Juno News - October 08, 2025Time to end birthright citizenship？ + Reacting to Carney's meeting with Trump
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Summary
In the wake of the latest trade deal between Canada and the United States, some are questioning the value of birthright citizenship. And a controversial immigration proposal from Conservative MP Michelle Rempel-Garner could have a big impact on that.
Transcript
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Well, Prime Minister Carney goes to Washington and comes back with, what exactly? We're still
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trying to figure that out. I mean, besides the commitment to apparently keep on talking,
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he basically came back with virtually nothing. Here's his trade representative, Dominic LeBlanc,
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trying to put the best possible spin on what came out of D.C.
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Coming into this, it's been widely reported that the Canadian delegation was hoping for relief
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on steel tariffs, and it was widely reported and never denied by anybody in the government.
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So you're not getting that leaving here, and I'm trying to figure out how you can still
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say that you're happy, and how can you tell Canadians that you've come away from this with
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a win at all? I wouldn't purport to correct your question, Mike, but I think I said in the House
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of Commons yesterday that we don't have an expectation of a detailed deal today. So because
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some unnamed sources speculated, it doesn't change our state of mind when we got here.
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On top of that, there's also some clouds over our current deal, our big deal with
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Trump, the Trump administration, the USMCA slash KUSMA. And this story from the Globe and
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Mail touches on that. Trump also signaled ambivalence about whether he would ultimately preserve the
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trilateral United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement or sign other deals. Sounds a little
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ominous. Like, what kind of other deals are we looking at? I mean, Canada has been a huge
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beneficiary, even according to Mark Carney himself, huge beneficiary of the USMCA or KUSMA,
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and it's up for review next year. Now we have some indication from Trump that he may allow that
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deal to lapse and push for a one-on-one deal with Canada. Carney himself didn't have a whole lot to
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say during a long, rambling news conference in the Oval Office. And when he did speak,
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he touted the half trillion dollars in investment that Canadians have moved to the United States.
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Let's listen. Let's be clear about the relationship as it stands right now. We are the second largest
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trading partner of the United States. We do a lot of trade going across the border where we're
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cooperating, first thing. Secondly, we are the largest foreign investor in the United States.
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Half a trillion dollars in the last five years alone, probably a trillion dollars in the next five
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years if we get the agreement that we expect to get. You know, I don't think that Carney meant
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to brag about the loss of half a trillion dollars and more possibly in investment capital that could
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very well have been invested in Canada. The leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
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said that the tidal wave of investment leaving Canada for the United States is hardly something
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to brag about. Now this story, Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel-Garner says it's time to restrict
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birthright citizenship. In other words, to end the practice of automatically granting citizenship
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to children born here to non-permanent residents. And we have a circumstance now where a child,
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say, born to temporary foreign workers is automatically granted citizenship. Rempel-Garner says there's
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something wrong with that. I'll quote you from her op-ed that was posted to Acts this morning.
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The granting of citizenship to anyone born here, even to the children of temporary residents,
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presents several major problems. Immigration levels have outpaced housing, healthcare, and job
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growth, and have led to increased social tensions. She writes as well, liberals have, through their
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post-nationalism and mass immigration policies, brought into question the intrinsic value of Canadian
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citizenship. Well, the reaction from the left has been swift and harsh. Here's a post by Gil McGowan,
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who is president of the Alberta Federation of Labor. The Conservative Member of Parliament for Oklahoma,
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that's obviously a reference to the fact that Michelle Rempel-Garner lives with her husband in that
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state, just made it clear that she wants to bring Trump's toxic brand of politics to Canada.
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She should be ashamed of herself, and we Canadians should not reward her with clicks or shares.
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MAGA is not welcome or wanted here. That's from Gil McGowan. Our guest today is Michael Bonner,
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who worked on the immigration file in the Harper government. Welcome, Michael.
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All right, so this is a controversial issue, and Michelle Rempel-Garner has waded right into that.
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What do you make of this proposal of hers? Well, look, I think it's a great proposal,
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but can we please put aside this nonsense about Trump and whatever? The United States
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has their own immigration policy. They allow birthright citizenship, and that doesn't seem
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likely to change. If anything, we'd be moving closer to Northern European countries like Denmark
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that don't allow it. This is just a weird sort of red herring, a strange obsession of... I don't even
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know who this person is, Gil McGowan, but whoever he is, this is just a completely irrelevant
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comparison and really a fatuous line of attack on what I think is actually going to be a very sensible
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policy. Now, look, there is nothing that is so well thought out or seemingly logical when it comes
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to government policy that would not be immune from abuse. So, you know, that's the kind of thing that
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we should be looking at. There is a bill before the House right now, C3, that aims to restore
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citizenship to people born to Canadian parents, but sort of continue to do that or allow the passage of
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citizenship seemingly indefinitely. This is, you know, obviously, it will correct, you know, a handful
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of injustices. It will. But it also opens the door to an unknown number of other persons abroad who
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may feel that they can, that either they are entitled to Canadian citizenship for various reasons,
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or they feel that they can somehow game the system and take advantage of it. And if you look in the
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foreign press, you will see that there are op-eds and sort of, you know, articles that are suggesting
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that various populations abroad can take advantage of this. And, you know, that's the kind of thing
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that we really ought to be on guard against. One of the things that can help to sort of tamp down on
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that would be forbidding birthright citizenship. It's interesting that she goes down the road of
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this liberal agenda involving post-nationalism. And we're all aware of that famous statement that
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Trudeau gave to the New York Times about turning Canada into a post-national state.
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She says that Canada has been moving in that direction, that it has become operational. And
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it's somehow reflected in this immigration policy, where the liberals seem to be eager to bring in as
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many people as is humanly possible. And she also talks about essentially the cheapening of Canadian
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citizenship. I mean, if you're going to hand it out to anybody, you know, what's the point of having
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it, if you know what I'm saying? Do you think that there's a legitimate concern here by Rumpel-Garner?
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I think the concern is absolutely legitimate. And I, you know, I think that most Canadians would agree
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that citizenship should mean something. It should count for a lot more than it does. And, you know,
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I am on the record in things that I've written and in a testimony before the Citizenship and
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Immigration Committee actually last week, in which I say that we should expect more from present
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citizens, not just from, you know, recent ones or, you know, people who have acquired citizenship after
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a term of permanent residency. Citizenship should in general count for more. It should mean more to be
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Canadian, not simply a, you know, member of a kind of economic union or, you know, some whatever they
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mean, whatever the post-nationalists mean when they say that we're not a proper nation.
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Trudeau's saying that, I think, was very damaging. I mean, you can see in more recent years and months
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that the Liberal Party has been trying to sort of backpedal away from that vision or non-vision,
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it seems to me. But it's very difficult. They want to talk about things like our culture and
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immigration and national unity and so forth. And the elbows up crowd, I think we're very emphatic
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as to trying to tell us that being a Canadian actually meant something, but they don't seem to
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be sure what it is. And being, you know, I think they've hamstrung themselves in trying to articulate
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that because of so many years of this kind of silly rhetoric, which most Canadians, I think,
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flatly disagree with. Yeah. I mean, she even talks about the fact that because of these policies
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and the social tensions that it has created, it's actually turning people against immigration,
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people that would normally be all for it, you know, and welcoming to newcomers. She seems to suggest,
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and I tend to agree with her, that the policies of the Liberals are actually creating more and more
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problems associated with people opposing immigration. And to the point now where I think a lot of people
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are speaking out against it. What do you think? Yeah, the immigration consensus broke down not only
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because of the sheer numbers involved. It's not just a question of numbers. It must be emphasized.
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There's also the question of skill level and skill and wage level. The Liberals can't have it both ways.
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They can't say that, you know, we have a points-based immigration system that heavily weights skills and
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education. And yet the vast majority of newcomers are low-skill, low-wage, temporary foreign workers.
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I mean, that just doesn't add up, right? You've got to sort of choose what side of that equation
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you're going to be on. And the result of that is a sort of depressing of wages and a sort of general
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sense of strain on resources and scarcity and shortage and so on and so on and so on.
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That in and of itself is bad. That's arguably the worst part of it. Secondarily, you factor in all
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this sort of post-nationalist rhetoric. It sometimes feels as though the government has entirely given
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up on the concept of integration, both economic integration, since an increasing number of
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of skilled immigrants are leaving Canada. Even after obtaining their citizenship, they move on to
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somewhere else for, you know, whatever reasons they may give. It's obvious that they have not become
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economically rooted here and they seek their fortunes elsewhere. And there's a problem with cultural
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integration, which they seem to have given up on. And this is reflected in polling. And I don't really
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sense any kind of appreciation of the of the nature of the of the problem that if Canadians are saying this,
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they're saying that, you know, more should be done to integrate newcomers in to adopt our values. That's
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generally the way it gets phrased in what about what about the political front? Michael, because
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isn't this a bit of a minefield for the conservatives to go down this route? We all know that in the past,
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the left liberals have attacked conservatives as being as being racist or bigoted, all this other kind
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of business. And so I'm wondering if the conservatives, while maybe chasing, pushing something that makes
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sense, aren't leaving themselves open to those types of charges and labels?
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Well, that's unfortunate. I mean, that's the sort of thing that liberals and the left say.
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You know, anyway, I'm not sure we can prevent them from from trotting out these sort of crazy
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accusations. You see, you see it on Twitter all the time. And, you know, it's probably best to ignore
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that kind of thing. But I mean, the public, I don't think that the public are wrong. I mean,
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I think if you're getting polling results with such overwhelming majorities of people who are saying
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that something is wrong with with cultural and economic immigration, and that people are not
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not fitting in, or we're trying, you know, we're trying to fit in more people than than we can
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realistically absorb, you know, something needs to be done there. Now, unfortunately, if nothing is done,
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and if we refuse to talk about it, and refuse to sort of allow that safety valve or as kind of like
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letting off some of the steam there, it will turn ugly, it will. And you've seen that in in in many
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European countries, and arguably in some areas of the United States, but we have to be able to talk
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about this issue in a civilized manner. And the time to start was really, you know, it's not too late
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yet. But the time to have started was, you know, before, like, not now, like, we're now getting into
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the point where it's arguably too late. And I think that the liberals, I think that the liberals
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understand this, in some sense, that's why they began ratcheting down the numbers and restoring
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many of the safeguards and caps that were put on things like the temporary foreign worker program.
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The question is, whether that is enough, both for the economic health of the country, and secondarily,
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for public confidence in the immigration system. Now, economic health is one thing. I'm not an
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economist, but I don't yet feel that we're sort of out of the, you know, it feels more like we're
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entering a recession or something, I think. But for the cultural stuff for for the question of, you know,
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Canadian confidence in the immigration system, we have a long way to go.
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Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I want to talk about this as well. For a decade, I'm just going to read
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you part of her op-ed here. Liberals have operationalized the philosophy of post-nationalism,
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asserting that there is no Canadian identity. And we spoke about what Trudeau once said about, about
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Canada basically having no real identifiable identity, while simultaneously bringing newcomers,
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to your point earlier, at a rate where integrating them into Canada's social economic fabric has become
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challenging. And a lot of these people brought in as students, for instance, or temporary foreign
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workers or under some other program, they don't want to leave. And so we've seen some of their protests
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now, insisting that, you know, after their visas expire, that they should be allowed to stay.
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And so I think the Liberals want them here. If they didn't want them here, they wouldn't be
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bringing them over here to begin with. And I just suspect that if anything, they're going to fast track
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the citizenship process for a lot of these people. I mean, they need them from a political vantage point
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as well, Michael. You know that. They rely on these people as they lose Canadians. You know,
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Liberals in the past have relied on mass immigration to bolster their voting base. Is that really what's
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going on here, do you think? Well, I certainly hope not. You know, there are different ways you can look
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at it. I mean, there are such a huge number of temporary permits, temporary residential permits
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here that are meant to expire this year that if people don't voluntarily leave or, you know, renew or
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like find some new stream to remain here, you know, you're looking at the border services
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being strained, possibly to the, you know, to capacity with removing people. And I know that
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some of that has been going on. I know that some people have gone underground, so to speak, and that
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there are some what I would call human trafficking schemes to get sort of fake students at sort of
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bogus degree mills into the United States, basically smuggling them into the United States. That's under
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investigation. And, you know, we're probably not going to know the result of that anytime soon, but
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at least something in theory is being done about that. But I think that you could well imagine that
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the problem is on a scale much larger than we know about. From the political perspective, yes,
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that's highly unfortunate and fast tracking, you know, if that is the plan, hopefully not. You're
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looking at a level of social tension and strain that, you know, we haven't seen maybe since the early
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20th century. And if, you know, if, if things are feeling awkward and uncomfortable now, or, you know,
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we're looking at a kind of feeling of scarcity, especially for people of my generation, you know,
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we haven't seen the worst, we haven't seen anything like the worst of it, if that's the kind of policy
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that's coming down the pipeline. So let's, I mean, if you let too many people in, if you let too many
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people in, they don't have to integrate, you know, they can just live in their own little communities.
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And you know, this speak their own language, you know, go to their own businesses and build these
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little communities without having to bother much with what's going on outside. That's my concern.
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And I suspect that that's probably the concern of a lot of people. I've got a couple of other
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stories I want to run past you. You just saw what happened with Mark Carney in, in DC. Can you give
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me your take on how that went? I mean, we had some expectations, somewhat low expectations for many of
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us. I don't even think he met the lowest of the low expectations. What do you think?
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Well, I was a little bit concerned by the sort of buzz surrounding the journey, the meeting.
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Which was then confirmed by what we heard from Minister Leblanc.
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To me, it seems as though, you know, like, I think we like to think of ourselves as a country that
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is open to discussion and talking and engagement and so forth. And, you know, that's great. But
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engagement for sort of no particular reason or without any kind of desired outcome
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or particular goal. I just don't, I don't think that that's wise. And I think that now that that has
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been sort of communicated publicly, very explicitly from a, from a member of the, of the, of cabinet,
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this is kind of the last time such a meeting can happen without some kind of result.
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This was the second meeting in which basically nothing happened.
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Right. And I'm not opposed to meetings, but like, we have to get something out of this. And, you know,
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people will look at the video that came out of the White House meeting and it will be a Rorschach
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test for the entire political spectrum of, of, of, of the Canadian polity.
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Uh, half, half the people I saw were saying things like, oh, well, you don't understand
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Canadian understatement and, and, uh, you know, the sort of sarcastic wit of Mark Carney saying that,
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you know, like, come on. And then the other half say that, you know,
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Carney is there sort of groveling shamefully and so forth. You know, I don't, I don't think that
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anybody was groveling. I don't think that, I don't think that anybody was deliberately
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trying to like subtly insult anyone, but you know, we need, we need.
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Well, there was that one incident involving the discussion around, uh, women or girls,
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boys in women's sports. Some are suggesting that this guy, that Trump knew that Carney has a trans
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child and think that that was a not so subtle ribbing about wokeness and how the Americans are
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not going down that road. Did you not think that was a kind of understated, uh, ribbing? Do you think?
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I think that Trump is good at finding out, you know, weird and wild things to say to people, but
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I mean, it, it goes, this, this, this goes to my central point is like, we can, we can have all
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these sort of meetings and summits and, and subtle points and, you know, telegraphing sort of secret
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messages to each other and so forth. But if, if nothing comes out of it and there's nothing to say,
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well, look, we, our side has achieved this, or like we've prevented this horrible thing from happening.
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If there's nothing like that, I don't see the point. And, uh, you know, I think there's been
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a fair amount of goodwill, uh, shown to this government and there probably will be more good
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will so far, uh, to, to judge by what we've seen so far. But I mean, Carney is supposed to be,
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the prime minister is supposed to be the, the negotiator in chief with some kind of special
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mojo for, for handling, uh, Trump apparently. I mean, this was kind of what was.
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Paul Jay Yeah. That was targeted during the election,
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Michael. We all heard that he was the guy who was going to deal with Trump and, uh,
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Paul Jay Right. So six months later, I don't think
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that that's, I think that's been a major disappointment. I got one last question for you.
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I'm sorry to interrupt, but I've got to run this past you before we go.
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A Toronto high school, Earl Haig has been attacked for playing an Arabic rendition of
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Oh Canada. And this happened of course on October the 7th. Somehow the folks at Earl Haig suggested
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it was an accident. I don't know how anybody can accidentally sing a national anthem in Arabic
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on October the 2nd, October the 7th rather. And the education minister warns
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that, uh, this better not happen again. To me, his response has been a bit lame.
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What would you have done in this case if I were minister of education? Well, look,
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there is no reason. I mean, I, I think, I think in, in principle, he's, he's right. There is no reason
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at all to have our anthem sung in, in any, but the two official languages, full stop. And there should,
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I mean, I I'm wary of, I'm wary of sort of banning things and just sort of outlawing
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stuff, you know, left, right and center. Um, but you would hope one, one, one would hope that,
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that one would have better taste and, and sort of tact, uh, when it comes to the treatment of the,
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of the, of the national anthem. And, um, I think, you know, I don't know who is responsible for,
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for this or what the reason is, but, you know, on this particular anniversary, it doesn't really seem
00:25:17.060
Yeah. No. And I think it's, some people suggest it was on purpose. Some people,
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I've heard people say that this was a purposeful antisemitic act by whoever orchestrated it.
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It's so hard to see it that way, but do you think it could have been on purpose?
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Look, I'm not going to impute any kind of motive to, to somebody that I don't know,
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but we have two official languages in this country for historical reasons. You know, if you don't like
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that, take that up with your member of parliament, but that's not going to change anytime soon. And
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there's, there, you know, there are perfectly good and respectable historical reasons why that's the
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case. Yeah. And it's the law. Apparently there is a law in the books that says you sing it in
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both those languages. That's my understanding. Well, anyway, yeah. Last word to you, my friend,
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please continue. Well, look, uh, you know, Canada is a great nation. We've stood,
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uh, you know, if even just from confederation, we're one of the oldest, even before that we're,
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we're, we're, we're, we're, you know, we have our own, uh, culture, we have our own traditions,
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we have our own, and, and of course we are, we are a very welcoming place. People are welcome to come
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here and participate and, and, and join us and so forth. Let's just get rid of this post-national crap
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and just get on with the, the project of making the Canadian nation.
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Hear, hear. Michael Bonner, thank you so much for coming on the show. Great chatting with you today.
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Thank you. Michael Bonner. And that is it for this edition of
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Straight Up with Mark Petrini. Hope you enjoyed it. Let's do it again real soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.