you know what what's

00:19:43.100 being debated nationally let alone internationally uh at that time even though i see telltale

00:19:50.320 signs that this is far more organized than any uh local constituents can do uh there is this

00:19:57.920 sense deep down inside me that uh maybe maybe i you know i've been poking depender eyes to

00:20:06.060 for too long and the panda is now striking back i know you were like the attacks on you were

00:20:12.940 were very personal. And I'll say foreign interference looks different to different

00:20:17.160 situations. I mean, in some cases, it could be money that's put into a riding that's connected

00:20:22.060 to a state. And in your case, it was a lot of it was misinformation that was being circulated

00:20:26.760 about you. Someone could easily say, listen, I mean, there's misinformation in politics all the

00:20:31.680 time. Politicians are called all sorts of names. What should have, in your view, been done to stop

00:20:37.140 this what could have been done to stop this you know that the the canadian reality is that there

00:20:44.960 are populations that are segregated that are uh base their information their day-in day-out

00:20:51.980 world view on uh their their selected platform of um social media or even just local radio

00:21:04.800 stations tv news or you know printed media uh it's all in the language that is not common to

00:21:13.600 a majority of the canadian and and that created a vacuum of information if imagine somebody could

00:21:21.200 control uh let's say let's say the uh vladimir putin regime decided to control canada's russian

00:21:29.760 population and if the russian population does not speak read write english or french it will become

00:21:37.600 very easy because all they have to do is just buy out the media that the local canadian media that

00:21:42.640 they have and then pump this information to to these diaspora community that that uses russian

00:21:51.440 social media. So this is what I observed to be the case in Canada, and it's still ongoing, Andrew.

00:22:01.040 I'll ask, I mean, I'll mention WeChat specifically. I ran for office provincially in Ontario many years

00:22:06.240 ago, and I had some volunteers that were from the Chinese community that were

00:22:09.480 incredible, hardworking people, and they said, oh, you've got to get on WeChat. It's how we talk. So

00:22:13.540 I did it. And, you know, before long, I was getting added to all of these different groups. And of

00:22:17.620 course, you know, I was looking at my phone, and it's all in, you know, I can't read any of it. So

00:22:21.100 So, you know, I don't know if it was helping me or hurting me.

00:22:24.200 But you raise an important point, which is that these are massive, massive networks.

00:22:28.800 I mean, WeChat itself is huge and people are communicating.

00:22:33.280 And it's really there's no way to catch up if you have something that is blatantly false,

00:22:38.340 something that could have been planted by a foreign actor that's circulating in these communities at a rapid pace in a language that many law enforcement and intelligence experts are not able to read.

00:22:48.780 Yeah, this is one point that had come up during the commission hearing yesterday. And, you know, it's actually worse than that, Andrew, unfortunately, because WeChat and Weixing and QQ or even Xiao Hong Su, Little Red Book, these are social media platforms that are popular in Chinese.

00:23:11.980 But in an authoritarian regime, all these platforms are not only monitored, but also has been tightly controlled.

00:23:24.880 Messages would be scanned and they will be traced and logged.

00:23:30.840 And so it's a big challenge.

00:23:33.600 If I could just interject there for a moment.

00:23:35.800 so theoretically if you were to try to combat this information and say this is all untrue and

00:23:41.800 here's why that might not even make it through the platform it may not because it's been it's

00:23:47.720 been controlled not just by the algorithm so your message could be prioritized much lower than the

00:23:54.680 other ones i'm sure you familiarize with that uh you know we live in canada now um but also it may

00:24:00.920 not even go through and even if it's gone through uh you know it may get prioritized against uh in

00:24:08.920 a lower rank than the the disinformation the thing is andrew uh you can summon the facebook uh

00:24:16.440 president or ceo or whatever uh that that'll register in canada to come to the house of

00:24:22.600 commons and ask them to explain hold them to account uh google is similar and we we've seen

00:24:28.840 that they've done that in in the u.s congress but good luck if you try to get uh you know the tick

00:24:35.320 tock mother company do in to come to uh parliament of canada to explain why their algorithm biases

00:24:43.080 one side you know from the other so what would you like to see moving forward because i mean the

00:24:50.760 liberal government has said that yes it takes this very seriously and they're going to do everything

00:24:55.320 that can to safeguard the next election i've not seen a concrete plan on what is being done to

00:25:01.080 stop this from happening so in the 2025 election which is going to be a you know very high stakes

00:25:06.200 election i could see this being exactly as problematic as it was in 2021. so far the

00:25:14.840 government seems to be still in denial mode i'm sure you have heard our prime minister justin

00:25:20.360 trudeau uh in response to uh you know the question about foreign interference uh he is still saying

00:25:28.120 that it's uh sour grapes these are sore losers and all that uh not recognizing it it's a big

00:25:35.160 problem because it sends two messages the first one is canadians should not uh be uh over concerned

00:25:43.080 about this this is nothing it lowers people's um uh alert on the situation and secondly it also

00:25:51.880 sends a message to russia iran you know people's republic of china all these predatorial uh nations

00:26:00.840 uh hostile nations that are interested in in influencing canada that you know we're still

00:26:07.080 burying our heads in the sand uh just like an ostrich and and so come come and explore exploit

00:26:13.580 our people uh in any way that you can well and i think that's a very important note because you

00:26:20.040 had said uh as well that canada didn't really protect you like you thought it would so uh look

00:26:26.240 the life is what it is and you know you may have been able to have won that election had this not

00:26:31.260 been there there's a very real chance you could have but the election happened the results were

00:26:35.740 certified what needs to be done if you had to you know write the law basically or could write

00:26:41.460 the law write the roadmap to the next election what would you do could have should have would

00:26:46.700 have andrew you're right and and erin o'toole even him said uh in an interview pretty much the same

00:26:53.720 thing what's important is how do how do we as canadians move forward uh the world it's a dog

00:27:00.560 dog world. It's very cruel. And we must safeguard our citizens from that. And what I would propose

00:27:09.860 is let's start with the lowest hanging fruit in establishing a foreign influence transparency

00:27:17.540 scheme, which is similar to what the Australian and I had proposed. That way, we're not denying

00:27:25.940 anybody's political activities or rights but we're just moving them from underneath the table

00:27:31.620 to above to be able and under the sunlight and as we all know it's the best disinfectant

00:27:37.060 beyond that uh we also need um perhaps fact checkers that are uh in their native language

00:27:44.980 and these could be um non-government agencies that are certified by by the government to be

00:27:51.780 uh you know to have the integrity and honesty they could be university they could be ngos proper

00:27:59.060 and then during the election time these organizations if they could analyze specific

00:28:06.020 language responsible for fact checking a certain language then the government could direct

00:28:13.460 you know diaspora communities doesn't matter whether it's iranian persian

00:28:17.300 or Chinese or Mandarin Cantonese to these certified fact checkers for information to

00:28:25.700 confirm so there are many things that we can do and you know one of the best country to

00:28:31.540 for us to ask brainstorming ideas is actually Taiwan they are at the front line of this info

00:28:39.780 wall with uh with china so they have garnered tremendous amount of experience and ideas and

00:28:47.620 i'm sure they are more than willing to share with us all right well i appreciate that very

00:28:51.940 much and your continued advocacy on this i mean in in a roundabout way it's a great compliment

00:28:57.860 to your integrity that you were targeted because it means that they felt threatened by what you

00:29:01.540 were doing so i appreciate you speaking up in this way kenny chu thank you andrew for having me

00:29:07.380 all right my pleasure you're welcome back anytime uh one thing i wanted to revisit was the immigration

00:29:13.460 about face from justin trudeau i uh shared the clip the last couple days justin trudeau comes

00:29:18.420 out and says what most canadians were thinking of and realizing which was that canada has had a bit

00:29:25.220 of an overflow of immigration in terms of temporary residence and it's been uh more than the country

00:29:31.220 could absorb those are justin trudeau's languages or that's justin trudeau's language far beyond i

00:29:35.780 I should say, far beyond what Canada could absorb. Now, this means it's exacerbated housing,

00:29:41.400 employment, health care resources. And it's a little bit interesting, as I pointed out yesterday,

00:29:46.480 that Justin Trudeau has made this claim when it is effectively admitting that over the last nine

00:29:52.820 years, his government has allowed this problem to take place. Now, this, I said, is basically a

00:29:58.320 finger pointed directly at Sean Fraser, who up until a minute ago was the immigration minister.

00:30:04.020 Now he's the housing minister.

00:30:06.280 And I said, if I'm Sean Frazier, I'd be wondering, well, hang on, why are you throwing me under

00:30:10.460 this bus?

00:30:11.360 Well, a journalist did put to Sean Frazier effectively that question, which is kind of

00:30:16.440 how do you feel with this admission?

00:30:18.640 And oh boy, was this some, I was going to say twetzel-pristing. 0.98

00:30:23.360 I believe pretzel-twisting is better.

00:30:25.340 But to be honest, I actually kind of like twetzel-pristing.

00:30:27.880 So here were some twetzel-pristing from Sean Frazier.

00:30:31.060 today you heard the prime minister say that immigration to canada has grown at a rate far

00:30:36.420 beyond what canada has been able to absorb much of that growth came while you were immigration

00:30:40.740 minister do you regret not putting restrictions on international students or temporary foreign

00:30:45.460 workers while you were in your previous role uh first and it's clear jillian you have an

00:30:50.420 understanding of this but for the benefit of those who may be listening it's important that we

00:30:54.580 distinguish between permanent residency and temporary residency of course as we increased

00:30:59.780 the permanent immigration levels that a lot of factors go into those considerations including

00:31:06.260 the capacity of communities to seek both the benefits of growing population and manage

00:31:12.420 population growth in a sustained and planned way and i'm very comfortable with the track that we're

00:31:16.500 on as a federal government when it comes to permanent residency when it comes to temporary

00:31:20.420 residency there's not a similar annual exercise where the federal government sets a particular

00:31:24.980 level. Instead, historically, what has happened is employers based on demand and the need to prove

00:31:31.400 that they cannot find a Canadian to fill a particular role will be able to recruit through

00:31:36.060 the temporary foreign worker program workers to fill those roles. When it comes to international

00:31:40.860 students, what we've seen in recent years was significant growth led by institutions who, again,

00:31:48.520 are using a demand-driven program without regard to the need to house those students. Well, I was

00:31:53.440 still in that portfolio, and you'll hear answers to interview questions I gave back in the spring

00:31:57.960 of last year, we were moving towards some of the measures that Minister Miller has put in place,

00:32:02.720 and I think those measures have largely been the right thing to do, to insist that a demand-driven

00:32:08.340 program, when it puts too much pressure on communities and doesn't provide the housing

00:32:12.680 or other services people need, then we did need to step in. Overall, I feel coming out of the

00:32:19.140 pandemic. It was essential that we listened to businesses that were at risk of closure when we

00:32:23.320 had over a million job vacancies in the economy, that we listened to institutions who had gone for

00:32:28.600 a few years without access to international students who may have been studying abroad

00:32:32.580 and weren't able to come into Canada. But as we come out of this pandemic era and post-pandemic

00:32:37.820 phase, more to what we feel is a normal and stable course for the next few years ahead,

00:32:43.840 I think we have to make sure that even on the temporary programs, which are historically driven

00:32:47.820 by employers and institutions we put measures in place to ensure that communities can accommodate

00:32:52.380 a growing population oh ever interesting so yeah when it comes to permanent residents oh yes

00:32:59.340 government can we can control that temporary residents oh no it's it's businesses they decide

00:33:03.900 what they need and universities they decide what they need he's basically blaming everyone but the

00:33:09.420 liberal government so justin trudeau says yeah uh this was terrible it wasn't sustainable then his

00:33:14.700 His immigration minister gets the obvious question and it's everyone else's fault.

00:33:17.860 Now, my hope would be that all of this means we can finally have that adult conversation on immigration.

00:33:23.700 Justin Trudeau said yesterday or two days ago what just like five days ago would have been called racist if someone else said it.

00:33:32.100 Because if you have a discussion about immigration, that's inevitably where it goes.

00:33:36.060 And this was part of an essay that was published by Macdonald-Laurier Institute, written by Joe Adam George a couple of months back.

00:33:43.100 Canada, it's not racist or xenophobic to talk about immigration. So my hope would be that all

00:33:49.220 of this triggers a real grown-up discussion on immigration, that we can shed the name-calling

00:33:55.240 and put that all aside and have it. Whether we'll get that in politics, I don't know, but we

00:34:00.160 certainly should. Joe Adam George joins me now from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Joe, good

00:34:05.800 to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today. Absolute pleasure, Andrew. So let's first off

00:34:11.740 talk about why this has become such an impossible conversation because you trace in your essay back

00:34:18.300 more than 50 years when Canada became from an official perspective a multicultural country and

00:34:23.700 I don't think on its surface there's anything wrong with recognizing that Canada has people

00:34:28.500 of different cultures and backgrounds. I think the application of this though certainly in modern

00:34:33.760 political discourse has led to some pretty untenable like you say I mean just allegations

00:34:39.100 of xenophobia when people want to say what are pretty reasonable things.

00:34:44.580 Absolutely, Andrew.

00:34:45.820 And I'd like to begin by saying that I'm glad that Prime Minister Trudeau proved me right

00:34:51.200 when he said what he said.

00:34:53.980 But I mean, we have been talking about this for a long time, haven't we?

00:34:58.880 The conservatives have been talking about this, the economists, people who are specialists

00:35:06.100 on housing and other policy areas.

00:35:10.500 I've been talking about the same thing.

00:35:11.980 So I'm not at all surprised

00:35:13.360 that he's now doing a flip-flop on the issue.

00:35:16.020 But then this isn't the first time

00:35:17.760 that the Liberals are doing it.

00:35:18.960 And I suspect this is not going to be

00:35:20.720 the last time as well.

00:35:22.460 And also specifically...

00:35:27.880 Oh, I think we've lost Joe there.

00:35:31.300 We'll get Joe back in a moment.

00:35:32.660 See, this is what happens

00:35:33.440 in Justin Trudeau's Canada.

00:35:34.740 you start making sense in an interview and that uh those internet regulations they they cut you

00:35:39.540 clean off uh we'll get uh joe adam george back on in a moment there we go carry on sir uh yes

00:35:47.460 um sorry so i was saying with regard to my piece uh i wanted to also clarify that this is by no way

00:35:54.100 an anti-immigration piece the old idea of the piece was that i am absolutely supportive of 0.71

00:35:59.940 immigration and i believe that canada has to have immigration but it needs to be done right

00:36:05.220 and what really pissed me off as a person of color and as a pro as you know as an immigrant myself

00:36:12.980 is that we can't seem to have these honest conversations around um around immigration

00:36:19.620 around uh even allied issues like housing infrastructure uh crime uh foreign policy

00:36:28.180 uh you know without being branded as racist or xenophobic and that's what really frustrates me

00:36:33.620 and i find that very disingenuous when it comes from the liberals and the progressive left

00:36:38.340 uh but i'm really glad that the conversation and the narrative around this issue is now being

00:36:44.420 you know it's now significantly changing but i know

00:36:47.780 Oh, we've lost him. There we go.

00:36:54.780 But yeah, I fear that, you know, in the years to come, if we continue down this path, it's

00:37:02.280 going to be very bleak for Canada and we're going to lose the consensus on immigration

00:37:07.180 altogether. And, you know, I think it's time that we as Canadians address that, you know,

00:37:13.720 not exactly working out the way we desired. It's not just the economic factors in itself, but also,

00:37:20.600 as I mentioned in my article, the social cohesion part of it as well. There is, as you can see,

00:37:27.320 since October 7th, we haven't had the kind of social integration that we have desired.

00:37:34.760 You've seen the protests play out on the street, the anti-Semitism on the rise. All this

00:37:41.880 you know, is symptomatic of the failure of the policies of Trudeau, of Justin Trudeau. And I'd

00:37:48.620 like to see, hopefully, if the next Conservative government comes to power, to try and rectify it.

00:37:54.600 I mean, though I would imagine it's going to be a Gargantuan challenge for them.

00:37:59.980 One thing that you touch on in your piece, which I think is quite important, and it's what's missing

00:38:04.340 from the immigration discussion in Canada, is the idea of integration. And even the Conservatives

00:38:09.520 are guilty of this. Well, they talk about it only in economic terms. They say, okay, well,

00:38:13.880 do we have enough jobs, enough homes, and enough healthcare resources, which is a fair question

00:38:18.100 for a society if you're talking about population growth. But integration has been, I mean,

00:38:23.520 going back to 2015, when the Conservatives were talking about Canadian values, and that was deemed

00:38:28.160 as just horrendous and offensive and racist. But you've argued here, and you talked to Eric

00:38:33.300 Kaufman, a professor who's been on this show a couple of times, that's just completely missing,

00:38:38.160 but it's a very important part of the discussion. Absolutely. And I think Professor Kaufman has

00:38:44.800 made some very interesting points. One thing I wanted to even highlight as well, as a matter of

00:38:49.940 fact, like I alluded to before, that any kind of discussion around immigration is just branded as

00:38:58.520 racist xenophobic. Something even as simple as people choosing where to live in Canada.

00:39:03.860 You know, it isn't uncommon for people to choose which part of Toronto or Calgary or Vancouver they want to live in because, I mean, this is not just specific to whites alone.

00:39:18.320 It's also very commonplace for ethnic minority groups to live in cities or communities where, you know, they have their fellow community members so that they like to feel comfortable.

00:39:32.560 We have seen that in Brampton or Mississauga, for example.

00:39:37.960 But often it seems like when you talk about this, you know, white people tend to be branded as racist and so on.

00:39:46.340 But it's and I find that very disingenuous, again, because because you have ethnic minority groups doing it for the same reasons as well. 1.00

00:39:55.140 And, you know, and you can't, I think it's very unfair to punish people for choosing

00:40:00.460 where they want to live any more than you can punish people for choosing who they want

00:40:05.180 to marry or date.

00:40:07.500 One point that's interesting, and you raised this in your piece, is other countries that

00:40:12.620 have gone through their own about face on this.

00:40:15.080 And countries have typically been very progressive, very pro-immigration.

00:40:18.660 I don't even like calling it pro-immigration because you and I are both pro-immigration,

00:40:22.420 but we're pro-sensible immigration.

00:40:24.360 So other countries, like Germany is one of the biggest examples of, I think, a failure on the immigration front. They went through this horrendous asylum year in, I think it was like 2014 or 2015. They brought in a million people in the span of a year and had a lot of issues over the next few years that still continue to this day.

00:40:44.300 Germany has had legislation to allow for easier deportation of asylum seekers.

00:40:50.980 Australia has reduced immigration.

00:40:52.660 The UK, again, a country that's gone through its own reversal on this.

00:40:56.620 So other countries are starting to come around on this, even when they've been averse.

00:41:00.520 Does that give you hope for there to be, in Canada, a more sensible or common sense approach to this issue?

00:41:08.080 Well, certainly not under the Liberal government.

00:41:11.460 I'm not confident of that.

00:41:13.600 I would imagine the conservatives would be more proactive on the file, though I would suspect that the liberals and the NDP would then go about, as you know, they've done in the past, would just label conservatives as racist.

00:41:28.240 So I'm not, but I would imagine they would go about doing the right thing to address the issue.

00:41:33.260 But the problem, like I said, you know, in the article as well, is because, you know, the issue of political correctness is so strong in Canada as compared to other, most of our Western peers.

00:41:46.300 You know, it's very hard to have a discussion around this.

00:41:51.060 So, but if you see countries like you mentioned, Andrew, in Europe, you see the countries that have clamped down on immigration.

00:41:59.280 These are not governments that are right-wing governments.

00:42:04.920 For example, if you've seen Denmark or France or Germany, these are left or left-of-center governments.

00:42:14.900 So, in fact, Denmark, the Denmark government is run by the equivalent of our NDP, the Social Democrats.

00:42:23.300 And they have our zero refugee policy, which, I mean, if you were trying to implement that in Canada, you would most certainly be branded as racist.

00:42:35.640 So, you know, which is why you can see that the consensus on immigration in Europe is certainly dwindling.

00:42:43.020 And also, as you can see, down south in our neighbors in the U.S. as well, immigration has become the most, you know,

00:42:50.420 it's a major hot button issue for the upcoming elections. So I suspect that it's going to be

00:42:56.860 no different here in Canada when our next elections come. Joe, Adam, George, good to talk

00:43:03.540 to you, sir. Great piece at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a bit of an evergreen one, but

00:43:07.500 a renewed relevance this week with the admissions from the Liberals. So I appreciate you coming on,

00:43:11.580 sir. Thank you so much, Andrew. All right. Thank you. We are just been out of time for today and

00:43:17.760 for the week. I will tell you now, next week, well, the beginning of the week will be a bit

00:43:22.740 of a normal week, but later on, I'm going to be broadcasting live from the Canada Strong and Free

00:43:28.120 Network Conference in Ottawa. We've got a great set of shows planned out. Actually, I say that

00:43:33.220 we haven't planned any of it, but it will, well, we got one. No, we have one interview lined up,

00:43:36.820 but it's a really good interview. It's a former prime minister, but not of Canada. So it'll be

00:43:40.980 good though. And we'll have some other stuff planned. I am going to be interviewing Blaine

00:43:44.460 Higgs and Danielle Smith on stage so that will be fun and hopefully we'll have some footage of that

00:43:49.200 to share with you but do stay tuned and if you're in Ottawa might be worth coming out and seeing us

00:43:55.120 and Sean's trying to tell me other things that are I'm not I'm not teasing the whole week next

00:43:58.840 week Sean I'm just talking about what's happening at Canada Strong and Free no uh they I'm not going

00:44:03.060 to tell them who the surprise Monday guest is until Monday so uh that'll we do have a surprise

00:44:07.840 Monday guest on Monday's show which will be a lot of fun but uh anyway that does it for uh that but

00:44:13.160 we did, I try to kind of give the people what they want. We had a super chat on YouTube, which

00:44:19.060 is, we're very grateful for. Marco Peruzza writes when Pierre, because we were talking about the

00:44:24.560 walk-on music that Jagmeet Singh has, where he dances even though he lost. So Marco says,

00:44:29.920 when Pierre enters the 2025 debate, I want the Stone Cold entrance music. I believe Stone Cold

00:44:35.540 Steve Austin is what that's a reference to, the pro wrestler. And one of my colleagues was

00:44:42.180 incredibly bored, so created this for you.

00:45:12.180 thank you very much who's ready to axe the tax

00:45:17.140 who's ready to build the homes who's ready to fix the budget and who's ready to stop the crime

00:45:27.880 i i know okay so i won't name the person i think i might have just named the person who did that

00:45:35.120 you couldn't have found a video where his face didn't have a sign in front of it for the first

00:45:39.440 half of it anyway uh it was okay so you got the song marco i hope it was worth your uh five dollar

00:45:45.260 super chat we appreciate very much your support all right well i'm back tomorrow for off the

00:45:49.380 record next week from ottawa and i hope you have a fantastic weekend here from the andrew lawton

00:45:54.680 show team thank you god bless and good day to you all thanks for listening to the andrew lawton

00:46:00.000 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:46:09.440 We'll be right back.

00:46:39.440 We'll be right back.

00:47:09.440 We'll be right back.

Juno News - April 04, 2024

NDP MPs are bailing

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