Juno News - Trudeau's legacy lives on in Mark Carney's cabinet picks

00:00:00.000 Prime Minister Mark Carney has unveiled his Liberal-Minority government cabinet.

00:00:09.000 During the election, Carney pledged to scale back immigration, but experts say his plan fails to address temporary immigration and those who overstay their visas.

00:00:18.000 A Liberal government-funded ad campaign promoting mass immigration in Victoria, BC is rife with anti-Canadian and pro-DEI messaging.

00:00:29.000 Hello Canada, it's Wednesday, May 14th, and this is the True North Daily Brief. I'm Cosmin Georgia.

00:00:36.000 And I'm Noah Jarvis.

00:00:37.000 We've got you covered with all the news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.

00:00:46.000 Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled his new cabinet of 28 ministers, half of whom were in former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's inner circle.

00:00:59.000 Governor-General Mary Simon swore in several new faces at Rideau Hall on Tuesday morning, including ten secretaries of state.

00:01:08.000 Carney said in a statement,

00:01:10.000 Canada's new ministry is built to deliver the change Canadians want and deserve. Everyone is expected and empowered to show leadership, to bring new ideas, a clear focus and decisive action to their work.

00:01:25.000 The cabinet will be divided into two groups of 30 senior ministers who will hold major portfolios and up to ten secretaries of state or junior ministers.

00:01:36.000 The so-called, quote, true gender parity cabinet is composed of 14 men and 14 women.

00:01:43.000 Regionally, there are 14 members from Ontario, nine from Quebec, five from BC, two from Nova Scotia, and one from Saskatchewan.

00:01:53.000 Some of the more prominent profiles include Francois-Philippe Champagne, sworn in as Minister of Finance and National Revenue.

00:02:02.000 Anita Anand was appointed to be the new Minister of Foreign Affairs.

00:02:06.000 David McGinty became the Minister of National Defense.

00:02:10.000 Sean Fraser became Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.

00:02:19.000 Chrystia Freeland was sworn in as Minister of Transport and Internal Trade.

00:02:24.000 Meanwhile, Dominic LeBlanc, who served as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, had Canada-US Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs, and one Canadian economy added to his ministerial profile.

00:02:37.000 So, Noah, on Tuesday morning when you were watching this, were there any other notable ministers reappointed from the Trudeau days that stood out to you

00:02:48.000 And is Carney's new cabinet really representative of the change he campaigned on when running for Prime Minister?

00:02:58.000 Yeah, it was a pretty long swearing-in ceremony, so I got a lot of time to really see all of the familiar faces from the Trudeau government era.

00:03:07.000 Some of the names you already mentioned, Anita Anand, sworn in as the Foreign Affairs Minister.

00:03:13.000 She used to hold several cabinet positions in the Trudeau government, including, but not limited to, the Minister of National Defense, the Treasury Board President, and also the Minister of Transportation and Minister of Internal Trade.

00:03:29.000 And let's just think back to the Trudeau government's record on defence policy in the past nine years.

00:03:35.000 She oversaw a lot of the ideological push for left-wing causes in the Canadian Armed Forces,

00:03:43.000 and also oversaw a lot of spending that happened while she was the President of the Treasury Board, having to rubber stamp all those spending commitments.

00:03:53.000 So it will be interesting to see what she does in the role of Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is formerly Melanie Jolie,

00:04:01.000 who is now the Minister of Industry and the Minister responsible for economic development.

00:04:06.000 Melanie Jolie, many critics have pointed to her as being one of the more incompetent cabinet ministers within the Trudeau government,

00:04:13.000 especially with Canada's reaction to the Israel-Hamas conflict when Hamas butchered 1,200 Israeli civilians,

00:04:25.000 took hundreds of hostages, and Israel's subsequent war to eliminate Hamas.

00:04:30.000 A lot of the messaging that came from the Foreign Affairs Minister Jolie was mixed,

00:04:36.000 and she definitely gave the impression that Canada would not be standing by Israel during their time of need,

00:04:44.000 especially when they have the international community breathing down their necks.

00:04:49.000 You also have François-Philippe Champagne, who, like Anand, served in multiple positions in the government,

00:04:57.000 Minister of International Trade, Foreign Affairs Minister before it was Melanie Jolie,

00:05:03.000 and you also have people like Sean Frazier, who was the former Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Housing,

00:05:09.000 oversaw record ballooning in housing prices over the past few years when he was the Minister of Housing

00:05:16.000 and oversaw record ballooning of immigration numbers when he was the Minister of Immigration.

00:05:22.000 Definitely someone who has drawn the ire of the Conservative Party

00:05:26.000 and many of the critics of the Trudeau government's housing and immigration policies.

00:05:31.000 And we also have someone, Stephen Guibault, who is more than likely going to draw the ire of Western Canada.

00:05:37.000 He is back in cabinet at this time as the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture,

00:05:41.000 and also the Minister responsible for official languages.

00:05:45.000 He's not in the Minister of Environment portfolio anymore, but at the same time, he is a radical environmentalist,

00:05:52.000 notoriously climbed the CN Tower and climbed the former Premier of Alberta's house and was on his roof to protest for environmental causes.

00:06:04.000 This is the guy who oversaw many of the Trudeau government's restrictive environmental policies,

00:06:10.000 and Daniel Smith has condemned him as a climate radical who needs to be excluded from cabinet.

00:06:18.000 But I guess Prime Minister Carney thought that there was no reason to exclude him from cabinet.

00:06:24.000 And just quickly, other prominent names within the Trudeau government.

00:06:28.000 Dominic LeBlanc, a trusted confidant of Justin Trudeau, he makes it back into cabinet.

00:06:34.000 Joel Lightbound, Patty Hajdu, Stephen McKinnon, these are all familiar faces from the Trudeau government years.

00:06:42.000 So, there's a lot of continuity here, and a lot of the critics of the Trudeau government are also probably not happy that

00:06:50.000 Carney is appointing a lot of the ministers responsible for overseeing and implementing many of the disastrous policies

00:06:58.000 that people didn't like over the past ten years.

00:07:02.000 So, this is not really very much of a change in terms of the personnel that will be operating the levers of government.

00:07:09.000 Although there are some fresh faces, many of these fresh faces are sort of status quo liberals.

00:07:16.000 For example, someone like Gregor Robertson, he's now the Minister of Housing.

00:07:20.000 He's someone who has basically condemned the idea that foreign nationals have been buying up housing and leaving it vacant,

00:07:29.000 leading to problems with the housing crisis.

00:07:32.000 He basically denied that this was happening and accused those who were making those claims of racism.

00:07:37.000 And this is the person who's going to be the Minister of Housing.

00:07:41.000 Evan Solomon, who has been a close confidant of Mark Carney for many years,

00:07:47.000 even got fired from the CBC for certain art deals that involved Mark Carney.

00:07:51.000 He's going to be in cabinet under the new role of Minister of AI and Digital Innovation.

00:07:58.000 So, we'll see how this Carney government operates and if they're any different from the Trudeau cabinet

00:08:06.000 and how they've operated over the past nine and a half years.

00:08:09.000 But for the critics of the Liberal government and Prime Minister Carney,

00:08:14.000 it definitely looks like this is going to be something of a status quo government.

00:08:19.000 And for those who were looking for change from the past Prime Minister,

00:08:24.000 I think they might be slightly disappointed.

00:08:29.000 Prime Minister Mark Carney's pledge to return Canada's immigration back to, quote,

00:08:33.000 sustainable levels fails to account for non-permanent residents who strain various social services and public infrastructure, 1.00

00:08:40.000 especially when they overstay their visas.

00:08:43.000 Carney said that his government would cap immigration at 5% of Canada's total population by the end of 2027,

00:08:50.000 including both temporary foreign workers and international students.

00:08:54.000 During his first press conference as Prime Minister, Carney said, quote,

00:08:59.000 it's a sharp drop from the recent high of 7.3%.

00:09:02.000 This will help ease strains on housing, on public infrastructure and social services.

00:09:07.000 According to Statistics Canada, there are currently just over 3 million non-permanent residents in the country,

00:09:14.000 and likely a sizable portion may not agree to leave on their own once their visas have expired.

00:09:21.000 This problem is at the root of this issue for immigration lawyer Sergio Carras.

00:09:25.000 Carras said, quote,

00:09:26.000 the problem with the Prime Minister's statements and with the Statistics Canada data

00:09:30.000 is he is relying on is that they do not reflect reality.

00:09:34.000 Many individuals whose permits expire have limited or no path to permanent residency,

00:09:39.000 so they simply stay and join the underground economy.

00:09:42.000 Non-permanent residents include international students, work permit holders, asylum claimants,

00:09:48.000 and family members of work or study permit holders.

00:09:51.000 Carney said he intends to maintain the reduction in immigration levels that was ushered in late last year,

00:09:56.000 while Justin Trudeau was still Prime Minister.

00:09:58.000 The 2025-2027 immigration levels plan was released last fall

00:10:03.000 and aims to gradually reduce the number of migrants from 600,730 this year

00:10:09.000 to 500,016 in 2026 and 543,000 in 2027.

00:10:16.000 While Statistics Canada's estimates are predicted on the presumption that visa holders

00:10:21.000 whose permits have expired will voluntarily leave the country within 120 days,

00:10:25.000 many do not, remaining and working in Canada illegally.

00:10:28.000 Additionally, what happens often is that those with expected permits seek alternative methods to prolong their stay.

00:10:36.000 According to Kairos, many international students whose, quote,

00:10:40.000 post-graduation work permits have expired are resorting to pursuing refugee claims

00:10:45.000 to extend their stay in Canada even though they may be unfounded.

00:10:49.000 So, Kozman, how many non-permanent residents are in Canada

00:10:53.000 and how prevalent is the practice of international students filing asylum claims before their visa expires?

00:10:58.000 Yeah, so we just saw some government data being released.

00:11:03.000 It was reported on by Global News this week

00:11:06.000 and the numbers show that international students in 2024 filed a record 20,245 asylum claims.

00:11:19.000 Now, to put that into perspective, that's more than in 2022 when Roxham Road was still open

00:11:27.000 and there were illegal border crossings happening on the daily.

00:11:33.000 That year was actually less than the 2024 international student asylum claims.

00:11:40.000 It's almost as much as the record illegal asylum crossings which happened in 2023.

00:11:48.000 That reached about 30,000 that year.

00:11:51.000 And since they've closed Roxham Road, it's slowed down a little bit, but they're still happening.

00:11:56.000 But just to get a grasp on that, we are letting in 20, well rather, these people are already here,

00:12:04.000 but we are accepting 20,245 asylum claims from international students.

00:12:11.000 And we should assume that most of these are not legitimate asylum claims.

00:12:17.000 What this does is it increases the backlog.

00:12:20.000 People with legitimate asylum claims get delays.

00:12:25.000 They have to stay in Canada longer before they get an answer.

00:12:29.000 And who knows when these illegitimate claims will be settled and these people will be deported.

00:12:36.000 There's really no telling the time that it's going to require at this point.

00:12:41.000 And it's a significant increase from previous years and it's not showing any sign of letting down.

00:12:47.000 As long as we're letting in a huge number of international students,

00:12:51.000 they can potentially, there's nothing preventing them from filing an asylum claim,

00:12:57.000 whether it's legitimate or not.

00:12:59.000 And in 2025, it could be higher.

00:13:03.000 It's actually trending to be higher this year.

00:13:06.000 With regard to actually how prevalent this is, I think it's obvious that it's become a loophole

00:13:13.000 for international students wanting to overstay their welcome, wanting to overstay their visa.

00:13:19.000 And it's also very hard for the government bureaucracy to even know or pinpoint how many non-permanent residents

00:13:29.000 who are here on temporary visas refuse to leave.

00:13:33.000 They don't really keep track of this.

00:13:35.000 So the entire immigration and asylum system needs a reassessment.

00:13:40.000 There needs to be reform.

00:13:42.000 There needs to be safeties in place to prevent illegitimate claims from being filed in the first place.

00:13:52.000 Taxpayers are funding an ad blitz to push mass migration onto Vancouver Island

00:13:57.000 with profiles that encourage anti-Canadian attitudes, LGBT activism, and DEI ideology.

00:14:04.000 In 2025 alone, the Intercultural Association of Greater Victoria received $15.2 million from taxpayers.

00:14:14.000 The group is currently running a taxpayer-funded campaign spotlighting migrants who openly espouse 1.00

00:14:20.000 anti-Canadian rhetoric, call for decolonization, and paint Canada as a country steeped in systemic racism and exclusion.

00:14:29.000 The campaign cost nearly $300,000.

00:14:33.000 The ad blitz titled, I'm more than the immigrant you had in mind,

00:14:37.000 is part of a federally supported effort through the Department of Canadian Heritage

00:14:41.000 to push further immigration onto a skeptical Canadian public,

00:14:45.000 as concerns have grown amid record high migration, housing shortages, and strained public services.

00:14:51.000 According to federal grants and contributions records,

00:14:54.000 the Intercultural Association of Greater Victoria has received $15.26 million from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada,

00:15:04.000 Employment and Social Development Canada, and other departments this year.

00:15:08.000 Ads have appeared across the Greater Victoria area on bus shelters and other public infrastructure.

00:15:14.000 The organization wrote, quote,

00:15:18.000 nationwide political shifts, soaring living costs, housing insecurity, and an overburdened healthcare system

00:15:24.000 have ignited a surge in an anti-immigration sentiment.

00:15:28.000 However, it is crucial to recognize that these challenges are not caused by immigration.

00:15:33.000 Despite these concerns, Ottawa has doubled down funding projects that veer away from promoting integration,

00:15:40.000 and instead amplify divisive ideologies rooted in identity politics and social justice activism.

00:15:48.000 The association interviewed several immigrants who shared their stories about their experiences as newcomers,

00:15:55.000 with some of the interviewees expressing radical views on the Israel-Hamas conflict and the very legitimacy of Canada.

00:16:04.000 Yasmin Barakat, a self-described, quote,

00:16:07.000 Uninvited racialized settler from Jordan says she is an indigenous Palestinian but feels guilty for participating in what she calls a settler colonial system.

00:16:19.000 Baccarat said, quote,

00:16:20.000 Here, as an indigenous person, I am living on land that was taken from the indigenous peoples,

00:16:26.000 and I never even asked to be invited.

00:16:28.000 I wasn't asked, I didn't even try to reach out when I first got here.

00:16:32.000 In a video posted to the ICA's website, Barakat calls Canada, quote,

00:16:37.000 So-called Canada and Turtle Island, a term used by indigenous Canadians based on their folklore.

00:16:43.000 Barakat, a self-described queer Arab, says she often feels unwelcome and that she does not fit in because of her status as a, quote,

00:16:53.000 Person of color and her self-identification as a non-binary lesbian.

00:16:58.000 Noah, you investigated this story. What other things did you discover while looking into this program?

00:17:05.000 And is this in line with some of the immigration messaging Carney delivered during the campaign that we discussed earlier?

00:17:12.000 Well, it's very interesting that the federal government has been basically subsidizing and giving millions upon millions of dollars of grant money to this association that's supposed to deliver certain services to immigrants.

00:17:25.000 And then they also get them to develop this ad campaign besides some of their normal immigration related activities to basically promote a agenda that is in line with the Trudeau government from 2015 to 2024,

00:17:44.000 before the Liberal Party has had this change of tune on the immigration front.

00:17:49.000 And, you know, as I think a lot of viewers would realize, this is in direct contradiction to what Mark Carney has been promising Canadians.

00:17:56.000 He's been promising a diversion from the status quo, reducing immigration numbers on the permanent side and for temporary residents here.

00:18:07.000 But Mark Carney and his government is currently funding a program that is telling people that, hey, mass immigration is actually a good thing.

00:18:16.000 Immigration is not causing housing prices to go up. There's no supply and demand crisis.

00:18:23.000 Immigration is not causing social services to be strained for roads to wear down quicker for there to be less availability in health care centers and hospitals, et cetera, et cetera.

00:18:35.000 You know, these things that Canadians are noticing in their daily lives.

00:18:39.000 These are the things that they want to tell you just don't exist.

00:18:42.000 And on top of that, they're just pushing a very anti-Canadian message, despite the quote unquote pro-Canadian anti-American message that Carney delivered on the campaign trail over the past few months.

00:18:56.000 You know, Mark Carney was talking about the pride of Canada and being proud in our English and French heritage while you have people on this government funded program talking about how Canada is a so-called country and that really we should be using the term Turtle Island and that, you know, this settler colonial state is illegitimate in some way.

00:19:18.000 And, you know, how this country is just very oppressive to racial minorities and sexual minorities. 0.96

00:19:25.000 This is the type of message that the government of Canada is funding.

00:19:29.000 They're messaging and promoting this agenda to one sort of audience, one far left audience that does exist in the Vancouver, Victoria, just in general in the cities of BC.

00:19:44.000 And I'm assuming that this is happening to other big cities in Canada, like Toronto, where there is that far left audience.

00:19:51.000 And then he goes on the campaign trail when he's trying to communicate to the average Canadian and he's trying to express pride in Canada.

00:19:59.000 It is deeply cynical for the Canadian government to be operating at cross purposes in this way in a politically convenient manner.

00:20:09.000 But at the end of the day, cynicism is a word that many Canadians are using to describe the Liberal Party, a cynical party that is willing to implement carbon taxes and then decrease them when it's convenient.

00:20:21.000 A party that is willing to wrap up immigration on ideological grounds and then decrease immigration while calling their critics who previously were advocating for decreases in immigration racist.

00:20:34.000 It's something that a lot of Canadians are really sick of.

00:20:39.000 And this is just another example of the cynical far left funding of certain organizations while communicating a different message to Canadians on the campaign trail and just in general.

00:20:51.000 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by subscribing to The Daily Brief on iTunes and Spotify.

00:21:03.000 Also, while you're at it, make sure to hit us with a five star rating and please leave a review.

00:21:09.000 You can stay on top of new episodes every week.

Juno News - May 14, 2025

Trudeau's legacy lives on in Mark Carney's cabinet picks

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