Juno News - Roxham Road is closing, but what took so long？

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 i don't know i'm kind of i was watching that intro there and i'm a little bit skeptical that

00:01:42.280 it starts with snow which i was just saying to my producer sean is like the very worst attribute

00:01:49.680 of this country so i don't know you can let me know what you think i i believe that it might

00:01:55.840 be a little bit weird to articulate a an intro to a show on true north that had like palm trees or

00:02:02.180 something i mean maybe those uh authentic edmonton palm trees but i don't know i i snow i just want

00:02:07.860 to get rid i mean then again i should say if we talk about imagery here the snow melts away at

00:02:13.440 the beginning so it melts away and uh there we have it we also didn't give you the andrew lotten

00:02:18.760 show intro i'm not going to sing it myself i'm also not going to try to do our uh voiceover guys

00:02:23.260 deep booming you're listening i can't even do it that i'm not that much of a base but i do welcome

00:02:28.260 you very much this is canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew lawton show here on true north

00:02:33.500 we are back in the studio this time we were last time in ottawa on stage at the canada strong and

00:02:40.520 free networking conference had great feedback from people in the room in ottawa and those of you

00:02:45.320 tuning in from afar to that show which had a couple of young up-and-comers noah jarvis and

00:02:50.640 liam dunn as well as a couple of also not old people but people that are more established in

00:02:56.100 their careers garnet jenis and katherine marshall talking about political discrimination so hopefully

00:03:02.020 that gave you a bit of wisdom and perhaps some strategic advice that you can take as you go

00:03:08.900 through your lives in what can oftentimes feel like an ideological minority but all of that aside

00:03:13.820 over the next few shows we're going to have more content from the canada strong and free conference

00:03:19.100 Today, we'll have an interview with Jamil Giovanni.

00:03:21.660 Tomorrow, I believe, we will have my interview with former Conservative leader Candace Bergen

00:03:26.080 and lots more coming up.

00:03:27.860 But I actually want to begin today's show by discussing my interview with Premier Danielle

00:03:33.000 Smith, the Premier of Alberta, a woman that I have always had to preface my interactions

00:03:38.900 with her on air with the caveat that I used to work with her and I actually co-founded

00:03:43.100 a philanthropic endeavor with her not that long ago, which she regretfully had to abandon

00:03:48.480 when it became time to seek the leadership of the UCP

00:03:52.460 and ultimately the premiership of Alberta.

00:03:54.980 So I go way back with Danielle Smith,

00:03:57.400 and I've decided I can't feign objectivity with her

00:04:00.640 because I do consider her a friend,

00:04:02.660 but I also at the same time realized that I am a journalist.

00:04:05.920 She is the premier of Alberta.

00:04:07.840 She is someone that, like anyone else in power,

00:04:10.320 needs to be held to account and needs to be asked questions

00:04:13.120 about things that she might not normally speak about.

00:04:15.860 So we sat down and we talked about one issue that she has been very prolific in talking about, and that's been Justin Trudeau's Just Transition.

00:04:24.500 And I want to share a clip of this with her, because oftentimes the Liberals have tried to reframe the climate debate and energy policy as being the evil, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal, troglodyte, anti-science louts on one hand,

00:04:40.660 with the progressive greeny acts being the liberals on the other hand and we forget that

00:04:46.480 like anything else things cannot be distilled so easily into extremes and a lot of the people that

00:04:51.380 say no to carbon taxes people like danielle smith people like pierre polyev are not actually

00:04:56.880 rejecting some of the core premises underlying these things they're saying no no you want to

00:05:01.960 go net zero fine we believe that our way can do it better and it can be enterprise that leads this

00:05:08.800 Now, I believe we can debate that position, and in fact, I actually think just as a matter of practicality, accepting the Liberals' premises is never going to work, and I feel that the net zero thing is actually not a worthwhile goal, because if you talk to a lot of the environmental activists, they don't want net zero, they want absolute zero, they don't like this idea of doing what Danielle Smith is talking about, of carbon capture, of carbon sequestration, they want emissions to plummet to zero,

00:05:37.320 They want to get rid of air travel. 1.00

00:05:39.520 They want to get rid of gas stoves.

00:05:40.900 They want to get rid of wood fireplaces.

00:05:42.700 They want to get rid of anything that is not just living in a tiny little shoebox apartment,

00:05:47.140 taking public transit places and eating your cricket soup for supper.

00:05:51.360 But nevertheless, it is a discussion that we need to have

00:05:54.220 and one that should not be off limits like the Liberals proclaim.

00:05:57.600 So this was just a little bit of my interview from the weekend with Premier Danielle Smith

00:06:02.300 about the just transition and net zero.

00:06:04.980 A lot of this is done under the auspices of the government's objective of going to net zero on emissions, they say.

00:06:10.500 You're an interesting voice on this because you don't actually reject the premise behind net zero, do you?

00:06:16.220 I think carbon neutrality is possible for a country like Canada.

00:06:20.040 When you look at our emissions in a global context, we're only 1.4% of global emissions.

00:06:25.880 And there are mechanisms in the Paris Accord for us to use our technology to reduce emissions around the world and get credit for it.

00:06:31.680 So why wouldn't we do that?

00:06:32.720 Why wouldn't we export more LNGs so we can reduce coal and wood and dung as fuels?

00:06:37.140 Why wouldn't we look at what is happening in Ontario, who's a world leader in developing nuclear technology, small modular nuclear?

00:06:44.420 That seems to make sense.

00:06:45.940 We also have already been a world leader on developing carbon capture utilization and storage, on hydrogen, on geothermal.

00:06:53.780 These are the kind of things that make sense in the Alberta context.

00:06:56.760 And so when I look out 30 years into the future, I have great confidence in our innovators and those who are in the technology sector that they're going to find answers to these problems.

00:07:09.680 They just need a large enough runway because we're already seeing promising technologies develop.

00:07:14.560 The thing that is so important is that I do not see any transition as a transition away from oil and natural gas.

00:07:20.920 It's a transition away from emissions.

00:07:23.040 We're still going to be using oil.

00:07:24.660 We're still going to be using natural gas.

00:07:26.080 we'll just be using them in a different way and that's the kind of conversation that we need to

00:07:29.600 have as a country so i think the interesting dynamic here and we've talked about this in

00:07:39.820 other contexts in the past is that the liberals don't just want their stated environmental

00:07:44.720 objective they want it on their terms they aren't interested in solutions from the oil and gas sector

00:07:50.520 on ways that we could do this thing in a clean and green way to use their own premises so

00:07:55.860 I think that is right there why the premises shouldn't be accepted and why politicians of

00:08:00.920 any stripe should probably be a little bit wary of going down the road of saying yes we support

00:08:05.980 net zero but have a better way to it because ultimately Aaron O'Toole tried to do this whole

00:08:09.760 oh we're conservatives and we support a price on carbon thing and it didn't work because people

00:08:14.700 who care about that issue people who vote based on that issue are not voting conservative so that

00:08:20.600 was one of the points of contrast i'd bring up there but i want to say this idea of a just

00:08:26.100 transition i don't even like calling it that but it's what the government claims is a just transition

00:08:30.660 ripped right from the paris climate accord language it's predicated on the idea that oil

00:08:38.000 and gas jobs are yesterday's jobs that the future needs to be green jobs and we shouldn't be talking

00:08:43.560 about protecting oil we should be talking about finding ways to get all these people making

00:08:47.780 electric batteries and electric cars and stuff like that so it is unjust and it is not particularly

00:08:54.160 environmentally sound scientifically sound or economically sound but it's something we're going

00:08:59.520 to be focusing on a fair bit so i want to just put out a bit of a call here if this is something

00:09:04.320 that affects you maybe you're in the oil and gas sector yourself uh do reach out to us and we will

00:09:09.660 most certainly talk about that when we embark on this series in the little next little while

00:09:15.380 And I should just say, before we move on to the next part of my interview with Danielle

00:09:19.360 Smith, I should tell you, right now, the federal budget is being announced.

00:09:24.240 I am doing you a great service by watching me.

00:09:26.780 You don't have to watch Chrystia Freeland.

00:09:28.400 And I believe I should get some credit and praise for that.

00:09:31.700 We are going to talk about the budget, but we're going to do that on tomorrow's show

00:09:35.520 when we've had time to actually read it and find the stuff that's been buried in there

00:09:39.480 that the liberals don't want you to see.

00:09:41.080 because right now the presentation is all about,

00:09:44.080 oh, everything's great.

00:09:45.280 We're protecting you against inflation.

00:09:47.220 The economy is going to be in good hands

00:09:49.060 and don't worry about the deficit.

00:09:50.740 It's all just, you know, minor, minute.

00:09:52.560 It's nothing.

00:09:53.680 But tomorrow on this show,

00:09:55.360 we'll be able to get a little bit more

00:09:57.000 into the stuff that's in there

00:09:58.720 that's not on the front page,

00:09:59.920 that's not in the executive summary.

00:10:01.720 So I don't want you to think we're ignoring the deficit.

00:10:04.000 I just didn't feel like watching

00:10:05.340 Christopher Freeland speak tonight

00:10:06.460 and then have to do a whole show after

00:10:07.780 because I would have wanted to take a nap instead.

00:10:10.160 So let's talk about the other story we did have on this show, I believe it was two weeks ago, maybe last week, about the city of Calgary banning protesters that they don't like.

00:10:20.160 And this was something Christine Van Gein joined the show to talk about, the wonderful constitutional lawyer in Canada, because the city of Calgary has said, we don't like people that protest drag story hour at libraries.

00:10:33.480 That was basically it.

00:10:35.120 So they passed this little bylaw saying, well, specific protests that are on a racial, gender, sexual identity, gender identity, stuff like that, you can't do outside public spaces.

00:10:49.100 So it was the anti-drag story time protest ban.

00:10:52.900 It has been derided as unconstitutional, although it takes a little bit of time for there to be a challenge afoot. 0.52

00:10:59.600 I hadn't actually heard Premier Danielle Smith weigh in on this.

00:11:03.360 So I asked her about it on Thursday.

00:11:08.840 Calgary just last week passed a bylaw restricting certain forms of protest.

00:11:13.760 And they did this in ways that have been largely derided as unconstitutional by some groups.

00:11:18.920 And as premier, obviously, I know you want municipalities to have their own runway for their own policy.

00:11:23.560 But I know you've always been an advocate for free speech.

00:11:25.560 What do you make of this decision?

00:11:26.700 I don't like anyone disrupting an event.

00:11:29.000 I mean, we feel very strongly about that in religious ceremonies, that a pastor cannot be interrupted during a religious ceremony.

00:11:37.420 It's a criminal co-defense to do that.

00:11:39.060 So I think that we should allow for that same kind of approach, that if an event is taking place, let's find a way to protest peacefully, non-disruptively, and in a way that's within the bounds of the law.

00:11:49.040 When it comes to the event in particular that you're referring to, it's an opt-in event on behalf of parents making the choice of what's age-appropriate for their children.

00:11:59.420 And I believe also in parental choice.

00:12:01.340 We've got to balance these things, that making sure that we have age-appropriate content for kids, making sure that there's parental choice and opt-in, as well as preserving the right of peaceful protest.

00:12:10.700 And I'm watching with interest to see if they get the right balance in Calgary, because I think it's been a bit of a fractious debate.

00:12:18.520 And so I don't know if they've come to a resolution on that yet.

00:12:20.860 But I think all three of those things are very important.

00:12:23.220 But the bylaw is not focused just on disruption.

00:12:25.240 It also targets protests outside.

00:12:26.900 So do you think it actually strikes that balance?

00:12:28.840 You know, I have to wait and see what they come up with and how it's going to be litigated.

00:12:33.200 I already understand that the Canadian Constitution Foundation is already challenging that legislation.

00:12:38.680 So we'll see how that ends up going.

00:12:40.260 We do try to take a hands-off approach with our municipalities to allow them to have the latitude to do what they think makes sense.

00:12:46.980 and for their residents and if they get it wrong the courts are going to decide that

00:12:51.600 that was alberta premier danielle smith and yours truly sitting down in ottawa for the uh interview

00:13:03.800 after the canada strong and free net well during the conference but after her remarks it was quite

00:13:08.340 interesting so uh we had true north this little booth and makeshift studio set up like right

00:13:14.400 outside the conference doors so what happened was at the end of it danielle smith had a very very

00:13:20.400 tight timeline because she had to be on i think it was ctv or something right after me and that

00:13:26.040 was going to be in one room and she has like you know huge fans at the canada strong and free

00:13:30.220 conference so they had to get her from the stage through the crowd out the door into that chair

00:13:35.940 and i'm thinking like you know i just want to like body check everyone out of the way i was

00:13:40.680 I was like, get your photo later, get your photo later. 0.95

00:13:42.220 I don't want CDVD'd up my time. 0.65

00:13:43.620 But they did very well.

00:13:45.260 She had the two bodyguards with her

00:13:47.020 that are part of the provincial security for the premier.

00:13:49.660 And they got her through.

00:13:51.320 We did the interview.

00:13:52.040 We had all these paparazzi around.

00:13:53.660 It was great.

00:13:54.080 All of these journalists taking pictures.

00:13:56.000 And they didn't get published anywhere

00:13:57.400 because they probably didn't want to promote

00:13:58.840 the True North branding in the background there.

00:14:01.960 But if you want to watch the full interview,

00:14:03.780 it is available over at tnc.news.

00:14:07.080 And I would encourage you to check that out.

00:14:09.140 One of the interesting dynamics is that with an election coming up in Alberta in basically two months, it's fast approaching,

00:14:17.880 there was this idea of whether Rachel Notley is really the opponent to Danielle Smith or whether Justin Trudeau is.

00:14:23.920 And Danielle's position on that, Premier Smith's position on that, was it's a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

00:14:31.140 And we'll certainly have coverage of that election when it comes up, which will be very, very quickly, I assure you.

00:14:37.680 So one of the things that I want to talk about before getting into Roxham Road, which is a big, big topic here that we have to address with Justin Trudeau's revised agreement with Joe Biden, is just what was happening in Ottawa.

00:14:49.900 Because Stephen Harper made a bunch of comments on populism and the state of the conservative movement.

00:14:55.320 This was really the theme of this summit in Ottawa.

00:14:58.800 So I sat down with Jamil Javani, president of the Canada Strong and Free Network, to get his thoughts on what this is all about.

00:15:08.420 Sitting down with Canada Strong and Free Network President Jameel Javani.

00:15:12.720 Jameel, we spoke when you were taking over the reins of the organization,

00:15:16.340 and obviously you had the conservative leadership race going on last year,

00:15:19.780 so that adds a bit of energy.

00:15:21.620 But even now, this is like one of the record-setting years, I've been told, for attendance.

00:15:25.420 You had Stephen Harper speaking.

00:15:26.920 What's the big point of this?

00:15:28.240 What's the theme of this this year?

00:15:29.660 Well, there are two things happening right now.

00:15:31.200 One is that the middle class in this country is hurting.

00:15:34.580 Not enough people are talking about solutions to that.

00:15:37.260 We believe the conservative movement has solutions, and we want to bring those to the front, right?

00:15:41.600 We want to bring those to spotlight.

00:15:43.580 That's one of the things we're trying to do here.

00:15:45.020 The other thing is we're trying to connect generations.

00:15:46.800 You mentioned Prime Minister Harper speaking, Preston Manning.

00:15:50.080 We want them to share what they learned from their time in politics with young people,

00:15:53.660 with the millennials and the Gen Zers who are going to be the future leaders of the conservative movement,

00:15:57.960 and we're bringing those generations together this week.

00:16:00.120 If you look at past conservative prime ministers in this country, people like Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney,

00:16:05.560 I mean, it's not a large list of conservative prime ministers, but the ones that are still around today, they don't have the relevance to modern conservatives that Stephen Harper does.

00:16:14.340 And I'm curious if you think that's just because Stephen Harper was more recent or if it's because Stephen Harper was just a different breed of conservative leader that still resonates today.

00:16:22.220 I do think something very unique about Mr. Harper, which is that he is a principled man.

00:16:27.280 And I think conservatives that might not always agree with his principles respect the fact that he tried to apply conservative thinking to solve problems.

00:16:36.080 That is a timeless effort.

00:16:38.180 Every conservative, every conservative politician, member of the conservative movement has the same task.

00:16:43.240 So when you see someone you respect and taking that responsibility on, it's something that I think we're naturally drawn to.

00:16:48.860 And that is what I hope to see from whoever the next conservative prime minister might be,

00:16:53.200 It's the same commitment to solving problems as a conservative, applying our principles, being relevant to both the movement and also to the rest of the country.

00:17:01.940 You've got all the heavy hitters of the conservative movement here this year.

00:17:04.720 You've got Stephen Harper, Pierre Polyeva speaking, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

00:17:08.900 Do you think the fact that there has been this energy and this vibrance in the conservative movement is what Stephen Harper was talking about, about that conservative renaissance?

00:17:16.920 That right now, there's not really that malaise that you sometimes have when you're in opposition.

00:17:21.400 Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

00:17:22.860 I mean, look, I'm very happy with the elected officials who are here.

00:17:26.840 I think they represent exactly where we believe conservative politics should be going.

00:17:31.000 We think about people like Pierre Polyev, Danielle Smith, Stephen Harper.

00:17:34.840 There is a conservative tradition here that we want to be well represented.

00:17:38.660 The reality is not everyone who calls themselves a conservative believes in those same things.

00:17:42.960 We believe that is the right direction, and we want to show that to the rest of the country.

00:17:47.240 I know you and I have talked in the past about how this is not a conservative party event.

00:17:50.560 It's a conservative movement event.

00:17:52.040 But I'm curious for your thoughts on the PPC situation.

00:17:54.480 I don't see people here that are identifying themselves as PPC supporters.

00:17:57.980 We know they're a part of the right of centre movement in Canada.

00:18:00.320 So what's the place that that has, if anything?

00:18:02.960 Look, a lot of the people who we embrace through our events, people who speak at our events, might identify as PPC.

00:18:09.900 We don't ask people who they vote for, what party they belong to.

00:18:12.840 I think one thing that we believe is important, though, is trying to solve problems and not just sort of the theatre of politics.

00:18:18.680 And that's what I would say to anyone who feels underrepresented is show us your solutions.

00:18:22.740 We'd like to work with you.

00:18:23.640 We're open as long as you're actually trying to solve problems.

00:18:26.820 Yeah.

00:18:26.960 And it was interesting hearing Preston Manning and Stephen Harper talk about this of, you know, a split off party that said, you know, the status quo is not working for us.

00:18:34.960 But they took a very constructive approach that ended up becoming what we now know is the Conservative Party of Canada and what was a government for about a decade.

00:18:42.640 Yeah.

00:18:42.840 And to me, that is the bar, right?

00:18:44.500 That is the standard, which is are you making a difference?

00:18:47.120 Are you putting ideas forward that are going to make our country better?

00:18:50.160 I'm open to hearing that from anybody.

00:18:51.800 I mean, if a liberal or an NDP wanted to come on our stage and had a good idea, I'd be open to that, too.

00:18:56.420 But the reality is, yeah, I'd be waiting for a while.

00:18:58.180 Yeah, but that is our standard, right?

00:19:00.420 And, you know, we were lucky to have an MNA from Quebec.

00:19:03.240 Yuri Chassin speak this morning.

00:19:05.120 We are open to a lot of different political parties.

00:19:07.280 Eric Duhaime from the Conservative Party of Quebec will be speaking tomorrow.

00:19:11.200 So we do work with a lot of different parties, but that is the bar.

00:19:14.140 Are you solving problems?

00:19:15.120 Do you have ideas that are to help our country?

00:19:17.120 that's what we're looking for jameel javani thanks very much thank you very much appreciate it

00:19:21.280 that was jameel javani the president of the canada strong and free network sitting down

00:19:29.920 in the conference there it's always fun they do a regional one in red deer which is good for

00:19:34.960 the western roots that i i have a western sensibility albeit albeit i'm not from the

00:19:40.180 west this surprises people because they see me in calgary and edmonton and red deer so often but

00:19:45.580 then they do the main event in Ottawa. And I was glad that True North was able to play such a role

00:19:50.880 there. We had a large crew and many of you did come out to say hello. And I thank you very much

00:19:55.180 for that. I want to turn to Roxham Road because this was one of the big policy takeaways from

00:20:01.720 Justin Trudeau's meetings with Joe Biden, the American president who was in Ottawa at the same

00:20:06.860 time as I was. And it was quite amusing. I was actually sitting down with a couple of friends

00:20:11.980 for a, uh, for a quick bite to eat after one, I think it was after I had spoken or something like

00:20:17.160 that. And we were at like the window seat of the restaurant at the conference hotel. And they were

00:20:22.800 like, it just, I didn't even really notice like all these sirens outside. And I look and it's

00:20:26.520 like the 45 minute long presidential motorcade, uh, that was going by the shore club at the

00:20:32.040 Weston. And it was like, but it kept going and going and going at a certain point. It's like,

00:20:36.820 there were pickup trucks and cargo vans. And I'm like, yo, what are you, did you guys just join

00:20:41.200 is this like a funeral procession where everyone's like oh I want to have fun and then they start

00:20:44.500 going on too and but it just kept going and going and I made sure to make on the next day when I had

00:20:50.280 to catch a flight to get out of Ottawa to like leave before Biden did because I didn't want to

00:20:54.240 be stuck behind that but nevertheless traffic delays aside Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau have

00:21:00.180 agreed to amend the safe third country agreement and effectively close Roxham Road now CBC had this

00:21:08.740 story, I think it was just yesterday, migrants still attempting to cross at Roxham Road with

00:21:14.980 news of Canada-U.S. deal slow to spread. So people are still showing up. They're still spending.

00:21:21.380 In one case, they quote a family originally from Venezuela who said they spent thousands of dollars

00:21:26.060 to get up to the bus station and then take a taxi to the border. And then they get to the border and

00:21:31.380 realize they're being turned away here. So it's amazing how Justin Trudeau's infamous welcome to

00:21:37.800 canada tweet has not been met with a hey the border is closed tweet do not come here but

00:21:44.400 rocksham road the thing that justin trudeau once said was so difficult to deal with take a look

00:21:49.820 unless we don't do we have that clip it's the one of justin trudeau saying for years

00:22:00.840 we have been focused on closing Roxham Road.

00:22:05.900 The challenge is not to say, oh, we should close it.

00:22:08.820 The challenge is how to close it.

00:22:11.380 It would be unfortunate to put up barricades and close Roxham Road

00:22:15.780 only for border crossings to open up elsewhere

00:22:19.940 along the 6,000 or so kilometres of border that we have with the United States.

00:22:24.920 the challenge the way to close rocks and road is to renegotiate the safe third country agreement

00:22:32.180 with the united states which is something that we've been working on for many many many months

00:22:37.120 now we're making real progress it was so difficult to deal with the border it was taking many months

00:22:46.060 to do and now of course we finally have supposedly had an agreement now interestingly enough one point

00:22:51.840 I would add here is that it wasn't as difficult when COVID came along and the border was closed

00:22:56.820 for virtually everyone. I mean, not everyone, everyone. Canadians could still come back to

00:23:01.600 the country, but the Canada-US border was closed for the vast majority of people. It wasn't actually

00:23:07.340 as hard to deal with then, but now it has gone back to being difficult, but they finally reached

00:23:12.700 a solution here. We'll see how long it takes for news to trickle out to those who are trying to

00:23:18.220 come into the country illegally to claim asylum. And that process itself is allowed. But

00:23:23.500 the Roxham Road loophole is, it seems, no more. I want to welcome to the show here,

00:23:29.320 Kevin Wiener, who is a lawyer and also former adjudicator with the Immigration and Refugee

00:23:34.960 Board. Kevin, it's good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:23:39.900 Hi, Andrew. It's good to be on.

00:23:41.840 So let's start first off here. Was this as difficult as the government made it sound like to do?

00:23:48.220 The thing is you can't just send people to another country without that country's permission.

00:23:54.100 So the issue had you had people coming over the border, they'd be making refugee claims, 0.76

00:23:58.500 they weren't under the current state or country agreement, and we can't just pick them up 0.85

00:24:01.980 and send them to America because America has the right to control their own border just

00:24:05.000 like we have the right to control our border. 0.94

00:24:06.840 So it gave us this choice where either you hear their claim or you send them to their

00:24:10.660 home country without hearing their claim and the problem with that is that would violate

00:24:14.560 our obligations under international law and you have, you know, you have political distance

00:24:17.980 from venezuela you have um you know christians from iran or sudan you know and these aren't

00:24:22.780 people we want to be sending to where they could be imprisoned or tortured or executed

00:24:26.480 without a hearing um and so the issue is balancing the fact that you do have people with genuine

00:24:32.620 claims but you also don't want to encourage asylum shopping where people just pick the

00:24:35.520 country where they think they'll get the the most likely chance of success or the best life if they

00:24:40.240 do succeed well and that was basically the premise behind the safe third country agreement in the

00:24:45.360 first place was it not that by the time you've landed in the united states or canada you've

00:24:49.700 already uh basically gotten to a safe haven so you don't really have a claim to go to the other one

00:24:54.960 yeah i mean we have the european union has the same thing throughout the entire eu um where uh

00:25:01.120 it's the country where you first enter where your claim is supposed to be heard and then they do

00:25:04.960 have ways of sharing the burden but the idea is you know you might be traveling through countries

00:25:09.860 where you're not safe but once you get to a safe country you don't just get to pick and choose

00:25:13.460 where you live asylum is a last ditch uh way of ensuring that people aren't deported to somewhere

00:25:20.220 where they'll face torture or death or persecution it's not an immigration stream so was there not

00:25:26.820 an ability i know justin trudeau in that clip i played a few moments ago was saying you can't

00:25:30.660 just put up a fence because then people will go elsewhere and i think generally speaking there's

00:25:34.840 some truth to that but roxham road became almost a parody of sorts because it literally became

00:25:41.180 a pseudo-official border crossing because you had this pipeline of transportation that was getting

00:25:46.180 there. So at a certain point, yes, I agree that theoretically someone could walk across at any

00:25:52.340 point in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, functionally speaking, but Roxham Road was a

00:25:57.980 very unique challenge. Could they not have prevented people from walking across that border in the

00:26:02.860 first place? I mean, you could have put up a fence, but they would have gone around it. I mean, I do

00:26:09.780 think one thing they could have done which they didn't do was most of the time when you have

00:26:13.600 people crossing illegally into your country you know there's like a people smuggling pipeline

00:26:17.800 it's generally criminals things like that and what was unique about roxham road is these are

00:26:21.380 people who would be taking a bus to plattsburgh new york and they would just get a taxi and the

00:26:25.860 taxi would drive them right to the border knowing full well these people are going to be illegally

00:26:29.740 crossing and technically that that's people smuggling under canadian law we could have

00:26:33.820 sought to have these taxi drivers extradited and i believe it would have been a three-year

00:26:37.560 minimum uh prison sentence um now you know at the very least we could have started putting some

00:26:42.680 pressure on these companies you know saying you can't be facilitating this flow of illegal

00:26:48.220 immigration i mean for goodness sakes we had the mayor of new york at one point talking about how

00:26:53.220 new york city was sending people up to canada um so certainly i do think we could have taken a bit

00:26:59.740 more seriously about trying to dry up that what was essentially a people smuggling pipeline well

00:27:05.300 Yeah, I think you raised an important point there, and my suspicion would be that the incentive for the United States to find a resolution to this would have been quite small, because this is, in a very real way, I think probably helping a United States problem, because these people were in the U.S. system, they're voluntarily deporting themselves to Canada.

00:27:22.720 Yeah, it's very one-sided. I mean, the U.S. has the exact same issue on their southern border, where they're trying to get Mexico to sign a safer country agreement, and Mexico doesn't want to, and so they've been able to negotiate at certain points with the remaining Mexico policy, things like that.

00:27:37.600 But on our border, you do have some people will fly to Canada and then illegally cross into the States, but generally not to make a refugee claim just to live there illegally.

00:27:45.900 So there wasn't really any direct incentive for the Americans to extend the Save Their Country Agreement.

00:27:52.500 And that's probably why you saw as part of this agreement that Canada has agreed to set up a pipeline,

00:27:58.700 to set up a legal pipeline for more people from Central and South America to come to Canada.

00:28:03.320 It's part of the Biden administration's hopes, but by setting up more legal pathways for people to legally move to Canada or the United States,

00:28:10.480 it will reduce the incentive to cross illegally.

00:28:14.420 Now, under this, are they making it easier for people to be admitted,

00:28:18.840 or has that part remained essentially unchanged?

00:28:22.080 Yeah, we have no idea what this $15,000 is going to look like,

00:28:25.140 whether it will be what's called a refugee resettlement stream is one option,

00:28:28.440 where potentially people who have been granted asylum in Mexico or maybe the United States or whatever

00:28:32.700 will be resettled to Canada the same way we resettled the number of Syrian refugees,

00:28:37.260 or it could be an economic stream.

00:28:39.060 So we don't know exactly what that's going to look like at this point.

00:28:41.400 where would you look i i mean i know your your expertise is obviously in in the legal aspect of

00:28:48.160 this and not the political aspect of this i i think it is pretty clear that that tweet of just

00:28:52.540 intrudeau's from years ago welcome to canada did have an effect it sent a certainly a signal

00:28:57.740 throughout a lot of communities in the united states that hey canada was the place to go

00:29:01.440 how do they deal with the problem they're having on this end now where they've closed this border

00:29:06.600 but people have still started making their way there and they've still started heading there i

00:29:10.460 I don't imagine this is just going to resolve itself in a few days' time.

00:29:15.000 Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent, it's not that big of a problem for them

00:29:18.180 because people are still crossing right at rocks

00:29:21.480 and they're still being immediately apprehended

00:29:22.980 and they can get turned over to Customs and Border Protection right away.

00:29:26.260 So it's not putting the same burden on our system as hearing the claims.

00:29:29.940 What will get more complicated is, I think, as more people start to learn about this,

00:29:36.080 yes, you'll see the numbers go down,

00:29:37.900 but for those who are really determined to come to Canada,

00:29:40.460 There's still a loophole, it's a harder loophole, which basically says if you manage to make it into Canada and then you wait 15 days before turning yourselves in or making a claim, the agreement won't apply.

00:29:51.320 So you'll probably see fewer people just openly crossing and then getting caught, but you will start to see some actual straight up people smuggling of probably people in vans crossing the border or just going through the woods or things like that in the hopes that they just come to Canada, sit underground for a few weeks, and then they can make their claim.

00:30:10.460 What would you anticipate really happening here in the long term with some of these claimants?

00:30:18.340 And I don't know if we've already seen some data on this about how successful Roxham Road claimants have been when their claims are processed.

00:30:26.780 I mean, actually, generally pretty successful in getting asylum.

00:30:31.200 You do have, whether it's people who come by air or by land, you have a chunk of claimants who do put forward fraudulent claims.

00:30:38.660 or they may be genuine claims, but they're somewhere else in their country they can live

00:30:41.680 or they can receive state protection.

00:30:43.120 But you also just have a lot of people who genuinely are refugees,

00:30:46.380 are coming from countries where they do face persecution,

00:30:49.180 and they just want to have their claim heard in Canada rather than in the United States.

00:30:53.020 And all this agreement does is say, you know, your claim will probably still be successful,

00:30:57.060 you just have to have it heard in America rather than in Canada,

00:30:59.760 so there's appropriate burden sharing.

00:31:01.840 But, you know, frankly, from my understanding is the grant rate

00:31:06.540 at the Refugee Protection Division has actually been going up the last several years, and if

00:31:11.380 anything, that's probably why the system hasn't completely collapsed, because while there's

00:31:17.200 been many more claims being adjudicated, you don't have as many rejections that have been

00:31:20.920 going through the appeal stream, the federal court, and then having to be removed. But

00:31:26.820 I know it's been a big burden on the Immigration and Refugee Board, where they've hired hundreds

00:31:31.560 of new adjudicators to deal with all these claims the last several years.

00:31:34.080 yeah and if you actually go to roxham road it looks in many regards like an official crossing

00:31:40.280 now they've set up these uh semi-permanent to permanent encampments and stations and detachments

00:31:45.880 i mean there and it's like again it's probably got more of a of a government presence than some

00:31:50.400 of the official border crossings and uh rural quebec are uh having there so uh appreciate your

00:31:55.940 insight kevin wiener thank you very much for coming on today thanks for having me on thank

00:32:00.120 you that was the the legal analysis on this kevin is a very bright guy i've known him for for many

00:32:05.320 years and glad he weighed in on this i want to talk about another dimension of this which i feel

00:32:10.160 is the part of the story that's not as often told and that is the uh the local dimension because

00:32:14.620 these are local communities that oftentimes have had to deal with this influx which isn't just at

00:32:20.100 roxham road but i think all around uh ontario and quebec near the the new york vermont border i want

00:32:26.120 to welcome onto the show the Mayor of Niagara Falls, Jim Diodati. Your Worship, good to have

00:32:32.080 you on the show. Thanks for coming on today. Thanks for having me, Andrew. So this is not

00:32:36.620 often, because it's immigration, been seen as a municipal issue, but in your city it really has

00:32:41.580 been one. Yeah, it was something just kind of happened to us. You know, it started out pretty

00:32:47.280 mild last summer. They brought 87 people to Niagara Falls, and they said they'd be asylum

00:32:53.960 seekers staying in in town they'd be part of the federal government's program just to kind of keep

00:32:59.500 it low-key and we did and it seemed pretty nefarious and next thing we went from 87 to 387

00:33:07.000 to 600 to 1200 you know we're up over 2,000 rooms now and upwards of more than 5,000 asylum seekers

00:33:15.480 here in Niagara Falls so for a community of 95,000 when more than five percent are asylum seekers

00:33:22.100 that's a big number that's an overnight impact and it's been difficult because we're trying to

00:33:27.980 absorb the the social services Ontario Works and all the other things that go with it and I've been

00:33:33.460 on regular conversations with IRCC and as well as the province today just trying to sort out our

00:33:40.460 role in in this matter and again let me start by saying Andrew I know we're a nation of immigrants

00:33:45.300 we get that and I know generally these are good people coming from bad situations we're grateful

00:33:49.880 to do our part but we feel that we're doing more than our fair share and we need a little bit of

00:33:54.660 help well and no and i think that's that's a point well taken mayor because when you talk about the

00:33:59.480 broader landscape you could find the immigration numbers and divide it into a country of 38 million

00:34:04.860 and it doesn't sound that bad but when you look at the fact that so much of that is concentrated

00:34:08.980 along border communities it does change the dynamic and niagara falls in particular is a

00:34:14.280 it's a lovely place it's a tourist city you've probably got better use for a lot of the hotel

00:34:18.840 rooms that you have there and i just it occurs to me as you were talking with that have you actually

00:34:22.880 had issues where hotel occupancy rates have been uh artificially inflated and elevated and you don't

00:34:28.720 actually have room to accommodate uh the tourist demand well you know that's a great question and

00:34:33.580 and yes so of course it's the economic model of supply and demand and we've got big inventory and

00:34:39.440 in the shoulder season a lot of it's vacant during the week so it seemed like a natural place and of

00:34:44.460 course a lot of the hoteliers were happy to grab the extra money it was easy money but we're already

00:34:48.660 running into challenges. We've got major tour groups, major events that bring in significant

00:34:53.900 amounts of people that are getting very, very frustrated. They've reached out to our office.

00:34:57.940 Some said they're going to leave the city. I can tell you too, Andrew, we've had some situations

00:35:02.220 and this is some of the unintended negative outcomes of a good idea. We've had some of our

00:35:07.460 local Niagara homeless who public health have put up in our local motels who have been evicted to

00:35:13.440 make room for asylum seekers. So, you know, you try to solve a problem and it's not by creating

00:35:18.480 another problem or kicking the can down the road. So I asked three things of the federal government.

00:35:23.160 Number one, I asked that we have a seat at the table. So we need to be part of the discussion

00:35:27.300 if we're going to help with the solution. And we are the boots on the ground. We're telling them

00:35:31.680 some things they did not know they weren't aware because we're the front line. So I said, give us

00:35:36.020 a seat at the table. We're here to help. Second thing, we need money. Federal government's going

00:35:40.840 have to pay some of the bills here our our peripheral expenses i mean our food bank our

00:35:45.460 soup kitchen is up 85 percent uh you know our local community groups the churches mosques temples

00:35:51.260 and whatnot are giving coats boots hats gloves and things like that so secondly second request

00:35:56.800 is for money and third thing is we'd like to be made privy to the plan or plans and i know they're

00:36:01.620 evolving emerging and they're changing and we get that but tell us what the plan is hope can't be

00:36:08.280 the strategy we need a physical plan because my bigger concern Andrew is you know I've got this 1.00

00:36:12.940 one train coming down the track of thousands of silent seekers and I've got this other train 1.00

00:36:17.780 coming down the other track we've got 14 million tourists coming back so so we don't want to have 0.92

00:36:22.760 a problem we want everyone to land softly and in Niagara Falls we're the number one leisure

00:36:27.340 destination in Canada 40,000 people count on tourism to feed their families to pay the rent

00:36:33.520 pay the mortgage and they're counting on a recovery season we were devastated by covid

00:36:38.040 last year domestic tourism returned to pre-pandemic numbers but international

00:36:42.340 we're below half so now that the arrive can app is gone from the borders and it's a favorable

00:36:48.380 exchange rate from our for our american friends this is the year of international recovery we're

00:36:53.240 counting on and if we don't have the inventory we're gonna have some challenges and i mean when

00:36:59.060 When we talk about the change that came out last week to the Safe Third Country Agreement,

00:37:03.440 I think obviously for the illegal border crossing aspect of it, there's a bit of a resolution there.

00:37:07.860 But part of the government's response to that is increasing or widening the pipeline for asylum claimants.

00:37:14.280 So the problem that you're describing in Niagara Falls is pretty much unchanged and perhaps made even worse by this change, is it not?

00:37:21.860 Well, it could be. And that's the thing. The devil's going to be in the details, and I know that.

00:37:26.140 i'm just glad they're addressing it not ignoring it rocksham roads a legal loophole and it's not

00:37:32.980 even fair to the other asylum seekers who are going through the proper channels because they're 0.98

00:37:36.860 jumping the queue ahead of people doing it the right way and you know it's only a matter of time 1.00

00:37:41.500 and if you look at the path of least resistance and water we'll take that wherever the low point

00:37:46.620 is wherever the opening is that's where the water goes and eventually it'll force that opening bigger

00:37:50.620 until there's no water going anywhere but that place and that's where we were headed

00:37:55.280 and um and again i don't know that there's any perfect solution it's just that we're trying to

00:38:00.640 get to a better place and and yeah go ahead sorry yeah i'm just curious about uh whether there has

00:38:07.060 been a seat at the table for any of your counterparts and other municipalities because

00:38:11.800 as the old line goes there's safety in numbers and i know that other communities are dealing

00:38:16.140 with this you probably get unfairly targeted because as you mentioned you have the hotel

00:38:19.940 inventory so you're more of a natural pick there but uh have other mayors and other cities really

00:38:26.040 seen the same thing here well definitely not to this degree i i speak regularly with drew dilkins

00:38:31.720 the mayor of windsor and they asked for a cap to be put on their hotel rooms and then they got

00:38:36.720 bumped and niagara falls we're at almost 2000 they added another 500 rooms this week so uh

00:38:43.180 unfortunately you know some of the hoteliers see it as a great opportunity but we're only two months

00:38:46.940 away. So just to interject there, Mayor Diodati, so when you say they added 500, is this something

00:38:52.140 that the federal government can do unilaterally just by going to the hotel and saying, hey, we

00:38:56.700 want the rooms? Are you theoretically cut out of that discussion entirely if the government doesn't

00:39:01.880 want to involve you? We are absolutely not part of that discussion. They're going direct. So they're

00:39:06.540 using a third party group who's putting out requests for proposal. And then all the hotel

00:39:11.180 years that are interested can put in a bid. And of course, rates are going higher because we're

00:39:15.460 getting closer to the tourism season and you know right now it's probably around 140 bucks 150 bucks

00:39:22.100 a night for a hotel room plus 75 a day for food three meals a day and snacks for kids in school

00:39:28.640 then they get another 350 a month for incidentals and you know there's some other fees that they get

00:39:34.260 so they're they're being well taken care of and of course if i'm a hotel year and it's the shoulder

00:39:38.660 season and i can get seven day a week occupancy and i don't have to clean the room and i don't

00:39:44.160 need to be preparing meals because they're using a lot of them are using third-party cafeteria type

00:39:49.340 meal processes i mean i understand the allure of it but it's not sustainable and we don't have a

00:39:56.000 plan we don't know how long it's going to go when it's going to end how big it's going to get we

00:40:00.300 don't have any of these nobody really seems to have these answers well i hopefully you'll get

00:40:05.720 them and we'll have to have you back on to see if you have any luck on that i mean this is not a new

00:40:09.100 problem and every time it comes up it's like everyone acts it's the first time they've ever

00:40:12.740 had to consider it so i'm glad that you are on the ground and willing to share that niagara falls

00:40:17.920 mayor jim diodati thank you so much sir thanks for having me all right well that does it for us

00:40:22.720 for today we'll have to get his worship back on and other mayors in other communities like i said

00:40:27.820 i mean we all focus on roxham road and rightfully so but there is the question of what happens when

00:40:32.320 these people come in and i'll give you a bit of a teaser i don't like being a tease but i'm only

00:40:36.800 doing it this way because i'm working on the story and i haven't done it yet so i don't want to give

00:40:40.160 it away. But there is a major conference that was just forced to cancel and relocate effectively

00:40:47.740 because they were kicked out of their hotel because of one of these government contracts

00:40:52.360 because of migrant accommodation. And it wasn't in Niagara Falls. Hopefully we'll have that story

00:40:57.240 up at True North tomorrow, but stay tuned. I mean, there are very real consequences when these things

00:41:01.740 are done as unilaterally as they are. So with that, we'll bid you a jib, but we're back tomorrow

00:41:06.380 with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:41:10.240 The Andrew Lawton Show awaits.

00:41:11.440 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:41:15.780 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:41:18.280 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:41:36.380 We'll be right back.

00:42:06.380 We'll be right back.

00:42:36.380 We'll be right back.

Juno News - March 28, 2023

Roxham Road is closing, but what took so long？

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