Juno News - Public support for mass immigration plummets

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.360 north hello and welcome to you all this is canada's most irreverent talk show here the

00:01:30.560 andrew lawton show live from london in the united kingdom where i have just wrapped up day two of

00:01:38.440 the arc forum the first ever event of its kind for the alliance for responsible citizenship

00:01:45.000 an organization championed and in part led by jordan peterson one of significant exports i'd

00:01:52.960 say as far as cultural exports go more influential than anything else in the last decade and probably

00:01:58.020 longer than that unless you uh start counting like crappy canadian comedians as being great 0.50

00:02:03.040 cultural exports but i shouldn't be so bad some of the comedians we've sent off are funny at least

00:02:08.460 the really funny ones are the ones that we send off and the not funny ones are the ones that you

00:02:13.020 get stuck with on cbc if you're still watching that but uh nevertheless jordan peterson one of

00:02:18.660 many speakers here at the arc forum in london which is as i kind of joked yesterday on paper

00:02:25.460 like on the surface it reads like the world economic forum because it's like oh a global

00:02:31.580 collection of world leaders in various fields talking about the challenges facing the world

00:02:36.940 you're like okay what's the big deal where just give me the crickets and get it over with but uh

00:02:41.780 the reality, there's a t-shirt if you have just given up on life. Just give me the crickets and

00:02:46.440 get it over with. But unlike the World Economic Forum, the folks here are talking about things

00:02:51.680 you would never in a million years hear about in Davos. They're talking about the value of

00:02:57.340 the individual. They're talking about the virtue of independence, of self-sufficiency, of

00:03:03.240 responsibility, of citizenship, all of these concepts that I must say, my friends on the

00:03:09.960 streets of Davos, Mr. Klaus, the fuel source is built by us, Schwab are not exactly talking about.

00:03:16.580 Now, one example of this that really stood out, and I think establishes like the great fault line

00:03:22.100 between the cultural left and the cultural right, was this snippet of a speech by Constantine

00:03:29.500 Kissin, who you may know as one of the two hosts of the podcast Triggernometry, which is a great

00:03:35.180 uk podcast and show that has very frank and open discussions with a number of people

00:03:40.940 and this is what constantine had to say from the dawn of time human beings have had to work

00:03:47.500 to make the world a better place we captured the mystery of fire we invented the wheel today we

00:03:54.460 build buildings that would shock and awe almost every human being that has ever lived we split

00:04:00.940 the atom we spliced the genome and we connected the world through microcomputers that fit in our

00:04:06.620 pockets that allow us to do amazing things this morning i destroyed someone on twitter

00:04:12.060 with facts and logic from the toilet it's magic remember your grandparents remember them

00:04:24.780 if i could go back in time and transport the grandparents of your grandparents into

00:04:29.660 this room just four generations ago they would think they'd been abducted by aliens that's the

00:04:36.300 progress we've made we haven't made that progress by whining and acting like victims we've made that

00:04:43.020 progress by unleashing the creativity and talents of people like us here in this room

00:04:48.780 but i do think we've forgotten what adventure is being adventurous is not ordering extra spicy

00:04:54.460 chicken at Nando's wrong reference for this room let me try again being adventurous is not ordering

00:05:02.580 extra spicy chicken from your personal chef that was I think Nando's jab aside a great celebration 1.00

00:05:14.600 of the human spirit of human ingenuity and achievement it's a celebration of humanity and

00:05:22.100 if you look in a bit more detail, you can watch the whole speech online. He was celebrating

00:05:27.180 Western civilization. Western civilization, which is this thing we're told to deplore

00:05:33.580 and hold in contempt, but has actually been the saving grace of the universe. And that is,

00:05:41.300 I think, the great difference between the left and the right. And it's one that's on full display

00:05:45.480 on the ARC forum, is that these are people that believe in humanity. They have hope for the world

00:05:51.320 and they believe in the very best of humans.

00:05:54.600 The Davos crowd believes in the very worst.

00:05:57.680 They believe that humans are disease vectors.

00:06:00.080 They believe that humans are polluters.

00:06:01.900 They believe that humans are overpopulators.

00:06:04.520 They believe that humans are the source of all the problems in the world

00:06:08.660 and therefore human innovation and human freedom

00:06:11.800 are things that inhibit the natural world that they want,

00:06:15.720 which is a very distorted and myopic view of things if ever there was one.

00:06:21.320 And that's a bit of the big picture as far as takeaways go from the conference today. But I wanted to delve into an issue that I was talking about with a number of people that actually ties directly in with news on the home front, namely immigration.

00:06:36.080 you may have seen this story, which I find fascinating. A new poll on immigration in Canada

00:06:41.640 shows that public support for immigration has plummeted more than 40%. I think about 44%

00:06:49.420 of Canadians in one recent poll say that immigration is too high. Now, this is the

00:06:55.780 highest this figure has been, this figure that has a bit of a distrust towards the immigration

00:07:01.200 status quo in decades according to some measures and why that's so important is because we've been

00:07:06.820 told that in Canada there is this consensus and certainly among political and media and academic

00:07:12.540 leaders there is but this consensus that immigration is great we want more immigration more more more

00:07:18.120 we can't fit enough people in this country just like keep the doors open and carry on 0.99

00:07:22.680 and if you say anything about it you are a big dirty stinking racist have I summed up the liberal 0.99

00:07:28.480 position pretty accurately? Well, Canadians aren't buying it. And I think there are a number 0.99

00:07:32.180 of reasons for this. I think you could look at cultural integration, especially in the wake of

00:07:37.380 the pro-Hamas protests and rhetoric we see across the country. I think the affordability crisis,

00:07:43.100 the housing crisis is particularly acute. One thing I find noteworthy is that when all of these

00:07:48.680 things are happening and coming to a head, immigrants are among the people who suffer 1.00

00:07:53.700 most. Just look at some of the stories. We've seen one study in particular showing that more

00:08:00.440 and more immigrants are leaving Canada. Like imagine this land of liberty, this land of the 1.00

00:08:05.140 free, the new hope. You get to Canada, you look around and say, yeah, I don't want anything to

00:08:10.040 do with this. And you head back home. That is what many immigrants are doing. And I, you know, 1.00

00:08:15.520 I've just heard anecdotally from people who say that they don't like what their kids are being

00:08:20.040 taught in school. So they're going to go back to Poland or people that say they can't afford a 0.98

00:08:24.520 house. So they go back to where they have family and maybe a bit less opportunity, but at least

00:08:29.340 they have a place to live. Well, one of the big challenges we see in Canada is that we pretend we

00:08:36.220 are immune from things that have happened elsewhere. Well, other countries that have

00:08:40.260 tried incredibly large and drastic immigration, places like Germany, which in the span of one

00:08:46.120 year brought in the same rate of immigrants proportionate to the existing population that

00:08:52.820 Canada committed to several years ago. Canada has surpassed what happened in Germany. I think it was 0.82

00:08:59.040 2015 when Germany had incredible, incredible challenges. Around that same time, Sweden

00:09:04.820 opened the floodgates and became a hotbed of mass migration and has never been the same since. I

00:09:11.920 spoke with Charlie Wymers, who is a member of the European Parliament. Now, I've actually known

00:09:16.860 Charlie for many years before he was an MEP. We were at a conference together, I think, what,

00:09:21.700 16 years ago or so, and kept in touch. And as I said today, we've both had a bit of a different

00:09:28.560 trajectory. He's now dignified in the Belgian or in the Brussels division of the European Parliament,

00:09:35.060 and I am shouting into my laptop computer at a hotel room late at night. But we are both doing

00:09:40.880 our own form of service. And it was great to see Charlie again and speak to him about immigration

00:09:46.540 specifically. Take a look. One of the big trends we hear a lot from several people in politics is

00:09:53.400 that we need open borders, mass migration. That's the way we solve these problems. You're a 0.97

00:09:58.100 representative of Sweden. You've seen what happens when that policy takes hold. So what's the warning

00:10:03.300 to other countries? Well, for many years, Sweden pursued this policy and that resulted in 20%

00:10:09.540 of our population being foreign born and we see the results now failing integration massive

00:10:16.220 segregation outside not only our big cities but throughout the country and one bombing a week one

00:10:24.100 shooting a day gangs starting to infiltrate our public institutions running health care centers

00:10:31.220 to launder their money. Huge problems that it will take generations to solve.

00:10:38.900 I mean, we see rising crime in countries around the world. How much of that can you

00:10:43.220 actually blame on immigration in Sweden? Well, let's just pick one example. 20 years ago,

00:10:50.660 Sweden, together with Poland and Hungary, had the least amount of deadly shootings in Europe.

00:10:58.820 Today, Poland and Hungary are still at the bottom, while Sweden has risen, regretfully, to the top.

00:11:07.060 I think that speaks volumes.

00:11:09.580 Do people in Sweden support this?

00:11:11.720 I mean, are these policies enjoying popular support, or are they coming from politicians and leaders who really don't care about what ordinary people think?

00:11:18.940 There has never been a popular support for mass immigration to Sweden,

00:11:24.640 but the mainstream parties have done it anyway and what we see now is a big backlash we have a

00:11:34.360 new center-right government conservative government since last year and we are overhauling migration

00:11:43.860 policy crime policy in order to deal with these problems and we have strong support for these

00:11:50.580 reforms among the population to end multiculturalism basically. I don't know if it's true in Sweden but

00:11:56.280 one of the challenges we certainly see in Canada is that when people start to see the challenges

00:12:00.960 of immigration be they economic or social they start to turn on immigration including you know

00:12:06.740 economic migrants that want to integrate and I'm curious if that's happening in Sweden as well

00:12:10.740 where the problems are so acute that now people are just completely almost in whiplash form going

00:12:16.960 against immigration?

00:12:18.660 I wouldn't say so.

00:12:19.840 I think that most people make a distinction between economic migrants who decided for

00:12:27.860 Sweden due to our welfare system and migrants who are in Sweden to contribute. 1.00

00:12:34.960 For instance, my party, the Sweden Democrats, we're the second largest party among immigrants.

00:12:40.880 We're the largest party among Iranian immigrants.

00:12:45.180 There's a reason for that, that they understand that if we are to deal with this problem, we need to have a cultural nationalism, not ethnic, but cultural.

00:12:56.720 And this is what the Swedish voters increasingly want as well.

00:13:01.100 And one of the challenges your country has to deal with is the European dimension of this.

00:13:05.700 And that, you know, all of a sudden you're in Sweden a victim of Italy's immigration policy or France's immigration policy.

00:13:13.060 And there really needs to be more support among other European nations to have any real change, doesn't there?

00:13:19.660 Yeah, we need to stop the boats on the Mediterranean because what happens when they enter EU territory is that they can abscond.

00:13:27.640 They can go to whatever country they like.

00:13:30.440 That's why my party is fighting for Sweden's right to establish internal border controls at the border to Denmark so that we can stop these kind of secondary movements.

00:13:41.040 And I think we're entering a new face on migration in Europe.

00:13:47.160 Right now we're bound by international conventions,

00:13:51.320 but I think we will find ways now to actually implement an Australian model

00:13:57.500 in which you rescind your right to apply for asylum if you enter EU territory illegally.

00:14:03.680 I think we will move to a system where we offer refuge to real refugees outside EU territory,

00:14:11.680 like the UK and Denmark want to do with Rwanda, for instance.

00:14:15.840 That is going to be the future of EU migration policy.

00:14:20.520 If not, it's over.

00:14:23.920 And it's so disheartening to see so many people in the media and mainstream political voices say that if you talk about integration,

00:14:30.560 there's an inherent racism to that.

00:14:32.260 And I think that's probably true in Sweden as well, certainly in Canada, where people that make what are pretty sensible positions like you are probably vilified by the media.

00:14:40.740 Well, that's been the case for many decades, but it's finally changing.

00:14:45.040 The consensus is changing.

00:14:47.500 And now the Social Democrats in Sweden have basically put down their weapons over the issue of migration, just like they did in Denmark many years ago.

00:14:58.660 And we see the German Chancellor, who is the Social Democrat, Schultz, calling for the expulsion of Hamas sympathizers.

00:15:09.960 So the tide is turning in Europe.

00:15:13.980 If Europe is a few years ahead of Canada, I think it's very important that Canadians pay attention to this debate.

00:15:22.460 And I think Sweden and Germany and France are very much ground zero on this.

00:15:27.540 There are very different dynamics. One is proximity to where a lot of people are fleeing. One is the European aspect, as Charlie and I were talking about. So the immigration issue in Canada does look differently. But I go back to the philosophical and ideological underpinning here, which is that there are a number of people in positions of power that believe borders should be open, that believe national identity should be afforded and issued to anyone who wants it.

00:15:55.700 people like Justin Trudeau who tweet out a big glib and virtue signally hashtag welcome to Canada

00:16:02.100 to tell people to just march on over across Roxham Road the RCMP will help you with your bags

00:16:07.600 and you'll be in the country free of charge oh well don't mind that you crossed illegally we'll

00:16:12.180 still look after you so what a treat to hear a politician say we need to not allow people to 0.68

00:16:18.420 seek asylum if they cross into Europe illegally I would love Charlie Weimers to have a go at 0.99

00:16:24.720 running Canada's immigration department. But one thing that is similar between Canada and Europe

00:16:30.820 is that changing consensus. I mentioned a few moments ago the polling that we see. Now,

00:16:37.200 there have been a number of polls that have showed very similar things. And then we go to

00:16:41.380 this headline from about an hour before I went on air, courtesy of Immigration Minister Mark Miller.

00:16:47.140 Canada's new immigration plan to factor in need to bolster housing and services so now the federal

00:16:56.420 government that accused anyone who criticized its ambitious 500,000 immigrants a year target

00:17:02.840 as being a big Haiti Haiti hate monger racist is saying maybe we need to talk about immigration in

00:17:09.400 the context of housing and services so they are they're a government that has said that we could

00:17:16.300 sustain and absorb in Canada 1.5 million new immigrants in a span of three years. Now that's 1.00

00:17:22.800 actually a lowball number because it doesn't take into account temporary workers, student visas,

00:17:28.400 these other things that actually balloon the number to closer to 3 million over the span of

00:17:34.820 three years. This is a government that said anyone who objected to that was divisive and xenophobic

00:17:42.500 and is now itself saying, okay, maybe the numbers are not saying what we thought they were saying.

00:17:47.920 Now, what they mean is they've looked at the polling.

00:17:50.040 They don't actually care about responding to the housing crisis or the affordability crisis,

00:17:54.940 but they do want to respond to polling.

00:17:58.400 And one thing that Charlie said that I think is very much an issue in Canada

00:18:01.800 is that political parties are terrified of this issue.

00:18:06.540 In 2021, only one party, which was the People's Party of Canada,

00:18:10.160 took a position that was skeptical of increased immigration numbers.

00:18:14.840 Pierre Polyev has been incredibly timid on this file.

00:18:18.700 When we've asked him, he's given answers that have not been specific.

00:18:22.520 There was one, I should have pulled the clip for today from a little while ago,

00:18:26.800 where I believe, one of my colleagues, I can't remember if it was Harrison or Noah,

00:18:31.200 but one of them asked him a question at a press conference about immigration.

00:18:35.020 And the answer he gave was not anything to do with a specific number.

00:18:39.600 he just talked about well you know we're going to look at all of these different things and

00:18:43.940 people kind of heard what they wanted to hear in his answer and you know some people that were

00:18:48.800 very supportive of him said no he's talking about you know being responsible and respectful and

00:18:54.620 probably a lower number other people said he was dodging and evading and people can decide for

00:18:59.820 themselves but no leader in Canada of a major mainstream political party is coming out and

00:19:05.300 saying what a lot of ordinary Canadians are saying and seeing in their own communities. And I think

00:19:10.680 that's incredibly true. And it is very disheartening because this is a very real issue

00:19:16.260 that communities are seeing. Canada's entire... Oh, apparently, Sean just told me I asked the

00:19:22.840 question. So forget about Harrison and Noah. Don't give those guys any credit. Apparently,

00:19:26.780 I asked the question. But nevertheless, the answer was, I think, accurate in some ways. He blamed

00:19:32.640 Justin Trudeau for breaking the immigration system, but didn't say, listen, I think the

00:19:38.320 500,000 a year target is unsustainable, which is what the numbers are bearing out. And that's the

00:19:44.220 one thing he didn't say. It's like a three and a half minute clip, so we're not going to play it,

00:19:48.740 but you can look it up on True North's social media feeds if you are so inclined. Canada's

00:19:54.840 population growth right now, and this is the corollary to immigration. It's a population

00:20:00.280 growth that's rooted entirely on immigration. Canadian families are not having children. And

00:20:05.900 this is a problem the Western world deals with across the board. The only countries with high

00:20:10.980 birth rates are in the undeveloped or developing world. Western shishipoo families think that

00:20:17.540 babies are evidently stoking climate change, so they don't want to have their kids. And I'm not

00:20:22.700 casting judgment on people. People can make their own decisions about how to raise their families.

00:20:27.040 I do not have kids myself. So I'm certainly not casting any blame here. But what I am saying is

00:20:33.200 that it creates population challenges, which are what we're seeing in Canada, which has a very low

00:20:39.420 birth rate, like other Western European nations, for example. So the only population growth comes

00:20:45.680 from immigration. And I spoke about that with demographer and Professor Paul Moreland, and he

00:20:51.660 had some interesting thoughts about it. Seems as though most people looking at the numbers,

00:20:56.380 Anyone sensible anyway could tell you that there's a birth rate crisis going on.

00:21:00.820 But there seems to also be a lot of denial about that fact.

00:21:03.960 I mean, how does that even get, from a basic mathematical perspective, rationalized?

00:21:08.600 I think the problem is, first of all, the world's population continues to grow.

00:21:12.600 And people think, well, the population is growing, so what's the question?

00:21:15.580 Why are we worried about it?

00:21:16.940 And secondly, in large parts of the world, we still do have societies where women are having more children than they want. 0.99

00:21:22.380 But those societies are shrinking.

00:21:24.320 in. And the annual population growth is declining. So we were growing at 2% a year as a world

00:21:30.900 community. We're now growing at 1% a year. And actually we're building in population decline

00:21:36.200 as we speak. One of the challenges of course with this is that you have governments investing a lot

00:21:41.900 of money, NGOs investing a lot of money to lower the birth rate in the developing world, which

00:21:47.360 means even that they view as being too much growth. I think it's right that we help women

00:21:52.400 and men in the developing world to control their own fertility. 1.00

00:21:56.120 At the end of that process, if they want to have two to three children, that's fantastic.

00:22:00.440 Having five or six is more the most educated, urban, reasonably prosperous women want, 0.99

00:22:06.180 and we would hope that people are becoming more prosperous and more educated.

00:22:09.780 So I think it's perfectly legitimate to be helping countries in the developing world

00:22:14.140 with very high fertility rates, of which, as I said, there are fewer and fewer,

00:22:17.100 to bring that fertility rate down. 1.00

00:22:18.620 I do not think it's inconsistent at the same time to be worrying about fertility rates in the developed world,

00:22:24.440 because I often say if the Koreans are running out of people, their schools are shutting down,

00:22:29.140 and there are too few people entering the Korean workforce, it's no good saying there are plenty of people in Burundi.

00:22:34.680 Unless you think that people are completely fungible, you discount the nation state, you discount cultures.

00:22:40.260 Many people in the world don't discount that.

00:22:42.180 It matters to Koreans that they are Korean,

00:22:44.620 and they don't think that they can just endlessly import people from other parts of the world

00:22:48.880 and that will keep their country afloat.

00:22:51.300 Well, and therein lies the problem we see in Canada.

00:22:53.400 The only population growth in Canada really comes from immigration.

00:22:57.320 And that's really an inevitable consequence of these trends, is it not?

00:23:00.920 It is, and Canada is an extremely attractive destination for immigrants.

00:23:05.100 I think what's going to become more difficult is that more and more countries

00:23:08.120 will have very low fertility rates and are going to have shrinking workforces.

00:23:12.220 Fewer and fewer countries are going to have large families and able to spare their children.

00:23:17.020 There'll be more and more competition.

00:23:18.320 In Britain, we were used to cheap Irish labor.

00:23:20.640 Then we were used to cheap Polish labor. 0.97

00:23:23.320 Those countries are getting increasingly wealthy.

00:23:25.100 Ireland's more wealthy than Britain.

00:23:26.560 Poland's catching up. 0.94

00:23:27.480 They're having smaller and smaller families.

00:23:29.320 More of the world is going to be competing for fewer children.

00:23:32.320 And ultimately, we're going to have to take responsibility on ourselves for reproducing

00:23:36.400 ourselves and not expecting that others can do our breeding for us.

00:23:39.800 Hungary stands out as probably the most poignant example of a government that's really actively tried to correct this trend.

00:23:47.000 It doesn't seem like they've had a huge amount of success.

00:23:49.600 I mean, maybe some modest success.

00:23:50.940 So has there been anyone that's been able to really reverse this?

00:23:55.380 Hungary's tried very hard.

00:23:56.820 It has had a success in picking up from maybe 1.2 to 1.5 or 6, which is really good.

00:24:01.820 But it's not nearly far enough.

00:24:03.400 I believe governments need to do things.

00:24:05.120 They need to experiment.

00:24:06.140 But ultimately, it's going to be cultures, societies.

00:24:09.320 is going to be what our priority is about.

00:24:11.500 In Georgia, the head of the church said he would baptize every child

00:24:16.380 who's the third or more of a family.

00:24:18.680 That seems to have had an effect.

00:24:20.060 Israel has a very high priority on having children and families,

00:24:24.080 and that seems to have an effect.

00:24:25.220 Without that change in priorities, without that change in culture,

00:24:28.900 without it changing us, we can't just look to governments.

00:24:31.940 I think any incremental effort that the government will make

00:24:35.680 will be relatively modest.

00:24:37.420 One of the real trends that I see in Western discourse around this is that

00:24:41.500 children are bad for the climate. I mean, there seems to be this catastrophic view

00:24:44.700 that climate change is a big effect. What's your take on that?

00:24:48.620 Two points. First of all, if you believe in net zero, a child born today in 20, 30 years

00:24:53.100 will not be emitting many carbon emissions. Secondly, if you continue to pursue a normal life,

00:25:00.620 if you have the expectation of someone to drive your taxi, if you need one,

00:25:04.860 someone at the doctor surgery someone fixing the road in other words you consume labor but you're

00:25:10.700 too grand to produce it you're merely going to suck in people from low emissions countries to 1.00

00:25:15.820 high emissions countries you're not actually helping you're merely shifting the problem

00:25:20.300 and and expecting someone else to produce the labor that you're going to consume

00:25:25.740 that was demographer paul moreland who i've been a big follower of for quite a while and it was

00:25:31.180 good to uh run into him and chat a little bit about what's ending up becoming quite a large

00:25:35.980 story in the canadian context and again uh you know you look at a global forum like the arc

00:25:41.580 conference this week and this is not a place where people are promoting open borders and

00:25:46.460 mass migration and why humans are evil they are doing the opposite so we are going to shift gears 0.79

00:25:52.700 in a moment into a big story i've been following for quite a while which is the firearms file but

00:25:58.380 Before we get there, I wanted to just take a bit of a deviation to share my chat with Leslyn Lewis,

00:26:05.220 who is not only a Conservative member of Parliament who will be familiar to many of you

00:26:10.460 because we've had her on the show on her leadership bids for the Conservatives notably,

00:26:14.860 but she is also one of the advisors on the board of ARC.

00:26:19.240 So anyone who takes issue with Chrystia Freeland being on the board of the World Economic Forum,

00:26:25.360 I'll tell you that what Leslyn's doing on ARC is very different because she's not up there to try to pass policy for Canada that we all just wonder why it, how it came about.

00:26:35.660 She's there because she wants to kind of benefit from this exchange of ideas, bring it back to the country and elevate Canadians.

00:26:42.760 So I chatted with her a little bit about what it is that ARC is to her and why she decided to hop aboard it.

00:26:49.760 So what is ARC and why are you involved in it?

00:26:52.500 ARC is just an organization of people from all political persuasions and with different life views that want to tell a better story.

00:27:02.940 And it's a story that deconstructs and is in opposition to the nihilistic deconstructionist approach that has been really consuming our Western society.

00:27:14.740 And it's really an organization of hope, of telling a story of human perseverance and overcoming challenges and recognizing that we can overcome things like the destruction of the family.

00:27:29.140 We could engage in sustainable development without putting people in energy poverty.

00:27:36.400 So there are different ways of solving the problems that we have without deconstructing our Western society.

00:27:44.220 One of the trends I've seen and heard so far that's really refreshing is a celebration of the individual and a family.

00:27:50.940 And I think this is something that's so absent.

00:27:53.160 I mean, if you look at a lot of the policies and proposals we hear from the World Economic Forum, it's the opposite of that.

00:27:58.640 So how important is that in a policy context in Canada to really look at what individuals can do and what families can do to achieve that different story, as you put it?

00:28:08.240 Well, we believe that families are the foundation of any vibrant and functioning society, and it is a bedrock of the society.

00:28:17.000 And so policies should be around enhancing families and supporting them.

00:28:22.620 And when there are problems between parents and children, encourage parents to be involved in their children's lives.

00:28:29.820 give them the tools to be able to solve those problems and create a structure that respects the family and keeps governments out of people's homes.

00:28:40.120 You're a member of parliament. You're here with 1,500 people from 72 different countries.

00:28:45.660 You're in a bit of a unique spot given you're on the advisory board.

00:28:48.980 But what do you take away from this personally, having put all the work in to get here?

00:28:53.420 When you go back home, what is it that you are really going to bring from this?

00:28:56.520 Well, this is an inaugural conference. And as you can see, it's phenomenally run. I'm very proud to be a part of this board. And bringing back is just bringing back the courage of knowing that there is a better story, that there are people who are looking towards building on our society rather than tearing it down.

00:29:19.040 And so I take that back knowing that there's partners and allies all over the world that are working to build a better story.

00:29:27.180 And just the one thing I'll ask related to that in closing here is that everyone seems to have a role to play.

00:29:34.820 I think there has not really been that I've heard any sense that the decisions are being made here that will go back and affect people.

00:29:41.360 Everyone here is being asked to make their own decisions and then bring that back to their community.

00:29:45.600 So what would you like other attendees to take from this this year?

00:29:49.420 And what would you like Canadians moving forward to learn from some of the things that are being discussed here that are all being broadcast?

00:29:56.420 Well, it's an organic ecosystem of thought leaders, of people that have influence in their various sectors,

00:30:05.820 whether it's a single mom or a CEO of a corporation.

00:30:10.740 We know that their life experience contributes something to that better story.

00:30:15.120 And so what I want people to understand is that even though I'm an elected official, I can still gain a lot of insights from someone, an ordinary Canadian.

00:30:28.140 If you take a look at something like the trucker convoy, those were ordinary people coming out and standing up for what they believed in.

00:30:37.040 And then politicians really said, OK, we'll stand with you.

00:30:40.520 But they were the more profound voice.

00:30:44.020 And that's just the reality of where we are today in society.

00:30:49.060 If we're going to build on our great achievements, then we need different voices, different perspectives.

00:30:55.720 And so everybody has a role to play in building that better story.

00:31:00.720 That was Leslyn Lewis, the Conservative Member of Parliament and one of the members of the Board of Advisors for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.

00:31:10.020 citizenship the arc forum in london will wrap up tomorrow so i'll have one more recap show after

00:31:16.960 the program well i guess on the program tomorrow but we have a few more interviews we didn't get

00:31:22.240 to today but we will get to those tomorrow and in probably end up next week we'll we'll have a bit

00:31:27.500 of spillover there but that's the benefit of collecting content you sometimes end up with

00:31:32.020 more than you can use which is i think a good problem to have it's certainly better than the

00:31:36.320 opposite. But let's go to a hobby horse of mine, which is the firearms world. Now, in 2020, you may

00:31:43.340 recall, in the wake of the horrific Nova Scotia shooting, the federal government, with the stroke

00:31:47.580 of a pen, prohibited more than 1,500 types of firearms that the government claimed served one

00:31:55.200 purpose and one person alone, which was to kill people quickly. That was what they said, which was

00:32:00.740 a bit of a shock to people like me and countless other gun owners in Canada that own these things

00:32:05.560 for hunting and sport shooting and had never hurt anything with it in most cases. And we're

00:32:10.840 wondering, well, hang on, how does the government view this as a killing machine? But the government

00:32:15.320 has been unrepentant about this order and counsel in the last three years. They still have not made

00:32:21.700 good on their promise to offer a buyback, which is, you know, a fancy way of saying a mass

00:32:26.800 confiscation. But nevertheless, this was challenged in court. The Canadian Coalition for Firearm

00:32:33.200 rights led a massive legal challenge which has taken quite a while and unfortunately yesterday

00:32:39.180 ended up with a federal court decision that the challenge was within the government's purview. They

00:32:45.860 did not strike it down. Joining me is Rod Giltaka the CEO of the CCFR. Rod it's good to talk to you

00:32:52.960 thanks for coming on today. Thanks for having me Andrew. So obviously this is a disappointing

00:32:58.560 decision, was it surprising to you? I mean, was your lawyer telling you this was going to be a

00:33:03.720 nail-biter? Was your lawyer giving you optimism? Or did you go into this a little bit skeptical?

00:33:10.260 Well, I don't know that it was surprising. We knew that it could go either way. And I think

00:33:15.340 there's a lot of people that have lost a lot of faith in the judiciary in Canada, which caused a

00:33:22.020 lot of people to say, you know, there's no way that we're ever going to win this anyway. Especially

00:33:26.040 when you look at the relationship between the judicial system maybe and some other cases that

00:33:32.440 have gone on in the last few years. But our team was very confident that we had a good case and

00:33:39.960 that the order in council that the government wrote to ban all of these firearms, they didn't

00:33:45.780 have the authority to do it. And our legal team still maintains that. So I don't know if I would

00:33:52.880 say it was expected, but we're going to roll with the punches no matter what. We don't in Canada,

00:33:57.640 I think you and I would probably both agree, unfortunately, have a clear-cut right to own

00:34:02.680 firearms that's in our constitution that we can point to and say, you know, this infringes section

00:34:07.180 whatever of the constitution. So what was, just to kind of go back to basics here,

00:34:11.860 what was the core argument here about why this was not allowed in your view?

00:34:17.020 Well, the core argument was that in the criminal code, I believe it's section 117,

00:34:21.160 if memory serves me correctly. Basically, it says that the government can't ban any firearm

00:34:27.420 that is reasonably used for hunting or sport shooting. And then there's some verbiage there

00:34:35.360 as well that it has to do with the governor and council, whether or not they have the opinion

00:34:42.260 that those firearms can be used for those two purposes. And it's like, well,

00:34:46.980 you know i think the governor and council had the opinion for the last 30 to 60 years that all those

00:34:52.480 firearms were completely appropriate for hunting and sporting use because they were used for those

00:34:56.680 things this whole time and now all of a sudden the governor council is just changing their minds

00:35:00.820 so the the whole point of that being in the criminal code i think was to to it was really

00:35:05.860 that the crown didn't like us saying this but it was a bargain with gun owners back in the days when

00:35:10.840 the firearms act came into being and basically the government as usual says we don't want your

00:35:16.340 guns conspiracy theorist. We're not going to ban your guns, you know, and they just turn around

00:35:21.280 and ban them. So that was put in the criminal code to protect the firearms that were legal at the

00:35:26.040 time. So anyway, we were saying that the government, they just didn't have the authority to throw it in

00:35:31.680 reverse after 30 to 60 years, depending on the firearm that they, you know, the individual

00:35:36.000 firearms that they banned. But the judge disagreed. The judge says, well, hey, you know, the government

00:35:41.160 can change their minds at any time and take whatever they want, whenever they want from

00:35:45.580 whoever they want. So I think it's a ruling that hurts all Canadians.

00:35:49.960 Well, I would agree. And there was an incredibly circular logic in what the judge wrote. I mean,

00:35:55.780 there was one section, I'm paraphrasing here, but where the judge effectively wrote, well,

00:36:00.000 the government decided that these are not guns used for hunting. Therefore, the government was

00:36:04.280 justified in prohibiting them. So that's a really convenient way to get around that criminal code

00:36:09.020 revision. The government just decides, I don't think that that gun should be used for that.

00:36:14.040 therefore we have the authority to be it's just like basically they're just self-identifying their

00:36:18.160 way into legislating this well that's interesting isn't it i mean it's the criminal code is there

00:36:23.700 for a reason says yeah you can't do that and those those firearms were used the whole time

00:36:28.300 for that purpose and it's like well today today we've decided that you can't no longer reasonable

00:36:32.320 to do that yeah it became unreasonable all of a sudden yeah you're right so explain to me where

00:36:38.260 you go from here? Have you decided to move forward with an appeal? So we did, just making sure my

00:36:45.280 phone, unfortunately, I'm traveling. I'm in Ottawa to testify to the Senate on Thursday. Yeah, we've

00:36:49.680 both nailed the generic hotel backdrop look for the interview. We're not on like two sides of the

00:36:53.760 same room, I assure people. Yeah, I'm just making sure my phone doesn't go to sleep. So our legal

00:37:01.400 team has looked at the decision and the early interpretation, I mean, we've only had for a day,

00:37:07.400 Right. So the early thoughts are, yes, we are going to file an appeal and it won't be long.

00:37:11.660 It'll be soon. But we're going to give them, I think, another day or two to have a look at it, figure it exactly out how we're going to approach that.

00:37:21.560 But the fight is not over, whether it's by appeal.

00:37:25.040 If if we appeal and that struck down, we'll take it to the Supreme Court if that's where it has to go.

00:37:29.740 And we're going to continue to fight the government on a, you know, from a political direction.

00:37:35.520 And yeah, it's not over.

00:37:36.920 It's a disappointing loss.

00:37:38.220 It would have been really nice to win.

00:37:40.240 But, you know, we just got to keep fighting.

00:37:42.400 But yeah, if there's an opportunity for an appeal, we will be appealing.

00:37:45.400 End of story.

00:37:46.420 And you and I have talked about this in the past as well.

00:37:48.920 There's also always the opportunity for a political resolution on this.

00:37:52.480 Now, I think it's probably going to take a miracle or some break with reality for the

00:37:58.120 current government to change course on this.

00:38:00.720 But a change in government could very much be a resolution that would carve out the need to have a court win.

00:38:08.040 Well, all those firearms that were banned, it's still an order in council.

00:38:11.560 And even a minority government, another minority government, if they're motivated to do so, they can just, with a stroke of a pen, make it like that never happened.

00:38:19.180 So, you know, if we end up with a conservative government, there's another massive scandal.

00:38:24.480 I guess three a week isn't enough.

00:38:26.000 But maybe there's four next week and this government falls and there's an election.

00:38:31.640 Chances are it will be a conservative government, either a minority or majority, probably a majority.

00:38:37.840 And, you know, we're hopeful that Pierre Polyev will keep his promise and reverse those bans and then go really hard on criminal activity with guns.

00:38:48.080 But that government is just an OIC.

00:38:49.900 That government can undo what has been done.

00:38:51.760 So that's a political solution.

00:38:54.460 but we're working all angles because what's being done right now is immoral and it needs to be

00:38:59.900 opposed well and the one thing that i i find to be the the most discouraging about this is just

00:39:05.860 it really underlines that precariousness that's inherent in gun ownership i mean let's say there's

00:39:10.800 a conservative government that decides to reverse everything justin trudeau has done so you get a

00:39:15.220 reprieve for four years and then there's a liberal government or an ndp government or a green

00:39:19.680 government or whatever and they do the same thing and it just becomes this whiplash where you never

00:39:24.360 really have the confidence of these. This is my property. I get to own it. I'm not hurting anyone

00:39:29.760 and I just want to be left alone. Well, that's how it works in Canada. Right. And, you know,

00:39:35.080 it's funny. It's it brings up a really interesting point. It's people criticize the Americans. They

00:39:40.680 criticize and they and they also and and they admire the United States because of their codified

00:39:47.720 rights. And in Canada, we don't have anything like that. We have some some we have the the

00:39:53.320 Bill of Rights and then we have the Charter and it's kind of a patchwork

00:39:57.220 and I think you know people thought they had rights and I mean again kind of

00:40:03.340 going back to what I said earlier what we've seen as I like to say we've all

00:40:07.240 gotten a really good look at each other in the last few years but what we've

00:40:10.560 seen is you really don't have any rights in Canada like you really don't have

00:40:14.380 them and Canadians they never really knew that or never really cared because 0.81

00:40:20.080 And before eight years ago, the reason why you didn't have to really worry about those codified rights is because, you know, your regular governments, they would never try the stuff that these people have done.

00:40:32.020 And so it was never really an issue, you know.

00:40:34.020 I mean, they never came for guns at the level that they are now because they would have lost elections way back in the day.

00:40:40.060 So they never did it.

00:40:40.960 And it was wrong.

00:40:41.680 And they didn't want to deceive Canadians saying that it was about public safety.

00:40:45.480 Well, this government's a completely different animal.

00:40:47.340 It's unconstrained.

00:40:48.360 It's like a wild, wounded animal. And now we're seeing what it's like when you have no codified

00:40:54.800 rights, really. And when you have a malevolent government that's willing to literally do

00:40:59.780 anything to hold on to power or to carry out its agenda, whatever that agenda is,

00:41:05.260 then you've got nothing. And right now in Canada, we've got nothing. So it's a strange place to be.

00:41:10.940 The only way to put a silver lining to that is that diagnosis is the first step to treatment.

00:41:15.740 I mean, people have seen government do things.

00:41:19.020 They probably would have, being very optimistic and complacent, the Canadians are, probably thought they never would have done, and here we are.

00:41:25.740 So perhaps noticing that will yield a bit of necessary change.

00:41:30.260 Rod Giltaka from the CCFR will keep track on how you go from here, but thank you very much for coming on today.

00:41:37.520 Thank you, Andrew.

00:41:38.440 All right.

00:41:38.840 Thank you, Rod.

00:41:40.020 And thank you to all of you for tuning in.

00:41:42.340 we'll be back tomorrow live from London as the ARC forum continues and

00:41:46.900 concludes. This is the Andrew Lawton show here on true North. Thank you.

00:41:50.440 God bless. And good day to you all.

00:41:53.280 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton show.

00:41:55.680 Support the program by donating to true North at www.tnc.news.

00:42:12.340 We'll be right back.

00:42:42.340 We'll be right back.

Juno News - October 31, 2023

Public support for mass immigration plummets

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript