Juno News - Too many immigrants in Canada？

00:00:00.000 doing a uh doing a tux for off the record isaac yeah like i was telling noah i died never worn

00:00:06.120 the bow tie before so i thought you know it was time to bust it out in his uh honorable presence

00:00:10.480 well i'm sorry guys i can't hear anything just give me a sec

00:00:13.880 he missed we're off to a great start okay i can okay i can hear you now perfect oh wonderful there

00:00:24.320 we go and now you're trying to thank you andrew i was like wait i can't hear anyone now what's going

00:00:33.240 on oh god all right let's get this train wreck started

00:00:37.760 hello and welcome to off the record this is the friday confab we take a regular cast of characters

00:00:52.060 from true north we mix it up but they're all familiar faces or voices and we try to unpack

00:00:57.300 the week that was talk about some of our top stories of the week the oddball stuff we didn't

00:01:01.500 get to and basically whatever else comes to mind uh joining me i'm andrew lawton by the way hi good

00:01:06.260 to see you thanks for coming uh joining me once again are isaac lamaru who you see at tnc.news

00:01:12.320 and also here on the daily brief as well as noah jarvis for whom the same description applies but

00:01:17.080 isaac noah welcome good to have you both here how was your week that's doing well and uh glad

00:01:22.940 to be able to actually hear you this time but uh yeah doing good how how is uh how are things where

00:01:28.940 you are isaac because i know you're not that far from jasper has like have you had any of the kind

00:01:33.640 of the smoke and and what yeah in edmonton uh actually i i had to drive um to my mom's place

00:01:39.680 downtown uh yesterday and uh my eyes were just bugging me so much i was like i need some visine and

00:01:45.720 and then i looked in the sky and i was like i can barely see anything like i mean it was so smoky

00:01:49.500 it wasn't like a fog or anything but just that my my vision was was cloudy in that sense so yeah

00:01:54.640 we're definitely feeling the effects of uh the fire here uh but certainly nowhere near what's happening

00:02:00.480 in jasper no it's it's been tragic i i remember i was out in banff or no i was actually no i was in

00:02:07.080 calgary i think i was in calgary and banff a few years back when there were wildfires

00:02:11.220 in bc and it really is astonishing because it's not really something i get in southern ontario

00:02:16.180 it's astonishing just how much that travels like how much the smell travels and and the ash travels

00:02:21.960 and uh uh it's it's the one i know you were in alberta recently no it's the one thing you that's

00:02:26.540 like always weird when you experience what was happening in jasper has been been absolutely

00:02:30.280 terrible where um we try to keep things light on this show so i we aren't going to go into uh the

00:02:35.140 wildfire situation here but we do have reporting on it at true north and and i would encourage people

00:02:40.320 to take a look at danielle smith's press conference yesterday she was incredibly incredibly moved as i

00:02:45.680 know a lot of people in alberta are by what's been happening there and just the devastation on that

00:02:50.520 but uh that's as dark as we'll get things on this episode for now i do want to go into this story

00:02:56.660 which came up and i find it to be a bit of an interesting one so we covered immigration a lot

00:03:01.080 at true north it was really our foundational issue back when when candace malcolm launched the

00:03:06.120 organization because she saw that no one else in the country was really having a grown-up

00:03:10.300 conversation on immigration and we have seen the liberal government just completely trample all

00:03:16.960 over the immigration system they've trampled all over now the immigration consensus that canadians 0.61

00:03:22.760 used to have that immigration was a really positive thing for the country that it was adding to the

00:03:28.060 cultural fabric the economic fabric all of these things and one of the issues about which i warned

00:03:33.060 and candace malcolm warned and other people warned quite some time ago was that when the liberal

00:03:37.640 government stops taking things in this system seriously it turns canadians against immigrants

00:03:43.800 and it's not to justify that it's just a statement of fact and that's exactly what's happening now a new

00:03:49.120 poll shows that 60 percent of canadians say canada is admitting too many immigrants they feel the poll

00:03:57.240 says like it's the highest on record in the century this is i think incredibly incredibly damaging

00:04:03.760 statistic because when you have canadians that start to view that and by the way the liberals have

00:04:08.240 effectively acknowledged this is the case when they talk about in trudeau's eyes bringing in more than

00:04:14.000 we could absorb or beyond what canada could absorb but it means that canadians are likely to overreact and

00:04:20.160 say that we need perhaps fewer than the country could sustain and you pointed out something isaac before we

00:04:26.480 were on air that i think was interesting that that even this is based on a perception that is in and

00:04:31.760 of itself an inaccurate assessment is it not yeah and that's whenever i mean obviously there's a lot

00:04:38.320 of polls that have been coming out uh recently on immigration and the first thing i always do when

00:04:44.160 reading an article or a poll about immigration is i say okay did they preface their questions with

00:04:50.640 canada immigrates x amount of people per year and in large it's always the same 500 000 per year sum

00:04:58.240 which we know is inaccurate as candace malcolm previously reported with true north uh the liberals

00:05:04.400 obviously brought in 2.3 million people in 2023 when you account for permanent residents international

00:05:09.920 students temporary foreign workers and all the different avenues of immigration illegal immigration

00:05:16.080 included a number which has been on the rise so when we see staggering numbers of widespread

00:05:22.880 disapproval of canada's immigration plan based on the 500 000 number you can only imagine what it would

00:05:30.720 be if if we were talking with the real digits in the multi-millions you're right these numbers often

00:05:36.560 get separated out and people focus only on the permanent resident number which is an important number but

00:05:42.480 you also have to look at international student visas you have to look at temporary foreign workers

00:05:46.800 because you're still bringing in new people into the country and in some cases people are coming in

00:05:51.120 for you know a period of time but you know often that period of time is three four years especially

00:05:56.000 for student visas so in the end you have a massively ballooning uh immigration uh cohort in canada

00:06:03.120 and it's not being captured by the official data so i mean no it's no surprise the canadians are

00:06:07.920 saying hey maybe it's a little bit too much no absolutely i mean to have a immigration system

00:06:13.680 that maintains the support of the common people uh you need to have you know the uh the public you

00:06:19.120 know being involved in the process and when the public tells you uh that we're bringing in too many

00:06:23.840 people the government has to respond to those concerns and the true to government they clearly have not

00:06:29.120 responded to those concerns sure the immigration minister has said that they're going to reduce the

00:06:34.160 amount of uh foreign students that they're bringing into the country but statistics show that uh the

00:06:39.520 rate at which we are admitting uh foreign students in this country has stayed the same since uh years

00:06:45.280 past or has even increased slightly so uh when we're bringing in an excess amount of foreign students

00:06:51.120 that are you know coming into our universities basically to help prop them up and to help uh finance them

00:06:57.680 because they are kind of struggling uh and when we're bringing in uh permanent residents and we're

00:07:02.160 bringing in temporary foreign workers who are potentially taking jobs that you know other

00:07:05.760 canadians can take you know they're taking low-wage jobs that a lot of canadian youth uh are who would

00:07:11.840 normally uh take up these jobs for example working at a tim hortons or at a grocery store my first job

00:07:16.720 was at a grocery store uh and you know that was a really good stepping stone for me to be able to go on

00:07:22.640 to uh you know better bigger and better things so a lot of young canadians are being denied that a lot of you

00:07:27.920 know just canadians in general are seeing that they are having a harder time uh being able to

00:07:32.960 find jobs being able to you know find a house to live in and be able to find an affordable house to

00:07:37.520 live in so when all these factors are taken into consideration the canadian people are obviously

00:07:43.200 going to turn against the immigration system and that did not have to it did not have to be this way

00:07:47.840 the trudeau government could have you know brought in about maybe half as much as people as they've brought

00:07:52.880 in and you focus on economic policies that would help this country flourish whether that be uh

00:07:57.760 focusing on expanding home building and whatnot uh but instead they've done the opposite they focus

00:08:02.880 on ratcheting up immigration to artificially boost our gdp uh and you know canadians are suffering for

00:08:08.640 that and uh sentiment against uh immigration is rising because of it and i i have the previous numbers

00:08:15.840 here from 2023 which was uh 500 000 permanent residents 660 000 temporary foreign workers 900 000

00:08:23.120 international uh students and just under 144 000 illegal immigrants so that was for a total of 2.2

00:08:29.440 million people yes in 2023 no that that's massive and and i think the issue is is that it's not like

00:08:36.720 people want to claim that criticism of immigration is a moral judgment that if someone criticizes the

00:08:42.720 immigration system it's it's because you're racist or it's because you're you're making some moral

00:08:47.840 position against immigration a lot of this is a numerical issue and and this is what conservative

00:08:53.360 leader pierre polyev was talking about when he said we need to tie immigration numbers to available

00:08:58.080 housing available jobs capacity in the social services sector because a lot of the stuff is just

00:09:02.720 a matter of math and if you're not able to serve your existing citizens and residents or the immigrants

00:09:07.920 because there's nowhere for them to live they can't affordably buy a house they can't find a job then

00:09:11.680 you're not helping anyone are you yeah for me start with you isaac thanks thanks for me it's it's

00:09:19.600 definitely mathematical uh what what what comes to mind is uh obviously alberta uh announced

00:09:25.360 educational funding just a few days ago which uh education minister nicolaitis said was a very um

00:09:31.360 abnormal to happen outside of a budget cycle and they said look this is because so many people came

00:09:36.400 to alberta our schools are overflowing we don't have enough teachers they need money

00:09:40.640 uh if we don't provide it to them we're looking at students who who don't have a classroom to learn

00:09:46.000 i mean you can't imagine a worse scenario in a society than than uh no education for children

00:09:54.400 realistically and i mean the same can be said for hospitals any publicly funded resource where where

00:10:00.240 we can only support so many new individuals okay go ahead noah

00:10:08.160 yeah i mean uh isaac brings up the uh fact that you know our social services are being strained

00:10:13.840 uh you even look at the healthcare system in which you know waiting times have not gotten any better

00:10:18.400 you know if you lived in canada in the past you know 10 years you know that waiting times have never

00:10:23.040 been a good you know never been a strong point in our uh healthcare system and they're only getting

00:10:28.720 worse because you know more and more people are coming to the country uh they're increasingly coming 1.00

00:10:32.640 from countries in which they don't have as great you know as to say healthcare systems as you know in

00:10:37.760 canada uh they're they don't have you know the same standards of health uh and wellness in canada so

00:10:43.840 you know they come and they increasingly need healthcare services uh and that crowds out other people who

00:10:49.120 would otherwise require them and you know if you want to retain support for an immigration system

00:10:54.560 you know having your grandmother be denied uh quick access to you know treatment uh because you

00:11:00.080 know a bunch of people who just came to this country need also need healthcare services well uh you're

00:11:06.960 not going to actually um you know win people over like that and if you look at you know a country like

00:11:11.760 the united states where they have different immigration problems but you know when uh government

00:11:17.520 bureaucrats when politicians decide to ignore the concerns of their people you get a sort of

00:11:22.720 anti-immigration uh sentiment you know that is uh very strong in the united states and we didn't have

00:11:27.680 that uh until recently so this is really all uh the fault of uh prime minister justin trudeau and i

00:11:34.320 it's really you know my hope that a conservative government will have the stomach uh to be able to come

00:11:39.520 in slash immigration you know not you know completely dismantle the immigration system because we still need

00:11:44.160 it uh but to slash immigration to a point in which uh you know it would help to ameliorate our problems

00:11:50.400 with uh being able to deliver social services and uh to be able to access affordable housing because if

00:11:55.760 not um you know we're really going to see uh some problems perhaps the ppc will even rise in their

00:12:01.600 support because these immigration concerns are not being addressed yeah there's been i mean we've done

00:12:06.960 this i don't know if you did it isaac or if it was our colleague quinn i think it might have been quinn that

00:12:10.800 did a report not that long ago on on what's called onward migration which is people that

00:12:15.360 come to canada as immigrants then they just you know decide ah this isn't for me and then they go 1.00

00:12:20.400 somewhere else and onward immigration or onward migration has apparently been on the rise because

00:12:24.800 you have immigrants that come to the country and realize that this dream that they thought would be

00:12:29.440 in canada is not there for them and how could it be because the dream for canadians is not there for

00:12:34.000 people born in this country right now so if if we can't even find you know housing for lifelong canadians who at

00:12:40.720 know 24 25 would love to set out on their own we're not going to be able to find it for anyone 1.00

00:12:44.400 else and there's nothing racial about that it's just a fact of life i would love nothing more than

00:12:48.880 to be able to accommodate anyone who wants to be in canada that is willing to live the canadian life

00:12:54.240 and exhibit canadian values and contribute to the economy and contribute to society but if we can't do

00:12:59.920 that we shouldn't pretend we can yeah i didn't write that article about onward migration but i have

00:13:05.680 read a similar polls uh one that comes to mind is one i wrote a few months ago about recent immigrants

00:13:12.000 those who immigrated to canada within the last decade yet 42 of them were among the voices saying

00:13:18.800 the immigration in this country is too high despite having just themselves recently immigrated to the 1.00

00:13:23.440 country so obviously they're coming here like immigration is terrible immigration yeah oh it'd be 1.00

00:13:28.960 great if i were the last immigrant you know but yeah so it's funny you mention that because i met i met

00:13:34.160 someone years ago who came to canada from china and they went to vancouver and uh they hated it

00:13:41.040 because they're like there are too many chinese people here this is what they said to me and then

00:13:44.080 they moved to markham which has also an insane amount of chinese people and they said there were

00:13:48.080 too many and he was saying this to me and i was so bad because i'm like no one would ever in their

00:13:53.360 right mind say these things out loud but that was an attitude that he had and i was thinking like well

00:13:59.920 you came you wanted something in the country that you know you thought canada would offer you can't be

00:14:04.000 begrudge these people to but but there are attitudes among certain immigrant communities

00:14:07.680 like that that are part of this i mean when we look at this poll that we were talking about in

00:14:11.680 the national post 60 of canadians say canada is admitting too many immigrants a lot of those i 1.00

00:14:16.080 suspect are people who immigrated to canada themselves in fact it's possible that disproportionately

00:14:21.600 they make up a share of it because often it's immigrants to the country that have a greater sense of

00:14:26.560 pride in the country than a lot of others do because they chose to be canadian they chose this life and

00:14:32.400 and i think canadians have often been a bit complacent about this i don't know what's your

00:14:35.760 thought no before we move on here no you're absolutely right i recently had a uber ride uh

00:14:41.920 coming back home from you know toronto and i had a indian uber driver who said he was in

00:14:48.080 canada for about 20 to 30 years and he was uh talking to me about you know all this damn 0.79

00:14:52.960 immigration you know that trudeau uh all these immigrants that i was bringing in you know i just

00:14:57.040 kind of just sit back and listen he's like you know we're bringing in too many uh people from 1.00

00:15:01.280 india who don't want to come to canada and become canadian you know we're bringing in too many people 1.00

00:15:05.360 from india who are treating it like they're still living in new delhi or something this is what your

00:15:09.680 indian uber driver said yeah that's what he was telling me you know he's like i've been in this

00:15:13.920 country for 20 plus years and you know they want to come and you know ruin immigration for everyone and 1.00

00:15:18.800 you know he is absolutely right you know i'm a third generation immigrant my grandmother my both

00:15:23.760 of my grandmothers on both sides of my family came to this country uh in the 70s uh and you know

00:15:29.200 they're not really happy with the the current state of the immigration system my dad you know second

00:15:33.600 generation immigrant not really happy with uh the current state of our immigration system uh so when you

00:15:39.120 have you know immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants who are trying to tell you tell the

00:15:44.160 canadian government trying to you know tell people that you know the current uh immigration system is

00:15:48.720 broken uh and you don't have a government that is responding to those concerns well you know

00:15:53.360 attitudes towards immigration in general is going to drop significantly all right well thank you for

00:16:00.320 that noah uh we'll move on to the next topic which i've completely forgotten so let me find my notes

00:16:05.120 here oh it's actually your topic noah uh so this one i'm just gonna like take a seat a step back and

00:16:09.920 just let you guys handle this one because it's about the olympics uh in some way uh which i'm told is

00:16:15.760 a sporting event that is taking place so no what take it away i know you're a sportingly uh illiterate 0.61

00:16:22.000 andrew last week i learned about vibes cartel the uh i don't know r&b singer or rapper anyway today

00:16:28.560 i'll learn about soccer you learn about this uh foreign sports soccer uh but yeah i know uh right

00:16:33.840 now canada's uh women's team are trying to go back to back at the olympics they're trying to

00:16:38.640 win another gold medal uh because they won uh the gold medal at the tokyo olympics back in 2021 however

00:16:44.720 a wrench has been thrown in the soccer team's uh you know ability to win because it was discovered

00:16:51.440 that an assistant coach and a member of team canada's staff uh had been trying to spy on a

00:16:57.440 rival team that is right they were trying to spy on the new zealand uh women's national team practices

00:17:03.920 uh with a drone so uh first of all this is stupid because the paris authorities they already had

00:17:09.680 banned drones in paris for the duration of the olympics because they know that you know

00:17:14.720 people are going to try to spy so what does a clever canadian assistant coach and a team i guess

00:17:20.960 analysts do they go out they buy a drone uh they you know go outside of the new zealand national team

00:17:27.120 soccer practice and fly a drone over uh over their practice to try and record uh what they are doing

00:17:34.160 and they get caught uh in new zealand not not only did it happen one time this happened twice the new

00:17:39.040 zealand national team reported that not only did they see this drone flying over their practice on july

00:17:44.160 22nd but they also saw this on july 19th so the second time that happened they promptly alerted the

00:17:49.360 authorities uh a man named joseph lombardi uh who is an accredited member of canada's uh women's uh

00:17:56.880 team uh team support staff he was arrested uh questioned released uh and team canada is now sending

00:18:03.040 lombardi and also uh an assistant coach named jasmine mander who is also involved in the plot to spy on

00:18:10.560 the new zealand national team's uh soccer practices they they've been sent home and uh they've been

00:18:15.760 uh removed from the team uh it is obviously a national embarrassment that you know we feel that we

00:18:22.560 need to spy on the new zealanders i mean what do they have in new zealand like they just got like

00:18:26.640 you know it's basically australia junior uh and you know we're a better country than australia i feel

00:18:31.280 like so i don't know why we need to spy on them but you know it just goes to show that you know uh

00:18:37.040 canada is not in a great place right now what do you guys uh think of this story so i'll just jump

00:18:43.360 in with a question here which either you know or you isaac can answer because again i i don't

00:18:47.760 understand too much about soccer i i understand there's a ball and two nets and that's the extent

00:18:52.960 of it um so it's not a play it's not a sport like football that has plays and i i'm not even aware of

00:19:01.200 like a real strategic component to soccer and i i don't mean that in a negative way so

00:19:06.400 like what advantage do you even get from watching a team practice soccer it's a it's a good question

00:19:13.760 and yeah they might have like various odd ball set plays that might happen once a game like if a

00:19:20.720 certain person gets a ball in a certain portion of the field they're going to try and execute something

00:19:25.920 but primarily soccer is a a possession game wherein you pass the ball around for 30 minutes and then

00:19:31.600 eventually get a good shot off which is why it's never interested me too much it's very slow uh

00:19:37.200 possession based game at least uh i'm just imagine just imagining the uh you know like the the great

00:19:42.560 details that the canadian spies got it's oh so they try to put the ball in the net when they have it

00:19:48.720 but i don't think you're that wrong wrong in that sense wherein obviously like i feel like soccer

00:19:56.000 isn't like the sport to really you know cheat on you know when uh when there's that plot by the new

00:20:01.280 england patriots uh football team andrew just so just so you know i know i know what i know about

00:20:05.760 new england i know about tom brady's deflated balls that's the one thing i know about football

00:20:10.320 because they make jokes about it oh i didn't know i didn't know but darn it here i was trying to be all

00:20:15.600 indignant that i knew but i actually have no idea what you're talking about all right fine

00:20:23.280 where uh you know that they try they try to recording the other team um they basically the

00:20:28.160 other team's uh coaches or whatever to see like what plays they were calling uh and you know obviously

00:20:33.680 that's enormously beneficial so i don't i don't really know like what the equivalent of that would

00:20:37.760 be in soccer i'm not you know a big soccer guy more of a basketball guy but at the end of the day

00:20:42.560 uh i feel like any sort of advantage that you can get whether that's like you knowing which players

00:20:47.520 are going to start and which players are going to be subbed in you know what formation they're going

00:20:52.560 to use uh what sort of uh you know people i guess they're going to play through whether that could be

00:20:58.080 the center midfielders or on the wings i guess that's you know the sort of thing that they want

00:21:02.240 to figure out um but you know even that didn't work out well you know it's like the the one sport

00:21:07.760 where spying uh isn't gonna grant you a massive tactical advantage uh is the sport that they

00:21:13.760 decided to you know go out and uh do some spying operations so i think i think it's just you know

00:21:19.680 pretty embarrassing you know as a canadian who you know kind of cares about you know canadian sports

00:21:24.720 teams doing well uh although i don't know andrew does this uh affect your uh sense of national pride

00:21:30.400 no i so someone told me the other day that there's i think it's like the toronto star or something has

00:21:37.760 a newsletter where you can like subscribe to get an email alert the minute that a canadian wins a

00:21:43.760 medal and i'm like i get enough emails i like i don't need why like just give me the metal tally at

00:21:48.320 the end of it or so and i'll figure it out there i know there i i did hear that break dancing is in the

00:21:54.000 olympics for the is it the first time i i don't follow the olympics that that uh heavily i mean

00:22:01.520 i don't know why you wrote the story that we're talking about yeah but i didn't write all right

00:22:06.880 let me look up if it's the first year for break dancing while you're looking that up i'll just

00:22:10.640 give some background on uh one of the sports where spying has actually been extremely relevant and

00:22:16.080 probably more relevant than any other sport of course which is baseball uh that being stealing signs

00:22:20.960 because obviously every pitch comes with a sign designating what the pitch will be and some

00:22:24.960 pitchers can throw up to 10 different pitches so obviously that makes a huge difference and um

00:22:30.240 in 2019 news of the houston astros cheating in 27 8 2017 and 2018 dropped they were using illegal

00:22:38.400 video technology to steal signs uh from other teams which was interesting when when i was thinking whether

00:22:44.560 this uh i was asked whether the soccer team would uh repeat their gold medal performance and of course

00:22:49.760 the astros won the world series uh in 2017 and then the news broke in 2019 but they returned to the

00:22:57.040 world series in 2019 and 21 losing both times but then they won again in 2022 so obviously the news of

00:23:03.680 the astros and none of them got punished or the world series one takeaway or anything of the sort uh

00:23:07.520 didn't affect their performance in any way all right there we go we got all the trivia um okay so let's

00:23:14.960 move on to uh this story uh isaac which is one of yours goes back to alberta i had actually forgotten

00:23:21.680 about this discussion because this came up when danielle smith was running for the ucb leadership

00:23:26.480 and ultimately the premiership but now it sounds like she's making good in a part on a promise that

00:23:31.520 goes back to a very turbulent time in alberta politics yeah uh so smith is basically falling through

00:23:39.280 with one of her uh campaign pledges here and she's saying that the fall update to the province's bill

00:23:46.000 of rights will protect alberta's personal medical decisions including the right to refuse a vaccine

00:23:52.240 so this pledge initially came during a recent town hall in bonnieville attended by about 300

00:23:57.600 ucp members where smith also discussed strengthening alberta's liberties and freedoms lowering taxes

00:24:03.920 protecting the province from federal overreach and improving health care all things you'd expect from her

00:24:09.280 but then smith confirmed the plans in a statement to true north where she said quote in the fall we

00:24:15.280 will be introducing legislation to amend alberta's bill of rights several amendments are being considered

00:24:20.720 to strengthen albertans individual and property rights including an amendment to guarantee albertans

00:24:26.000 the right to accept or refuse a medical treatment so yeah as you mentioned andrew before becoming

00:24:31.840 premier in 2022 smith initially pledged to amend the alberta human rights act which would prohibit

00:24:37.440 employers from firing anyone based on their vaccination status but those were scrapped after

00:24:43.680 she was elected and she also promised to ban um post-secondary institutions from imposing vaccine

00:24:48.640 mandates on students at the time she said that any albertan who lost uh their job for basically

00:24:55.280 declining to take a vaccine was a quote human rights violation however it was realized after the fact

00:25:01.840 that the public health act takes precedence over all laws except the alberta bill of rights so her

00:25:07.360 initial plans to uh amend the alberta human rights acts wouldn't have done anything basically uh and

00:25:12.800 obviously one of her first actions when she was elected was to fire all 11 members of the alberta health 0.95

00:25:17.760 services board including the chief medical officer dr dina hinshaw who uh as any albertan will remember

00:25:26.480 advised former premier jason kenny to implement vaccine mandates uh to close schools close churches

00:25:32.080 and then they sent officers to those areas to ensure that they were complying uh and just for

00:25:38.080 the last point here uh many people may remember this which was uh during smith's first press conference

00:25:44.400 as premier she said that the unvaccinated had experienced the most discrimination of any group

00:25:49.680 in her lifetime and i'll i'll refresh your memory on a quote from justin trudeau in french so there's

00:25:56.880 a bit of different wording depending on where you're reading it but he said something along the

00:26:00.240 lines of quote there are also people who are fiercely opposed to vaccination who don't believe

00:26:05.440 in science who are often misogynistic often racist too it's a small group but it takes up space

00:26:12.240 and then he went on to say do we tolerate these people

00:26:14.800 so uh yeah i mean a lot of information in there obviously but um what do you guys feel about uh

00:26:22.960 smith finally following through with her one of her initial campaign promises to to to protect 0.99

00:26:28.480 the unvaccinated from from being fired by their employers well i think it's interesting because

00:26:36.160 in in a lot of ways and even in alberta to some extent there's just been a desire to move on from it to

00:26:40.960 accept that uh this is in the past now in some provinces it's not alberta or bc rather still has

00:26:46.560 vaccine mandates for health care workers alberta has moved on i mean all the mandates have been

00:26:51.120 repealed and i think danielle smith becoming the premier was a pretty strong rebuke of what a lot of

00:26:56.720 people including conservatives especially were frustrated about in jason kenny's government so i i

00:27:02.080 think it's good to know that she hasn't forgotten that that is an issue and that at some point in the

00:27:06.720 future there could be another government that would say hey we want to mandate this we want to impose

00:27:12.080 this and i think she's saying pretty decisively here no this is something that we will not stand for

00:27:16.880 as a province now look it's a simple act of legislation it's not like the constitution which

00:27:22.080 means that theoretically if a future government did want to do it they could still change that law

00:27:26.800 but they would have to go through that process of doing it and they would have to stare voters

00:27:30.160 in the face and say we are taking away this right you have to medical autonomy so i i think

00:27:35.280 it's a very strong move from danielle smith and probably in part because she's trying to make

00:27:39.440 sure that her base doesn't forget uh or that that her base still supports her that her base remains

00:27:45.040 in her corner yeah i think you know you bring up a good point about the base because uh any first

00:27:50.960 minister in canada whether you're a premier or a prime minister you have to be able to feed the base

00:27:56.400 i think one of the uh problems with the harper government is that he didn't you know sufficiently

00:28:01.360 feed the base uh you see a lot of discontent with doug ford because he definitely doesn't

00:28:05.520 want to do anything for his base he only really wants to do anything that keeps him in power and

00:28:09.840 the thing that got jason kenny to pose is that yeah he wasn't you know uh doing anything that the

00:28:15.040 base wanted you know he told he talked about the summer of fun and you know the summer of happiness

00:28:19.520 and then uh you know lockdowns you know a few weeks later or something like that so you know when

00:28:25.200 you're not you know attentive to the needs and wants of your base uh they're going to get rid of

00:28:30.160 you and especially in a political culture like alberta uh where there isn't you know a lot of

00:28:34.720 regard uh for you know premiers and uh leaders of political parties if you're not name is not ralph

00:28:40.320 klein so i think that you know premier smith uh you know pushing on this uh on this issue is a good

00:28:47.120 thing to you know keep those people who are starting to get a little discontent with uh you know

00:28:52.160 premier smith having to do you know premier-like things you know ribbon cuttings and you know

00:28:56.320 talking uh to you know the mayors of uh big cities that like um calgary with jody gondek who you know

00:29:02.720 she probably has to work with but you know it's not you know good optics for the base so i think

00:29:07.120 doing this uh for the base is a good thing my one concern will be that i think that adding things to

00:29:13.040 the alberta bill of rights uh will especially things that are a bit more frivolous uh will lead to

00:29:19.840 future governments perhaps a future ndp government adding things that you know conservatives uh do

00:29:25.120 not like i think once you open the door to you know exempting uh or you know adding say a vaccine

00:29:31.520 as a vaccine status as a protected uh protected status under the bill of rights you know you might

00:29:36.000 get um the ndp coming in and adding you know transgenderism or the the right uh to be able to

00:29:42.000 access uh transgender health care as a youth uh you know it's it's a slippery slope that you don't

00:29:46.880 want to sort of give the other idea uh the other side ideas uh how to you know sort of abuse that

00:29:52.240 power but uh all in all i think that i agree with the policy uh and you know people being discriminated

00:29:58.160 against vaccines is exactly something that uh we we care for uh that's for sure yeah i i so i would

00:30:05.680 agree with that my sense would be that you know effectively we're looking at constitutions and bills of

00:30:14.720 rights should be broad for that reason and and you know and not to get too boring because i'm the one

00:30:19.520 that always says we have to keep things light on off the record but you want like you want these

00:30:24.240 things to be negative liberties where you're trying to protect against the government doing something

00:30:29.040 rather than to guarantee something so uh the charter is really meant to constrain government it's

00:30:33.760 not meant to constrain canadians and i think the same should be true of a bill of rights so you're

00:30:37.760 right there is a risk though that once you start just tacking things onto this that it becomes

00:30:41.760 a tool where any other government can start like trying to manufacture these rights so i i think

00:30:46.480 these things should be done sparingly i know this is part of a broader update it's not like the

00:30:50.640 government's just going in to make this one change which i think is is uh is an important part of this

00:30:55.680 but i i think you raise a valid a valid issue there a valid possible issue uh just keeping with the theme

00:31:01.600 of alberta noah you had this story this week which was phenomenal so we've seen all sorts of examples

00:31:07.440 across the country of activists trying to take down statues and monuments and murals and rewrite

00:31:13.120 history and there's yet another example of this at the university of alberta take it away

00:31:19.040 yeah so there is this mural in the library of the university of alberta it is called the alberta history

00:31:24.960 mural also known as the glide mural because it was painted by a renowned artist named henry george

00:31:31.280 glide back in 1951 he helped to establish the fine arts department in the uh the university of alberta

00:31:38.160 in 1946 and he's just a influential uh artist in his own right but and he drew a image of basically

00:31:46.480 alberta's pioneer history and uh the history of christian missionary work uh in alberta so uh if you

00:31:54.400 see the mural you have uh father uh lacombe on the right and you have uh another uh christian uh

00:32:02.320 missionary george mcdougall on the left and they're seen sort of preaching toward uh to a group of

00:32:07.680 indigenous people as uh you know some tps are in the background you see a church in the background and

00:32:12.800 in the very back you see fort edmonton old uh fort edmonton uh and this is really supposed to be a

00:32:19.600 mural to help commemorate uh alberta's history and it's not a mural to denigrate the indigenous people

00:32:25.600 in fact back in 1951 to put uh indigenous people in such a prominent place on a mural in a public

00:32:32.960 library like the university of alberta's uh you you know it was a a groundbreaking thing this is not

00:32:38.640 something that was done back in those sort of uh backwards times however uh nowadays nowadays um you

00:32:45.680 have activists you know anti-colonial anti-racist uh those sort of types uh who are trying to

00:32:52.080 reinterpret what this mural is actually supposed to be they're trying to say that the glide mural is

00:32:56.720 some racist monument that needs to be uh torn down and you know anytime someone walks by this mural

00:33:03.440 especially if they're of indigenous ancestry you know they're they're just filled with a hatred and 1.00

00:33:08.240 you know uh you know they're like victimized or something like that even though uh you have a

00:33:12.960 uh indigenous uh professor uh who came out in opposition uh to destroying and removing them

00:33:19.840 uh the mural there's a indigenous professor at the fine uh in the department of fine arts named tanya

00:33:25.200 harnett who said that uh quote rather than destroying the mural a diet a didactic panel is needed one that

00:33:31.520 gives context to this uh complex subject matter and she's right this is you know a complex uh subject you

00:33:36.800 know there uh was uh some uh terrible things that were done to the indigenous people in canada

00:33:41.920 uh and you know during the process of colonialization but at the end of the day uh this mural is not a

00:33:48.800 depiction of you know glorifying you know uh conquering the indigenous peoples it is instead you know 0.95

00:33:54.320 depicting two christian missionaries uh doing missionary work and helping uh to you know introduce

00:34:00.480 uh christianity uh to peoples who had not known christianity and you do have uh communities of

00:34:06.800 indigenous christians around canada who i i would assume would reject the tearing down of this mural

00:34:12.800 but we've seen this before we've seen the left try and tear down statues they've tried uh you know

00:34:17.840 whenever they are you know trying to protest environmental issues they put pasta sauce on you

00:34:23.040 know uh very uh historic uh pieces of art uh so uh this is you know a trend that has been going on for

00:34:30.320 about a decade or so now but um it seems as if there's some pushback uh toward this mural being

00:34:36.640 taken down but what is uh your guys's thoughts on uh this issue yeah just uh i don't know you're dressed

00:34:43.520 like an art critic isaac so you have to take this i know i'm like hey my uncle lives in lacombe but

00:34:47.680 i'm hardly a historian so i don't know if it was named after that missionary but uh yeah just just maybe

00:34:53.200 thinking of the last story even uh in regard to legislative protection i mean maybe there has to

00:34:58.480 be and i'm not normally someone to advocate for additional bureaucracy in any sense but maybe there

00:35:04.160 has to be some further protections against historical destruction let's call it i mean erasing of history

00:35:11.600 really is what many of these examples are wherein not just woke ideologues but any extremist or

00:35:19.760 other group could could try and rewrite history if you will to to make it more to their liking which

00:35:28.800 i mean look history was a terrible thing uh in in many points in time but it's there so that we can

00:35:34.320 learn from it and grow as a society so if we erase that in any way i mean we're really shooting ourselves

00:35:41.120 in the foot here because the the most important thing that history serves to be is is is a lesson for

00:35:47.600 modern and future societies so i i really i don't know whether either of you have any ideas on how

00:35:54.880 some sort of protections could be implemented especially in the scholarly setting because

00:35:58.560 we've seen so many of this of these uh occurrences happen at university or or colleges uh but i don't

00:36:06.080 know what do you guys think about that well i i mean my the problem is that if you have two choices

00:36:11.680 between take the thing down or destroy the thing and add interpretive panels or additional context

00:36:18.240 to it i'll obviously pick that but even that i feel is coming oftentimes from a negative place because

00:36:24.240 it starts from the bench from the the baseline position that history is something we need to

00:36:28.560 apologize for i mean art is uh reflecting a lot of things it reflects the artist's view of a search of a

00:36:35.680 circumstance and it reflects the circumstance itself i mean remember the last supper is not

00:36:40.640 a depiction of the last supper as itself it's a depiction of the last supper as envisioned

00:36:46.240 by leonardo da vinci and i think that's important and in the case of this mural

00:36:50.640 the context is very much not anti-indigenous and the relationship that the uh people in the picture had

00:36:58.240 were actually not anti-indigenous and it's interesting when you study early canadian history

00:37:04.560 and you study the the people that engaged with like the first you know literal settlers or even before

00:37:10.960 settlement the first traders people like jacques cartier and then champlain and all of these people

00:37:16.080 oftentimes they forged incredibly strong relationships with indigenous people they had a tremendous amount

00:37:21.920 of respect for them and that respect was reciprocated and that doesn't mean that attitudes might

00:37:27.360 not have you know been antiquated by today's standards but we we oftentimes paint indigenous

00:37:33.040 people quite wrongfully as victims when they had agency they chose to trade they chose to engage

00:37:38.240 remember these people could have just killed anyone that turned up at their shores and in some cases

00:37:42.400 that did happen in some parts of the world that did happen to people that attempted to colonize or

00:37:47.840 settle but this art is not at all anything to be ashamed of or afraid of and it's quite despicable that

00:37:52.960 there is a push for that no and you know in the picture is uh you have depicted uh father albert

00:37:59.920 lacombe albert lacombe is of partly indigenous ancestry he is not someone who hated the indigenous

00:38:05.600 people he was one of the first pioneers who came uh to alberta and he actually helped uh helped work with

00:38:12.400 the indigenous people well he was a pastor he was a minister who had you know uh worked with the

00:38:18.400 indigenous people he had uh shared the word of god uh with indigenous people who had previously not uh

00:38:24.480 you know been uh accessed with the word of god and uh he was a great friend to a great many uh

00:38:31.200 indigenous people uh in his time uh he was a friend of indigenous people indigenous people uh loved him

00:38:37.120 and in modern times he is someone who is scorned uh which is a real shame because it is the erasure of

00:38:43.360 history and is uh the sort of smearing of someone who cannot uh you know in modern times defend

00:38:49.360 themselves if he if he were here to defend himself himself he would be able to you know say those

00:38:54.080 things but it is incumbent upon people like us uh to you know spread that his story to really you know

00:39:00.640 correct the facts and we see the the same thing happening to egerton ryerson uh we see um the same

00:39:06.400 thing happening to dundas you know the removal of his name from young and dundas square uh you know these

00:39:11.520 people they can't you know from the grave defend themselves uh and we don't have enough good people

00:39:16.720 who are willing to stand up for them saying no these aren't aren't vicious racist uh people these

00:39:21.680 are people who in their own time tried to do good things maybe made some mistakes you know from

00:39:26.560 researching uh father lacombe i didn't see anything wrong that he did he just seemed like a good friend

00:39:31.040 to the indigenous people and helped to establish um would now become alberta so i i think that it is

00:39:38.240 really uh destructive uh when we try to you know destroy our history uh because that is the foundation

00:39:44.720 upon which canada was built and once we destroy the foundation uh we we can't exactly um we can't

00:39:52.160 continue on as we are continuing now uh you know these activists they do want uh to destroy canada they

00:39:58.560 do want to destroy the west they're pretty open and about open about it uh but you know they're doing it

00:40:03.600 one step at a time and this is uh one step that that they are taking and i hope that you know

00:40:08.960 mcdougall uh lacombe and the person who uh drew this um mural glide uh they have their reputations

00:40:15.760 restored because right now they are being smeared well i was going to and i mean i always say we have

00:40:21.680 to keep it light and then you go with western civilization is being destroyed but you also had

00:40:25.840 such a mic drop there there's no point adding anything on to it so uh we're out of time for the show today

00:40:31.920 uh isaac lamoureux and noah jarvis catch their work over at tnz.news including on daily brief i'm andrew

00:40:38.400 lawton good to see you all we will have yeah i don't even know what i'm saying now this is the

00:40:42.400 problem we're going live today i don't edit that out i leave my nonsense in i sounded like joe biden

00:40:47.040 there for a second anyway uh there we go we can end on a light note have a great weekend everyone we

00:40:53.120 will talk to you next time i forgot to do the tagline i knew that's why i was fumbling i knew

00:41:05.120 there was something i was forgetting and i was supposed to say everything you heard was off the

00:41:09.040 record and i missed it all right i'm firing myself from off the record you've been uh you've caught

00:41:14.400 biden fever that's for sure you know i think that when uh when when biden you know is done with the

00:41:18.800 presidency we should invite him to you know become part of the true north team see see how that go

00:41:23.600 how that go over with our donors not well

Juno News - July 26, 2024

Too many immigrants in Canada？

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