Juno News - Opposing Trudeau's immigration target isn't racist

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.

00:01:21.520 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:01:25.240 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:01:30.140 This is another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:01:35.140 I had an email a few moments ago from Dolores asking which home renovation woe I'll be sharing with you today.

00:01:43.020 I don't actually think she was mocking me.

00:01:45.320 I think she was actually being quite supportive.

00:01:47.680 Yesterday I was talking, it wasn't really a home renovation woe.

00:01:50.680 It was more just a general home ownership woe I was talking about yesterday.

00:01:55.240 with just having been suckered into spending money on a rented water.

00:01:59.680 I'm doing it again. I'm talking about the water heater.

00:02:01.500 No, I've got the water heater. It's installed. It's working.

00:02:04.280 The water is piping hot, like I hope the ratings of this show are.

00:02:09.160 They won't be if I talk only about water heaters, so we'll move on from that.

00:02:12.620 But I do thank you for all of you who have written in and shared your own similar stories.

00:02:19.000 It was actually a somewhat pertinent topic for a lot of people.

00:02:21.920 So anyway, one thing I want to talk about on this show, and I'll get to it very shortly, is that True North, it seems like, has finally been blocked by Facebook.

00:02:33.480 We have been, according to most people, now not all, there are some folks who, for whatever reason, have still been able to navigate to our page.

00:02:40.840 But for the most part, our content is no longer available to Canadians.

00:02:44.660 I can't see it on my own account.

00:02:45.980 we can post it but for the majority of canadians certainly those not using a vpn you can no longer

00:02:53.680 see true north on facebook and this is easy to blame facebook for but it's actually the fault

00:02:59.120 of the liberal government and it's internet regulation bill c18 so we'll get to that a

00:03:04.620 little bit later on in the show and talk about the implications of that but i want to begin

00:03:09.760 by discussing immigration now this is actually if you go back into the annals of true north history

00:03:15.300 Immigration is really the reason there is a True North.

00:03:18.860 My friend and colleague, Candace Malcolm, saw that there was just this massive issue that was tremendously relevant

00:03:25.980 and had all sorts of policy failures stemming from it in the federal government's eyes.

00:03:32.180 And no one was talking about it in the media.

00:03:34.660 So she actually started this organization, which was originally intended to be a think tank on immigration issues.

00:03:41.000 And from there, the story of how True North blossomed and bloomed is a long and very positive one.

00:03:48.020 But ultimately speaking, immigration is an issue that matters a lot,

00:03:51.520 and it's become the third rail, the third rail of Canadian politics,

00:03:56.840 where even Conservatives oftentimes get sucked into the very same outlook

00:04:01.740 and very same approach as the Liberals, or a marginally better one.

00:04:05.820 Now, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives were very pro-immigration.

00:04:09.680 There's a reason that they had such a tremendous showing in the 2011 election in the greater Toronto area.

00:04:16.160 It was because they had done a lot to build inroads within ethnic communities.

00:04:20.380 And a lot of that was spearheaded by Jason Kenney, who was Harper's longtime immigration minister.

00:04:26.420 But even Harper's pro-immigration policy and politics was always constrained by economic and cultural realities.

00:04:34.940 And that was, I think, a very key difference between the conservative approach to immigration, which was pro-immigration, and the liberal approach, which is very much pro-immigration, but in a much more virtue-signaling way.

00:04:49.320 Now, as it stands, Justin Trudeau has made a very bold and audacious commitment that every year he is going to ratchet up immigration into Canada even more to the point where by 2025 we have 500,000 immigrants coming in every year as PRs, basically economic immigrants and also some family reunification.

00:05:10.940 Now, that is a low ball if you take into consideration other sources of immigration,

00:05:18.240 like, for example, asylum seekers, who we know are continuing to increase in number in Canada,

00:05:25.340 and also some temporary foreign workers, students who are not coming here through the PR stream,

00:05:31.480 but are nonetheless entrants into Canada.

00:05:33.680 So there have been some estimates that have said annual entry is closer to a million,

00:05:39.060 although not all of those are permanent.

00:05:41.220 Now, all of that aside,

00:05:42.980 500,000 a year is a number that sounds nice to the Liberals.

00:05:47.160 It's a number of which they can be proud,

00:05:49.560 of which all of us as Canadians are supposed to be proud.

00:05:54.080 And I want to just talk about the way Statistics Canada,

00:05:56.780 which is supposed to be a neutral arbiter of facts and numbers and stats,

00:06:01.840 the way Statistics Canada views this.

00:06:04.280 Now, they published this piece regarding the previous census information in which they talked about the immigrants making up largest share of the population in over 150 years and continue to shape who we are as Canadians.

00:06:21.260 Now, that's a very weird analysis, but the premise of this is that we have the largest ever share of the Canadian population that is immigrants now than ever before.

00:06:32.360 22.3% was the previous 19-21 record, now it is 23%, and that number is expected to increase by 2041 to 34% of the population.

00:06:44.440 So in about 17, 18 years, more than one-third of the Canadian population will be immigrants.

00:06:53.540 Now, when you look at population growth, Canadians are not having children.

00:06:58.040 The Canadian fertility rate is abysmal.

00:07:00.660 It is not at replacement rate.

00:07:02.740 So 75% of Canada's population growth is coming from immigrants, not from people having children.

00:07:11.220 Now, a lot of people would look at this number and say, so what?

00:07:14.320 What does it matter? And I take a view that is far away from this whole like great replacement fear that some evil sinister forces are trying to reshape the image and make, you know, Canadians, the old stock Canadians, as they are derisively called by Justin Trudeau yesterday's news.

00:07:30.740 No, I think what's happening here is you have two things. You have people that want to come to Canada because they see in Canada something valuable that they want for themselves and their families.

00:07:40.580 And then you have people that see in Canada a blank slate on which they can project whatever

00:07:45.620 they want to bring from their country, from their culture, from their civilization.

00:07:50.680 And it's that latter category that can cause issues.

00:07:54.660 It's that latter category that has caused so many problems in places like Germany and

00:07:59.420 Sweden and the United Kingdom and Ireland.

00:08:02.180 It's that category of people that do not wish to, the word that you're not supposed to say,

00:08:06.700 But I will say that people who do not wish to assimilate into a particular society, but wish to bring the best of both worlds in their view, or maybe it's the worst of both worlds, into a home that offers a slightly better economic opportunity than wherever it is from which they've come.

00:08:22.780 And this is why immigration is an issue that we need to talk about.

00:08:26.120 And it's why we should be able to have it in a dispassionate way that focuses on the stats.

00:08:32.280 And to go back to that Statistics Canada piece here, that line that they include as a bit of a boast is actually quite important here, that immigrants continue to shape who we are as Canadians.

00:08:43.620 So by design, by the government's design, immigration is not meant to be about selling the Canadian experience to people that do not have that experience and do not have that hope and that path forward in their own countries.

00:08:58.900 It is by design about remaking Canada and reshaping Canada

00:09:04.420 based on the fabric of the immigrants that we bring into this country.

00:09:09.540 Now, some people may bring tremendous work ethic.

00:09:12.360 They may bring a tremendous devotion and dedication to their family.

00:09:16.060 But we are fooling ourselves if we think there are not other people

00:09:19.340 that are bringing things that are far less desirable here,

00:09:21.880 such as a contempt for equal rights, a contempt for women's rights,

00:09:25.660 a contempt for gay rights.

00:09:27.940 And as a country, we should be able to talk about that.

00:09:30.000 We should be able to talk about the social fabric of this nation

00:09:33.220 when you have such a large and ambitious view of what immigration is supposed to be,

00:09:40.380 which to the liberals is $500,000 a year as a minimum.

00:09:45.540 But again, the government brags about the number itself.

00:09:48.880 And I want to show another government press release here.

00:09:51.460 Not that I am in the business of just parroting whatever the government wants to tell you,

00:09:55.460 but I think it's actually worth pointing out.

00:09:57.820 This is a press release from the Government of Canada

00:10:00.380 through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

00:10:03.220 that was issued January 3rd, 2023.

00:10:07.400 Canada welcomes historic number of newcomers in 2022.

00:10:13.540 The first paragraph here,

00:10:15.260 Canada has experienced one of the fastest recoveries

00:10:17.920 from the pandemic,

00:10:19.060 thanks in large part to our approach to immigration.

00:10:21.980 Newcomers enrich our communities

00:10:23.820 and contribute to our economy

00:10:25.320 by working, creating jobs, and supporting local businesses, recognizing their value.

00:10:31.000 The government of Canada planned to welcome 431,000 new permanent residents in 2022.

00:10:38.500 Now, if you look at the numbers a bit further, you see that Canada is, as a general rule,

00:10:45.120 proud to be the number one acceptor of immigrants as a percentage of population in the G7.

00:10:51.980 This has been Canada's value added to the world, that we take more immigrants than anybody else

00:10:57.580 in the world. This is what Justin Trudeau thinks Canada does better. This is what he believes is

00:11:02.260 our comparative advantage. Is it working that way? I don't actually think so. And one example,

00:11:08.360 which is not about culture, it's not about religion, it's not about equal rights, it's not

00:11:12.540 about any of that. It is purely economic because the government believes that the sales pitch for

00:11:17.260 immigration is that it enriches and enhances our economy. And there is good reason for that

00:11:21.820 in some cases, because we do have a labor shortage. We do have immigrants that are happy to come here

00:11:27.100 and bring a work ethic that makes it so they are all too willing to do a job that perhaps a Canadian

00:11:32.160 does not want to do. But we also have to house the people that come here. When immigrants come

00:11:38.960 to Canada, overwhelmingly, they're flocking to cities that are already very densely populated.

00:11:43.640 They don't want to go to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. And there is an exception here when we're talking

00:11:48.560 about temporary foreign workers,

00:11:50.400 but they're not part of the $500,000 figure

00:11:52.860 that the government is striving towards.

00:11:54.800 So when people are coming,

00:11:56.320 they're going to the cities

00:11:57.460 that already have very high ethnic communities.

00:11:59.660 They're going to Vancouver,

00:12:00.900 they're going to Toronto,

00:12:02.260 in some cases to Montreal.

00:12:04.180 And the reason those cities

00:12:05.820 are dealing with such a housing crunch

00:12:07.800 is because they have more people available

00:12:09.800 than they have houses available.

00:12:12.400 And this is just simple supply and demand.

00:12:14.600 You don't even need to have passed

00:12:15.860 an economics class to understand that.

00:12:18.560 We already have a housing crisis in Canada.

00:12:22.240 Adding 1.5 million new permanent residents in three years

00:12:26.160 strikes me as a bit of a problem

00:12:28.300 if you already have millions of Canadians

00:12:30.740 who would love to buy a home but cannot afford to.

00:12:34.140 Now, a poll done shows that Canadians are more aware of this problem

00:12:38.680 than the federal government is.

00:12:40.340 Canadians actually get this, believe it or not.

00:12:43.120 A piece that was done by Bloomberg

00:12:45.040 and polling that was done by Abacus Data

00:12:47.460 show that 68% of Canadians think that Canada's immigration targets are making things more

00:12:54.440 unaffordable or less affordable when it comes to housing. That is two-thirds of Canadians.

00:13:00.200 This is not a racial concern, as is always blamed when people raise an issue with Canada's

00:13:06.720 immigration numbers. No, this is an economic concern. People who maybe are unable to afford

00:13:11.800 a house themselves or have children that can't actually buy a home are seeing, okay, you know

00:13:16.560 what? Maybe 1.5 million. I actually don't care if we bring in this woman from Italy or that guy

00:13:22.640 from Sudan or that nice happy couple from Afghanistan. I'm fine with them, but I also

00:13:29.340 can't afford a house as it is. So maybe we just shouldn't bring in anyone and it has nothing to

00:13:34.640 do with country or skin color or religion. And this is an entirely non-racist and legitimate

00:13:40.820 objection to immigration that the federal government is not interested in and that a lot

00:13:45.900 of the researchers, the academics, the generally speaking intelligentsia types or self-professed

00:13:52.460 intelligentsia types refuse to acknowledge.

00:13:55.700 For example, there was a study that was done by some obnoxious researcher in Canada.

00:14:00.820 I can't even remember the name of the study, but it doesn't matter.

00:14:03.200 It was aiming at the so-called far right of Canada.

00:14:06.260 And they named True North in this along with other outlets.

00:14:09.580 And they use as an example of being so-called far-right the concerns about uncontrolled migration,

00:14:16.180 as though it is far-right and perhaps even racist to talk about the issues of uncontrolled migration

00:14:22.900 when any country, even the most liberal and progressive, has some form of control on migration.

00:14:28.160 I mean, even the 500,000 figure that the liberals want involves putting a cap in place at that 500,000.

00:14:35.060 But we know that in Canada, that number is just a fancy virtue signaling number, like, for example, net zero by 2035 is. And the government will get so focused on the quota, they stop looking at the quality and the rigorous vetting that is necessary for a functional and secure immigration system.

00:14:56.700 And I'm suspicious that they're going to get to, oh, I don't know, the third quarter and find, oh, wow, we haven't actually gotten three quarters of the way to 500,000 yet.

00:15:04.240 So let's just open the floodgates because we need to hit that number.

00:15:07.860 We need to put out the press release that talks about how welcoming we are as a country.

00:15:13.320 But let's just drill down for a moment here on the math on this, on the economics, because the government says that the only way we can fill the labor shortage is through immigration.

00:15:22.620 Okay, there's some basis for immigrants being necessary to filling up the workforce when there are vacancies.

00:15:29.580 But the government is claiming that there's not actually going to be a housing issue

00:15:33.660 because when we have more immigrants, we'll be building more houses.

00:15:37.480 That's the argument they're putting forward.

00:15:39.480 And it's one that didn't quite add up to my colleague, Cosman Georgia, host of The Daily Brief,

00:15:44.280 and a fantastic investigative journalist at True North who joins me now.

00:15:48.640 Cosman, thanks for coming on the show here.

00:15:51.020 What do you make of this here?

00:15:52.260 Where is the government getting this idea from that houses will just be built a dime a dozen once we open the floodgates on immigration?

00:16:01.760 I think it's preposterous, and in my piece I call it a myth.

00:16:06.520 It doesn't really make sense that immigrants are going to come to Canada and suddenly start building houses.

00:16:12.540 When you look at the statistics last month, Statistics Canada released the labor survey, and it found that 45,000 construction jobs were lost. The month before that, it was about 16,000. So it really doesn't add up. Where are these immigrants that are building houses?

00:16:31.880 yeah it's a valid question and i know and you and i spoke about this a little on the the daily brief

00:16:38.100 yesterday a lot of them go into the service sector and we know there are vacancies in that sector i

00:16:44.440 mean we've all had issues where you try to get your coffee poured and it takes you know like 25

00:16:49.180 minutes or something because no one's working at whatever the local cafe is and yeah that's a thing

00:16:54.140 that happens but these are jobs that are very low paying jobs they're not a job that you're ever

00:16:59.220 going to be able to build a house with a salary on typically in cities like toronto or vancouver

00:17:03.900 especially whereas construction jobs pay considerably well and you can actually do

00:17:08.740 very well with this so why is this not happening has there been any research done into this has

00:17:13.960 there been any effort to get people into that track because that's an area where we desperately

00:17:18.800 need labor in canada yeah no i don't think there's been much research when i looked at the statistics

00:17:25.280 from 2019, it shows that the most popular jobs for immigrants are service jobs, healthcare jobs,

00:17:33.620 bureaucratic jobs. They're not necessarily coming here building the infrastructure

00:17:38.280 that we need to sustain such high levels of immigration. They're all going to high density

00:17:44.240 areas. You mentioned this earlier. And with that comes a host of problems like increases in rent,

00:17:50.160 increases in the price of housing, increases in the price of goods. Also, high-density areas

00:17:56.520 generally have higher rates of crime. We see this happening in Toronto and Vancouver and other

00:18:03.460 major cities. So what solutions are the Liberal government proposing? None, really. What Mark

00:18:11.200 Miller said last week was that he wants to increase the number of immigrants. He's proposing

00:18:16.580 to actually make it even higher than the 1 million target every two years we have right now.

00:18:23.860 Yet we know that there's not enough houses being built. So I'm not sure. I don't think they even

00:18:30.080 have a solution to the housing crisis. And a part of me thinks that there's a cynical

00:18:35.020 sort of desire to keep the housing prices high. Yeah. And I'm wondering, I want to drill down

00:18:43.680 on that point with you in a second, but I would also add here that this is not an issue of saying,

00:18:48.280 oh, immigrants are making things difficult for native-born Canadians, because immigrants are

00:18:52.560 making it difficult for other immigrants. And I don't mean that in a way that is blaming them

00:18:56.960 individually, but it also means that people that are coming to Canada in two years are dealing with

00:19:02.940 what I'd say is a bill of goods that's been sold to them that's not really here, that you can have

00:19:07.140 this economic fortune in Canada when they come here and find that the immigrants that came in

00:19:12.960 a year and two years before them are still looking for homes as well and there's nothing left for them

00:19:19.600 no you're absolutely right and i immigrated here with my family in 2003 and back then in kitchener

00:19:26.320 where we lived you could rent a three-bedroom apartment for about a thousand dollars a month

00:19:32.240 and that let my parents get the necessary accreditation and the the training they

00:19:37.920 needed to to enter the professional workforce while they were doing you know cleaning jobs

00:19:43.760 and watching the kids so i don't think that that is an opportunity that is present to many uh new

00:19:49.680 immigrants anymore they have to get full-time jobs uh both parents usually and then they're left

00:19:56.240 stuck in a position that they didn't see themselves being in in the first place so i think

00:20:02.000 these uh high levels of um immigration targets we're actually cheapening the immigration

00:20:08.640 experience we're making it worse for the new immigrants and as a country we should pride

00:20:14.720 ourselves on on providing a flourishing and positive experience when we come to canada

00:20:20.800 so making it worse is simply not the solution cosmon georgia host of the daily brief and

00:20:27.920 investigative journalist here at True North.

00:20:30.000 Thanks so much, Cosman.

00:20:31.640 Thank you.

00:20:32.580 And you can check out his piece at True North

00:20:34.760 on this very subject.

00:20:35.820 Canada lost 45,000 construction jobs.

00:20:38.880 Where are the immigrant home builders?

00:20:41.240 And again, I mean, you can make that same criticism

00:20:43.260 about people born in Canada.

00:20:44.480 Why are none of them going into construction?

00:20:46.920 And you can also make the same criticism of Canadians

00:20:49.220 about why are they, why are we not having children?

00:20:52.440 These are our legitimate questions

00:20:53.980 that we should not shy away from as a country and as a society and I will point out here that the

00:21:01.600 conservatives have often not been particularly strong on this now I last week maybe it was two

00:21:07.340 weeks ago I think it was two weeks ago yeah I asked Pierre Polyev about this at a press conference

00:21:12.980 now this was before this polling came out which showed how two-thirds of Canadians think that

00:21:18.300 housing is being driven even more out of reach because of immigration. It was before that.

00:21:23.460 But I asked him about the 500,000 target. And this was that exchange. And I'm not going to

00:21:28.360 give you a preface, a huge preface, because I actually want you to formulate your own thought.

00:21:35.960 Apparently, we went a bit prematurely there. Let's just roll the clip.

00:21:40.240 Good afternoon, Mr. Polyev. My question is on immigration. As you know, Canada is on track to

00:21:46.720 have about 500,000 new immigrants to the country by 2025. And I'm wondering if you think this is

00:21:55.080 sustainable and if a Conservative government led by you would continue that trend and would

00:22:01.000 be satisfied with that 500,000 a year number. Justin Trudeau has broken our immigration system.

00:22:08.900 We see this on the streets of Toronto, where refugees are living on the pavement.

00:22:16.960 It wasn't like this eight years ago.

00:22:19.160 When refugees came to Canada, we had them sponsored by charities, churches, mosques, synagogues, other non-profits,

00:22:25.640 to give them homes, help them write resumes, and get them fast work permits so they could get jobs and paychecks.

00:22:32.380 We see it in the new movement online of immigrants who are saying they're going back

00:22:39.700 because they can't afford to live here in Canada.

00:22:42.580 After eight years of Trudeau, many immigrants feel like they're better off where they came from

00:22:48.020 because the costs and the crime that Trudeau's policies have unleashed

00:22:53.100 make this country unlivable for newcomers and for those who have been here a long time.

00:23:00.500 I want to get back to common sense immigration.

00:23:03.040 The numbers should be driven by the number of employers who have job vacancies that they cannot fill with Canadians,

00:23:11.900 by the number of charities that want to sponsor refugees,

00:23:17.280 and by the families that can reunite and support their loved ones here,

00:23:21.860 not by egotistical targets that are designed to give Justin Trudeau a vanity project.

00:23:30.920 We need to get back to competent immigration.

00:23:33.040 By the way, we need to expand housing construction.

00:23:36.720 It's all well and good to think that you can increase the population by a million people in a year.

00:23:43.800 But where are we going to house everybody?

00:23:45.840 we now have last year we built fewer homes than we built in 1972 think about that in 1972 our

00:23:55.620 population was 22 million and we built 250,000 homes last year our population was 40 million

00:24:03.620 and we built 219,000 homes so we have nearly double the population and we're building fewer

00:24:10.140 homes. Is it any wonder why we have a homelessness crisis, why 9 in 10 young

00:24:16.020 people believe they'll never be able to afford a home, why we have 70

00:24:20.280 year old nurses who are living in vans. After eight years of Justin Trudeau's

00:24:25.620 total incompetence on everything from immigration to housing to health care,

00:24:30.720 our country is falling to pieces. I will put it back together with common sense

00:24:35.880 immigration, common-sense health care, common-sense housing policies that get things built. Thank you.

00:24:45.600 I forget where he was. I think he might have been in Timmins when I asked that question,

00:24:50.120 although that matters. It was just he was doing a press conference and I zoomed in. And the

00:24:54.960 answer was a lengthy one, but I wanted you to see it and hear it in full because there was a fair

00:25:01.440 bit of Rorschach-ing going on on Twitter after that exchange. It wasn't really an exchange because I

00:25:07.980 didn't get a follow-up. And by Rorschach-ing, I mean, if you're not familiar with it, this idea

00:25:11.660 where you look at an inkblot and you describe what you see, but there's nothing there. So whatever

00:25:16.180 you see has been just plucked from your brain. And that people who love the Conservatives saw

00:25:20.540 that interview and said, wow, that's a sensible, measured, common sense approach to immigration.

00:25:25.000 And people who don't like Paul Yev, whether they're PPC supporters or just leftists, were

00:25:30.360 saying, oh, he didn't answer the question, he dodged, he weaseled out. I actually didn't hear

00:25:36.440 an answer to the direct part of the question the first time I listened, because I had asked

00:25:41.600 500,000 yes or no was essentially my question. But when I re-listened later, and he says that

00:25:49.100 part there about how the number should be driven by, he still was sidestepping the very specific

00:25:54.300 question of, is 500,000 sustainable? But he was giving a hint, I think, a hint that the

00:26:00.920 Conservatives would have a smaller number. But I would also say, if that's your belief,

00:26:06.000 come right out and say it. Explain why it's unsustainable. Explain why it's a problem.

00:26:11.320 But the Conservatives are always, no matter how different a leader might be from his or her

00:26:16.140 predecessors, the Conservatives are always constrained by the media or the way they think

00:26:21.060 the media is going to respond and if anyone comes out and gives a thoughtful reason nuanced answer

00:26:27.900 of well Canadians are not actually convinced that these high immigration numbers are working

00:26:33.820 and if Canadians are dissatisfied then it will cause them to turn on immigration in general which

00:26:39.040 is not healthy for a country and we know that housing is out of reach and if we bring in 1.5

00:26:43.980 million people over three years that's going to further strain housing so I would say perhaps

00:26:48.600 maybe we should pare back from $500,000.

00:26:50.880 If you say that, the headline is going to be

00:26:54.100 Conservatives hate immigrants.

00:26:56.620 Exaggerating?

00:26:57.380 Yeah, only a little bit.

00:26:58.720 That's going to be the takeaway.

00:27:00.020 That's going to be how any concern raised

00:27:02.940 about Canada's immigration system,

00:27:04.560 even if it is purely done in fact-based,

00:27:08.480 numbers-based ways, is going to be painted.

00:27:12.280 You may recall a few months ago,

00:27:14.160 I shared a story and I wrote an op-ed in my sub stack.

00:27:17.800 Well, I guess I didn't write an op-ed. I just wrote a substack. And I was discussing this really odd and difficult encounter I had with a rather left-wing personality in the Canadian media orbit. And I was really pessimistic about the idea of breaking through our differences.

00:27:34.600 And one of the things that came up when I was speaking with this person is that I gave two very reasonable conservative positions that are pretty widespread within the right in Canada.

00:27:44.640 I said, one, that vaccine should not be mandatory.

00:27:48.680 Two, that Canada should not increase immigration every year automatically.

00:27:53.460 And I asked this person, what do you think about those two statements?

00:27:56.960 And this person told me that both were wrong because on the immigration side, this individual said that it would be racist because there is no non-racist reason to oppose immigration.

00:28:11.560 And you probably think that I'm making this up because it's so absurd, but I'm probably being even more generous than this person deserved based on that interaction.

00:28:23.360 But this is legitimately how people in the media, certainly those who are of a left-wing orientation, believe conservatives to be on immigration, that if they oppose unqualified increases of immigration, like the kind that you don't see anywhere else in the developed world, in any other G7 country, even Germany, even Germany, which kind of learned its lesson after 2015.

00:28:44.540 so when canada is going beyond anywhere else these people are still saying well yeah but if

00:28:52.620 you say no you're a racist and that's why and you know the year of that 2015 increase this was

00:28:58.660 i believe 1 million into a population of at the time 80 million that was a lower percentage of

00:29:05.360 the population than what canada has proposed and has put into effect so anything that happened in

00:29:11.000 Germany could very easily happen in Canada. That's the point that I was trying to make then,

00:29:15.620 and it's especially acute now because the government has decided to double and triple

00:29:20.420 down on that, and we should be able to have this conversation, and it's a shame that in this media

00:29:25.320 climate we cannot. And speaking of the media, I believe it is important to point out here what

00:29:31.340 has happened to True North. Now, True North, as I discussed earlier, is an outlet that has a six-year

00:29:37.320 almost, history in this country, and it's grown tremendously. We used to be, I don't want to say

00:29:42.760 entirely, but virtually entirely on Facebook in terms of where our audience was. Now, that is no

00:29:49.440 longer the case, and thank goodness, because as of this morning, this was the message that awaited me

00:29:54.520 when I logged on to the True North Facebook page. No posts available, and I said, okay, well,

00:30:00.700 have I been fired? Have I been blocked? Have we just decided to go nuclear and hit the kill switch

00:30:06.460 and delete all our content no we were posting and we continue to post and this show right now

00:30:10.500 is posting on Facebook and I think like how many people are watching on Facebook right now I think

00:30:14.720 like 30 people or so because those are the ones that I guess are using VPNs or something oh we

00:30:19.760 got 60 we got 60 on Facebook so if you're one of the 60 people watching this on Facebook right now

00:30:25.980 consider yourselves lucky you've evaded the news ban at least for the time being but this happened

00:30:32.380 And we knew it was coming, so I couldn't act all shocked, but it was still this very upsetting moment because I realized and was reminded of just how surreal it is that we live in a country in which the federal government has decided to extort from tech companies, to extort tech companies to pay off the legacy media.

00:30:51.580 And I say the legacy media because they were the ones demanding the money.

00:30:55.160 They were the ones who jumped up and said, stop stealing our content.

00:30:59.040 Friends of CBC, which is this really bizarre organization that stands to support CBC for

00:31:05.200 reasons unclear, they ran a poster campaign not long ago. You can see one of their posters here

00:31:10.360 that Mark Zuckerberg is wanted, that he is wanted for the theft of news content. So this is the

00:31:18.080 type of unhinged rhetoric you get from these people that Facebook is stealing, Mark Zuckerberg's

00:31:24.740 a pirate, and that all of their content that they voluntarily and willingly put on social

00:31:28.840 media has been stolen from them, in fact. And of course, the social media companies turned around

00:31:33.160 and said when the government extorted them, OK, we'll just make it so that this no longer applies

00:31:37.300 to us. We'll stop disseminating news. You think we're stealing? Great. We're going to stop

00:31:41.420 stealing. Problem solved. And Facebook has made good on its threat. And while I have so many

00:31:46.880 issues, which I've shared relentlessly and continuously with big tech companies, on this,

00:31:52.540 I am on their side because they are forced to make a decision by government fiat, by government

00:31:58.000 policy. They did not want to ban this content. They just didn't want to pay for it. And why

00:32:02.420 should they? Because it's not their content and they never asked for it. They didn't want it.

00:32:07.680 So the legacy media outlets, places like CBC and Post Media and the Toronto Star and the Globe and

00:32:14.100 Mail and all of these groups under the auspices of the National News Media Council, they say we

00:32:19.460 want money. True North never asked for any money from Facebook or the government. We've never

00:32:25.300 demanded any of this and if I could and I talked about this with my colleague William Macbeth last

00:32:30.680 week if I had my choice and I could just flip a switch on Facebook and say I hereby cede any claim

00:32:37.460 for C18 revenue in exchange for being able to post and share our content with Canadians if it

00:32:43.660 were my choice I would check that box in a heartbeat because this was not our fight but

00:32:48.880 true north is a casualty of this fight which the legacy media has waged against big tech in which

00:32:55.740 the government has decided to take up on the side of the legacy media and this is the government

00:33:02.520 the liberal government extorting big tech to prop up an industry which is in decline which has not

00:33:09.340 reinvented itself the way that independent media outlets have to have a viable business model

00:33:14.900 in this climate there's a reason that true north and rebel and canadaland and other independent

00:33:22.220 outlets not just on the right i mentioned canadaland for a reason the reason that we are

00:33:26.760 growing well places like bell are shuttering radio stations is because we have come up with

00:33:33.460 a business model that lets us deliver our content in a stripped down way without a lot of the bells

00:33:38.520 and whistles but a way that lets us communicate directly with canadians now social media

00:33:43.440 has played a critical and pivotal role in that.

00:33:48.800 Will we survive C-18?

00:33:51.000 Yes, because we have to.

00:33:52.700 We have no other choice.

00:33:54.720 But is it going to be easy?

00:33:56.540 No.

00:33:57.460 And the reason I had William on last week

00:34:00.760 is because it was important for me to talk to you,

00:34:03.320 all of you, about ways you can avoid this.

00:34:05.980 Up until this morning and last night, I guess,

00:34:08.620 most people can access True North with relative ease.

00:34:10.920 there were some isolated examples of people getting blocked and whatnot but we were able

00:34:15.460 to keep posting now that does not appear to be the case anymore facebook does not appear to be

00:34:20.460 backing down they have signaled a permanent withdrawal from the market now they haven't

00:34:24.940 taken us offline no one can do that well i shouldn't say no one justin trudeau probably

00:34:28.460 wants to but we are still online we still have our website we still have our youtube page we

00:34:33.500 still have our x account which is not a weird low budget porn site but it is twitter now

00:34:38.700 and we have ultimately a number of ways

00:34:42.680 that we are trying to communicate with Canadians

00:34:44.500 but there is no better way

00:34:45.840 than if you come to us directly.

00:34:48.900 Cut out the middleman.

00:34:49.820 Don't allow our content and the delivery of it

00:34:53.360 to be beholden to any company,

00:34:55.440 be it Facebook or otherwise.

00:34:56.920 Go to our website, tnc.news.

00:34:59.440 Go to subscribe.

00:35:01.060 There is a button on there that you'll see

00:35:02.920 to subscribe to our mailing list

00:35:04.740 so we can communicate with you directly.

00:35:07.320 And listen, when I say this, I know we all get so many emails.

00:35:11.740 I get it, and it bothers me too.

00:35:14.400 But right now, it is the number one vehicle,

00:35:17.480 the number one vehicle that we can use and that you can use

00:35:20.380 so that we are not going to let them win.

00:35:23.500 Because they are trying to shut us down.

00:35:25.940 Whether it's intentional or whether we're just casualties of war,

00:35:30.440 I'll leave for you to decide.

00:35:31.860 But they are trying to shut independent media down,

00:35:34.100 and that is what C18 is doing.

00:35:36.300 and we cannot let them win.

00:35:37.980 My commitment to you is that we will not let them win,

00:35:40.220 but it means that we need to engage directly.

00:35:43.000 And that is what we are going to commit to do.

00:35:44.880 And I hope you can commit to doing that as well.

00:35:47.660 And I bring this up and ask about the legacy media

00:35:51.580 because the question is not entirely about business model.

00:35:54.820 Sometimes it's just about content

00:35:56.540 and the type of content they offer.

00:35:58.140 I mean, without $1.3 billion of taxpayer money a year,

00:36:01.520 for example, you might never learn

00:36:03.920 about the troubles of being non-binary in 2023.

00:36:08.320 Yeah, let's take a look at this piece on CBC today.

00:36:11.700 This was a first-person piece

00:36:13.960 that was written by an individual.

00:36:17.140 I can't even say a person, an individual named Julia.

00:36:22.780 Now, Julia has a woman's name

00:36:24.760 and Julia looks like a woman and dresses like a woman

00:36:28.840 and is completely and utterly feminine.

00:36:32.400 But oh, no, no, no.

00:36:33.780 it is offensive if we view Julia as a woman. As the headline of the piece says there,

00:36:39.720 I shouldn't have to look non-binary for my identity to be respected. I like my feminine

00:36:45.260 name and wearing the occasional dress, but that doesn't define me. Julia goes by they, them pronouns.

00:36:51.840 And if you don't realize that when you encounter they, them in the halls of McGill University,

00:36:56.320 you are just a dirty hating bigot. So again, without CBC and the legacy media, how would we

00:37:02.460 ever learn about the plight of the non-binary at McGill University. This is exactly what we're

00:37:08.320 dealing with there. And this story as well, I've said oftentimes that the laziest form of journalism

00:37:14.540 is the reaction stories where a journalist will just like scroll through Twitter and find three

00:37:19.320 people who've tweeted something and claim that there's some national broad trend. But sometimes

00:37:24.020 you can get this really multi-layered exercise where we're going just in all these different

00:37:30.740 directions and really going to like those little Russian dolls that I forget the names of that have

00:37:36.200 all the different like ones inside each other to get the reaction story to the reaction story to

00:37:40.880 the reaction story and that's what we have from Global News. Global News has run this piece so

00:37:46.020 just for context here you remember Justin Trudeau went to the Barbie movie with his son Xavier and

00:37:50.920 they were sporting their pink shirts although I think we determined yesterday Justin Trudeau's

00:37:55.000 was more coral than pink. But nevertheless, they were sporting their pink-ish attire and enjoying

00:38:00.860 the Barbie movie as a father and son are wont to do. And there were reactions to this, including

00:38:06.940 from Piers Morgan. So then the Toronto Star and other Canadian outlets ran the reaction to Piers

00:38:12.800 Morgan reacting to Justin Trudeau. And then we have this story from Global News, which I find to

00:38:19.620 be absolutely hilarious here that it is a reaction to pierce morgan reacting to justin trudeau and

00:38:28.240 the reaction comes from the mayor of kitchener ontario now uh no disrespect to kitchener i've

00:38:33.780 driven through it many times i know my colleague cosman uh is from kitchener originally but i don't

00:38:39.020 exactly care what the mayor of kitchener thinks about politics on an average daily basis unless

00:38:44.120 we're talking about kitchener politics but uh barry uh rabinovich uh tweets at pierce morgan

00:38:51.420 i was raised if i didn't say have something nice to say it's better not to say anything at all

00:38:56.440 perhaps you can go and repeat that lesson born uh yada yada yada he goes on anyway the reason

00:39:02.480 i bring that up is because global news writes this that the mayor of kitchener fires back

00:39:07.520 at pierce morgan for pot shot on justin trudeau social media post so now we have to get someone

00:39:13.700 to react to the mayor of...

00:39:14.740 Well, actually, no, I'm doing that.

00:39:15.960 I'm reacting to the mayor of Kitchener.

00:39:17.560 So now someone else can write about Andrew Lawton

00:39:20.200 reacting to the mayor of Kitchener,

00:39:21.940 reacting to Piers Morgan,

00:39:23.880 reacting to Justin Trudeau,

00:39:25.280 reacting to Margot Robbie.

00:39:27.180 It'll be so great.

00:39:28.420 We'll just get like 19 reactions in one

00:39:31.060 and we'll go like around the world.

00:39:32.260 It's like the old Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,

00:39:34.400 the six reactions to Justin Trudeau.

00:39:37.200 But this is what the legacy media is doing.

00:39:40.900 My goodness.

00:39:41.460 Just on the Barbie note here, I mentioned on yesterday's show that I didn't really care

00:39:47.540 what movies Justin Trudeau sees as Prime Minister.

00:39:50.180 I thought he was trying to troll people, and I am now convinced that I was right, because

00:39:55.460 this is the tweet that Justin Trudeau put up yesterday with him and his daughter taking

00:40:01.460 in a movie.

00:40:02.260 That is his daughter, Ella, and the movie that they are seeing is not Barbie, but it

00:40:07.120 is Oppenheimer.

00:40:08.180 Now, Jen Gerson, as I shared with you yesterday, had that rather astute tweet that all she wants is a world leader who's going to see Oppenheimer.

00:40:15.100 She got her wish there.

00:40:16.720 Some people might wonder why this grand cinephile has all this time for seeing movies when he's supposed to be running the country.

00:40:24.280 It is kind of interesting here because he is doing the opposite of what you'd expect.

00:40:30.340 Because the expectation people would have is that, oh, his daughter would rather see the Barbie movie and the son would rather see the Oppenheimer movie.

00:40:36.960 and it's almost as though they're trying to just make this very brand oriented decision

00:40:41.940 as part of their quest for privacy to like put the child with the movie that is going to make the

00:40:49.260 stereotype shattering point that the liberals want to make i don't know what movie he's going

00:40:54.400 to see with his other son like maybe that kid gets screwed out of seeing a movie at all because

00:40:58.080 they've covered off barbie and oppenheimer already is there anything else in theaters that's worth

00:41:02.340 seeing actually i don't think there has been for like 20 years so mission impossible sean

00:41:06.940 writes, no, he can't bring his son to see Mission Impossible, Sean, because that would just be too

00:41:11.720 on the nose that a young boy might like Mission Impossible. He has to bring his son to see

00:41:16.220 something else entirely. So whatever the next sort of traditionally girly-ish movie might be,

00:41:22.000 because that's how we have to do it. I mean, I hope the daughter liked Oppenheimer and I hope

00:41:26.540 she wasn't just dragged there to make the point that girls can like Oppenheimer and guys can like

00:41:31.660 Barbie. But you know what? In the inauthenticity of politics, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

00:41:36.940 That does it for us today with one exception here.

00:41:39.980 I want to show you this little video here because you may recall that being in a movie theater for much of the last three years was illegal because the theaters were shut down under COVID protocols.

00:41:50.940 Now, when the world reopened, it meant that life could go back to normal.

00:41:54.900 Well, some people just aren't all that comfortable with normal.

00:41:59.040 But I'm pleased to tell you, if you happen to be in the Portland, Oregon area, there is a way that you can see Barbie in a completely safe, sterile environment.

00:42:09.120 COVID free. Take a look.

00:42:13.480 I don't remember the last time I went to see a movie because I don't love going to the movie theater.

00:42:18.060 But I'll tell you what, it pisses me off that I can't go see Barbie.

00:42:22.240 I want to go see it, even if it is white feminism.

00:42:25.100 I want to be able to go.

00:42:26.700 So I'm doing a thing.

00:42:27.740 and if you live in the pacific northwest you can do a thing with me here's what it is next week

00:42:33.420 which is july 31st august 1st someday next week on a weekday i am renting out a theater in

00:42:40.460 northwest portland the entire theater the whole theater um the theater seats 46 people i think

00:42:48.120 we're only going to do 20 tickets so me and 19 other people that's it um in addition to that

00:42:55.160 there will be one employee so the entire building the entire cinema is going to be one employee

00:43:00.780 plus 20 attendees that's it um we are the only people in the building and every single person

00:43:06.680 including that employee is going to be wearing an n95 the entire time the employee is going to put

00:43:12.680 it on before they enter the building they've been chosen specifically for this purpose they seem to

00:43:17.200 get it um if you show up because you bought a ticket i need to see a kn94 well fitted or a 95

00:43:24.800 well-fitted or a P100 and if I see a baggy mask I'm going to tell you to take it off and put on

00:43:30.340 one that I hand you. I'm holding onto a bunch of masks. Choose the one you like best. There are no

00:43:36.280 concessions during the movie. They're not even going to open it up. Do not bother bringing food

00:43:40.680 or drinks. You may not take your mask off in the movie. If you need to scratch your nose or you

00:43:45.280 need to take a sip of water you need to get up, exit the theater, do that, and then come back.

00:43:54.800 It is a risk. I don't know how else to put that. It is definitely a risk to be in a building for

00:44:00.400 two hours. Makes me anxious. But I feel like it's a measured risk and one I'm willing to take. And

00:44:07.780 if there are more cautions that we could take, definitely let me know.

00:44:11.860 i'm just give me a second on this one i've seen this like five times now and i still

00:44:24.740 cannot get through it with a straight face okay so

00:44:28.120 we're going to see barbie she's not like left the house in four years or something

00:44:36.600 she really really really wants to see barbie because a movie which is supposed to be about

00:44:41.820 entertainment offers the opportunity for fun. And what's more fun than renting out a theater

00:44:47.940 in the morning before it opens, capping it to 20 people, banning concessions, making everyone wear

00:44:56.040 an N95 mask, and like chastising anyone if they dare want a sip of water or to scratch their nose.

00:45:04.980 And after all that, we still get the warning of I'm anxious about the risk. So here's my question

00:45:10.920 for you who would you rather see barbie with that woman or justin trudeau let me leave you with that

00:45:17.220 as we head out here my thanks to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show we'll be back

00:45:21.800 on friday here on true north thank you god bless and good day to you all thanks for listening to

00:45:28.380 the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:45:35.360 We'll be right back.

00:46:05.360 We'll be right back.

00:46:35.360 Thank you.

Juno News - August 09, 2023

Opposing Trudeau's immigration target isn't racist

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