Off the Record - 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

00:00:06.180 the bow tie before so i thought you know it was time to bust it out in his uh honorable presence

00:00:10.540 well i'm sorry guys i can't hear anything just give me a sec

00:00:13.960 he missed we're off to a great start okay i can okay i can hear you now perfect oh wonderful there

00:00:24.400 we go and now you're trying to thank you andrew i was like wait i can't hear anyone now what's going

00:00:33.300 on oh god all right let's get this train wreck started

00:00:37.840 hello and welcome to off the record this is the friday confab we take a regular cast of characters

00:00:52.120 from true north we mix it up but they're all familiar faces or voices and we try to unpack

00:00:57.360 the week that was talk about some of our top stories of the week the oddball stuff we didn't

00:01:01.560 get to and basically whatever else comes to mind uh joining me i'm andrew lawton by the way hi good

00:01:06.320 to see you thanks for coming uh joining me once again are isaac lamaru who you see at tnc.news

00:01:12.380 and also here on the daily brief as well as noah jarvis for whom the same description applies but

00:01:17.140 isaac noah welcome good to have you both here how was your week that's doing well and uh glad

00:01:23.000 to be able to actually hear you this time but uh yeah doing good how how is uh how are things where

00:01:29.000 you are isaac because i know you're not that far from jasper has like have you had any of the kind

00:01:33.700 of the smoke and and what yeah in edmonton uh actually i i had to drive um to my mom's place

00:01:39.740 downtown uh yesterday and uh my eyes were just bugging me so much i was like i need some visine and

00:01:45.780 and then i looked in the sky and i was like i can barely see anything like i mean it was so smoky

00:01:49.560 it wasn't like a fog or anything but just that my my vision was was cloudy in that sense so yeah

00:01:54.700 we're definitely feeling the effects of uh the fire here uh but certainly nowhere near what's happening

00:02:00.540 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

00:02:07.140 calgary i think i was in calgary and banff a few years back when there were wildfires

00:02:11.280 in bc and it really is astonishing it's not really something i get in southern ontario it's

00:02:16.440 astonishing just how much that travels like how much the smell travels and and the ash travels and

00:02:22.360 uh uh it's it's the one i know you were in alberta recently no it's the one thing you that's like

00:02:26.760 always weird when you experience what was happening in jasper has been been absolutely terrible where um

00:02:31.340 we try to keep things light on this show so i we aren't going to go into uh the wildfire situation

00:02:35.980 here but we do have reporting on it at true north and and i would encourage people to take a look at

00:02:41.020 danielle smith's press conference yesterday she was incredibly incredibly moved as i know a lot of

00:02:46.160 people in alberta are by what's been happening there and just the devastation on that but uh that's as

00:02:51.640 dark as we'll get things on this episode for now i do want to go into this story which came up and i

00:02:57.880 find it to be a bit of an interesting one so we covered immigration a lot at true north it was

00:03:02.440 really our foundational issue back when when candace malcolm launched the organization because she

00:03:07.200 saw that no one else in the country was really having a grown-up conversation on immigration

00:03:11.500 and we have seen the liberal government just completely trample all over the immigration

00:03:18.140 system they've trampled all over now the immigration consensus that canadians used to have 0.98

00:03:23.460 that immigration was a really positive thing for the country that it was adding to the cultural fabric

00:03:29.000 the economic fabric all of these things and one of the issues about which i warned and candace

00:03:33.860 malcolm warned and other people warned quite some time ago was that when the liberal government stops

00:03:38.740 taking things in this system seriously it turns canadians against immigrants and it's not to justify

00:03:45.020 that it's just a statement of fact and that's exactly what's happening now a new poll

00:03:49.440 shows that 60 percent of canadians say canada is admitting too many immigrants they feel

00:03:56.540 the poll says like it's the highest on record in the century this is i think incredibly incredibly

00:04:03.040 damaging statistic because when you have canadians that start to view that and by the way

00:04:07.160 the liberals have effectively acknowledged this is the case when they talk about

00:04:11.560 in trudeau's eyes bringing in more than we could absorb or beyond what canada could absorb

00:04:16.460 but it means that canadians are likely to overreact and say that we need perhaps fewer

00:04:22.020 than the country could sustain and you pointed out something isaac before we were on air that i

00:04:27.360 think was interesting that that even this is based on a perception that is in and of itself

00:04:32.400 an inaccurate assessment is it not yeah and that's whenever i mean obviously there's a lot of polls that

00:04:39.240 have been coming out uh recently on immigration and the first thing i always do when reading an article

00:04:44.980 or a poll about immigration is i say okay did they preface their questions with

00:04:50.160 canada immigrates x amount of people per year and in large it's always the same 500 000 per year sum

00:04:57.600 which we know is inaccurate as candace malcolm previously reported with true north uh the liberals

00:05:04.500 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

00:05:16.140 included a number which has been on the rise so when we see staggering numbers of widespread

00:05:22.720 disapproval of canada's immigration plan based on the 500 000 number you can only imagine what it would

00:05:30.840 be if if we were talking with the real digits in the multi-millions you're right these numbers often

00:05:36.660 get separated out and people focus only on the permanent resident number which is an important number but

00:05:42.360 you also have to look at international student visas you have to look at temporary foreign workers

00:05:46.880 because you're still bringing in new people into the country and in some cases people are coming in for

00:05:51.520 you know a period of time but you know often that period of time is three four years especially for

00:05:56.340 student visas so in the end you have a massively ballooning uh immigration uh cohort in canada

00:06:02.860 and it's not being captured by the official data so i mean no it's no surprise the canadians are saying

00:06:08.300 hey maybe it's a little bit too much no absolutely i mean to have a immigration system that maintains

00:06:14.760 the support of the common people uh you need to have you know the uh the public you know being

00:06:19.640 involved in the process and when the public tells you uh that we're bringing in too many people the

00:06:24.480 government has to respond to those concerns and the true to government they clearly have not uh

00:06:29.140 responded to those concerns sure the immigration minister has said that they're going to reduce the

00:06:34.280 amount of uh foreign students that they're bringing into the country but statistics show that

00:06:38.880 uh the rate at which we are admitting uh foreign students to this country has stayed the same since

00:06:44.720 uh years past or has even increased slightly so uh when we're bringing in excess amount of foreign

00:06:50.620 students that are you know coming into our universities basically to help prop them up and to help

00:06:56.260 uh finance them because they are kind of struggling uh and when we're bringing in uh permanent

00:07:01.620 residents and we're bringing in temporary foreign workers who are potentially taking jobs that you

00:07:05.580 know other canadians can take you know they're taking low-wage jobs that a lot of canadian youth

00:07:10.140 uh are who would normally uh take up these jobs for example working at a tim hortons or at a grocery

00:07:15.600 store my first job was at a grocery store uh and you know that was a really good uh stepping stone for

00:07:21.480 me to be able to go on to uh you know better bigger and better things so a lot of young canadians

00:07:26.620 are being denied that a lot of you know just canadians in general are seeing that they are having a

00:07:31.000 harder time uh being able to find jobs being able to you know find a house to live in and be able to

00:07:36.520 find an affordable house to live in so when all these factors are taken into consideration the

00:07:41.740 canadian people are obviously going to turn against the immigration system and that did not have to it 1.00

00:07:46.720 did not have to be this way the trudeau government could have you know brought in about maybe half as

00:07:51.180 much as people as they've brought in and you focus on economic policies that would help this country

00:07:56.240 flourish whether that be uh focusing on expanding home building and whatnot uh but instead they've

00:08:01.720 done the opposite they focus on ratcheting up immigration to artificially boost our gdp

00:08:05.860 uh and you know canadians are suffering for that and uh sentiment against uh immigration is rising

00:08:12.180 because of it and i i have the previous numbers here from 2023 which was uh 500 000 permanent residents

00:08:19.640 660 000 temporary foreign workers 900 000 international uh students and just under 144 000

00:08:27.320 illegal immigrants so that was for a total of 2.2 million people yes in 2023 no that that's massive

00:08:33.680 and i think the issue is is that it's not like people want to claim that criticism of immigration

00:08:39.500 is a moral judgment that if someone criticizes the immigration system it's it's because you're racist

00:08:45.640 or it's because you're you're making some moral position against immigration a lot of this is a

00:08:50.780 numerical issue and and this is what conservative leader pierre polyev was talking about when he said

00:08:55.720 we need to tie immigration numbers to available housing available jobs capacity in the social

00:09:00.800 services sector because a lot of the stuff is just a matter of math and if you're not able to serve

00:09:04.820 your existing citizens and residents or the immigrants because there's nowhere for them to live they 1.00

00:09:09.580 can't affordably buy a house they can't find a job then you're not helping anyone are you

00:09:13.120 yeah for me it's not all i mean start with you isaac thanks thanks for me it's it's definitely

00:09:20.040 mathematical uh what what what comes to mind is uh obviously alberta uh announced educational

00:09:26.000 funding just a few days ago which uh education minister nicolaides said was a very um abnormal to

00:09:32.260 happen outside of a budget cycle and they said look this is because so many people came to alberta our

00:09:37.480 schools are overflowing we don't have enough teachers they need money uh if we don't provide it to

00:09:42.520 them we're looking at students who who don't have a classroom to learn i mean you can't imagine a

00:09:48.360 worse scenario in a society than than uh no education for children realistically and i mean the same can

00:09:56.100 be said for hospitals any publicly funded resource where where we can only support so many new

00:10:02.400 individuals okay go ahead noah yeah i mean uh isaac brings up the fact that you know our social services

00:10:12.660 are being strained uh you even look at the health care system in which you know waiting times have

00:10:17.480 not gotten any better you know if you lived in canada in the past you know 10 years you know that

00:10:22.060 waiting times have never been a good yeah never been a strong point in our health care system and

00:10:28.180 they're only getting worse because you know more and more people are coming to the country uh they're 1.00

00:10:32.100 increasingly coming from countries in which they don't have as great you know as say health care

00:10:36.800 systems as you know in canada uh they're they don't have you know the same standards of health uh and

00:10:42.340 wellness in canada so the you know they come and they increasingly need health care services uh and that

00:10:47.500 crowds out other people who would otherwise require them and you know if you want to retain support for an

00:10:53.760 immigration system you know having your grandmother be denied uh quick access to you know treatment uh

00:10:59.640 because you know a bunch of people who just came to this country need also need uh health care

00:11:05.600 services well uh you're not going to actually um you know win people over like that and if you look

00:11:10.680 at you know a country like the united states where they have different immigration problems but you know

00:11:15.660 when uh government bureaucrats when politicians decide to ignore the concerns of their people you get a

00:11:22.580 sort of anti-immigration uh sentiment you know that is uh very strong in the united states and we

00:11:27.380 didn't have that uh until recently so this is really all uh the fault of uh prime minister justin

00:11:33.300 trudeau and i it's really you know my hope that a conservative government will have the stomach uh to be

00:11:39.240 able to come in slash immigration you know not you know completely dismantle the immigration system

00:11:43.600 because we still need it uh but to slash immigration to a point in which uh you know it would help to

00:11:48.860 ameliorate our problems with uh being able to deliver social services and uh to be able to

00:11:53.920 access affordable housing because if not um you know we're really going to see uh some problems

00:11:59.420 perhaps the ppc will even rise in their support because these immigration concerns are not being

00:12:04.540 addressed yeah there's been i mean we've done this i don't know if you did it isaac or if it was our

00:12:09.340 colleague quinn i think it might have been quinn that did a report not that long ago on on what's

00:12:13.080 called onward migration which is people that come to canada as immigrants then they just you know

00:12:18.140 decide ah this isn't for me and then they go somewhere else and onward immigration or onward 0.98

00:12:22.820 migration has apparently been on the rise because you have immigrants that come to the country and

00:12:26.720 realize that this dream that they thought would be in canada is not there for them and how could it

00:12:31.880 be because the dream for canadians is not there for people born in this country right now so if if we

00:12:36.760 can't even find you know housing for lifelong canadians who at you know 24 25 would love to set out

00:12:42.780 on their own we're not going to be able to find it for anyone else and there's nothing racial about

00:12:45.960 that it's just a fact of life i would love nothing more than to be able to accommodate anyone who wants

00:12:50.740 to be in canada that is willing to live the canadian life and exhibit canadian values and contribute to

00:12:56.860 the economy and contribute to society but if we can't do that we shouldn't pretend we can yeah i didn't

00:13:03.760 write that article about onward migration but i have read a similar polls uh one that comes to mind is

00:13:09.340 one i wrote a few months ago about recent immigrants those who immigrated to canada within the last

00:13:14.160 decade yet 42 of them were among the voices saying the immigration in this country is too high despite

00:13:20.900 having just themselves recently immigrated to the country so obviously they're coming here and like

00:13:25.680 immigration is terrible immigration yeah oh it'd be great if i were the last immigrant you know but 1.00

00:13:31.040 yeah so it's funny you mentioned that because i met i met someone years ago who came

00:13:35.720 to canada from china and they went to vancouver and uh they hated it because they're like there 1.00

00:13:41.840 are too many chinese people here this is what they said to me and then they moved to markham

00:13:45.080 which has also an insane amount of chinese people and they said there were too many and he was saying

00:13:49.240 this to me and i was so bad because i'm like no one would ever in their right mind say these things

00:13:55.240 out loud but that was an attitude that he had and and i was thinking like well you came you wanted

00:14:01.000 something in the country that you know you thought canada would offer you can't begrudge these people

00:14:04.820 to but but there are attitudes among certain immigrant communities like that that are part of

00:14:08.940 this i mean when we look at this poll that we were talking about in the national post 60 percent of

00:14:13.080 canadians say canada is admitting too many immigrants a lot of those i suspect are people 1.00

00:14:17.520 who immigrated to canada themselves in fact it's possible that disproportionately they make up a share

00:14:22.680 of it because often it's immigrants to the country that have a greater sense of pride in the country

00:14:27.940 than a lot of others do because they chose to be canadian they chose this life and and i think

00:14:32.920 canadians have often been a bit complacent about this i don't know what's your thought noah before

00:14:36.560 we move on here no you're absolutely right i recently had a uber ride uh coming back home from

00:14:43.400 you know toronto and i had a indian uber driver who said he was in canada for about 20 to 30 years and

00:14:50.080 he was uh talking to me about you know all this damn immigration you know that trudeau uh all these

00:14:55.620 immigrants that i was bringing in you know i just kind of just sit back and listen he's like you know

00:14:59.160 we're bringing in too many uh people from india who don't want to come to canada and become canadian 1.00

00:15:03.980 you know we're bringing in too many people from india who are treating it like they're still living 1.00

00:15:07.880 in new delhi or something this is what your indian uber driver said yeah that's what he was telling me

00:15:12.880 you know he's like i've been in this country for 20 plus years and you know they want to come and you

00:15:16.740 know ruin immigration for everyone and you know he is absolutely right you know i'm a third generation 0.99

00:15:22.080 immigrant my grandmother my both of my grandmothers on both sides of my family came to this country uh in the

00:15:27.740 70s uh and you know they're not really happy with the the current state of the immigration system my

00:15:32.840 dad you know second generation immigrant not really happy with uh the current state of our 0.96

00:15:37.280 immigration system uh so when you have you know immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants who

00:15:42.360 are trying to tell you tell the canadian government trying to you know tell people that you know the

00:15:47.080 current uh immigration system is broken uh and you don't have a government that is responding to

00:15:51.860 those concerns well you know attitudes towards immigration in general is going to drop significantly

00:15:57.140 all right well thank you for that noah uh we'll move on to the next topic which i've completely

00:16:03.980 forgotten so let me find my notes here oh it's actually your topic noah uh so this one i'm just

00:16:08.100 going to like take a seat a step back and just let you guys handle this one because it's about the

00:16:12.600 olympics uh in some way uh which i'm told is a sporting event that is taking place so no what take it

00:16:18.760 away i know you're a sportingly uh illiterate andrew last week i learned about vibes cartel the uh i don't know 0.52

00:16:26.000 r&b singer rapper anyway today i'll learn about soccer you learn about this uh foreign sports soccer

00:16:31.880 uh but yeah no uh right now canada's uh women's team are trying to go back to back at the olympics

00:16:38.000 they're trying to win another gold medal uh because they won uh the gold medal at the tokyo olympics

00:16:43.000 back in 2021 however a wrench has been thrown in the soccer team's uh you know ability to win

00:16:49.720 because it was discovered that a an assistant coach and a member of team canada's staff uh had

00:16:55.700 been trying to spy on a rival team that is right they were trying to spy on the new zealand uh women's

00:17:02.380 national team practices uh with a drone so uh first of all this is stupid because the paris authorities

00:17:09.040 they already had banned drones in paris for the duration of the olympics because they know that you

00:17:14.340 people are going to try to spy so what does a clever canadian assistant coach and a team i guess

00:17:21.060 analysts do they go out they buy a drone uh they you know go outside of the new zealand national team

00:17:27.160 soccer practice and fly a drone over uh over their practice to try and record uh what they are doing

00:17:33.620 uh and they get caught uh in new zealand not not only did happen one time this happened twice the

00:17:39.020 new zealand national team reported that not only did they see this drone flying over their practice

00:17:43.840 on july 22nd but they also saw this on july 19th so the second time that happened they promptly

00:17:48.780 alerted the authorities uh a man named joseph lombardi uh who is an accredited member of canada's

00:17:55.460 uh women's uh team uh team support staff he was arrested uh questioned released uh and team canada

00:18:02.260 is now sending lombardi and also uh an assistant coach named jasmine mander who is also involved in the

00:18:09.100 plot to spy on the new zealand national team's uh soccer practices they they've been sent home and

00:18:14.620 uh they've been uh removed from the team uh it is obviously a national embarrassment that you know

00:18:21.460 we feel that we need to spy on the new zealanders i mean what do they have in new zealand like they

00:18:26.240 just got like you know it's basically australia junior uh and you know we're a better country than

00:18:30.540 australia i feel like so i don't know why we need to spy on them but you know it just goes to show

00:18:35.500 that you know uh canada is not in a great place right now what do you guys uh think of this story

00:18:42.120 so i'll just jump in with a question here which either you know or you isa can answer because again

00:18:47.300 i i don't understand too much about soccer i i understand there's a ball and two nets and that's

00:18:52.680 the extent of it um so it's not a play it's not a sport like football that has plays and i i'm not

00:19:00.640 even aware of like a real strategic component to soccer and i i don't mean that in a negative way

00:19:06.180 so like what advantage do you even get from watching a team practice soccer it's a it's a good

00:19:13.460 question and yeah they might have like various odd ball set plays that might happen once a game like

00:19:20.640 if a certain person gets a ball in a certain portion of the field they're going to try and execute

00:19:25.180 something but primarily soccer is a a possession game wherein you pass the ball around for 30 minutes

00:19:31.300 and then eventually get a good shot off which is why it's never interested me too much it's very

00:19:36.400 slow uh possession based game at least uh i'm just imagine just imagining the uh you know like

00:19:41.880 the the great details that the canadian spies got it's oh so they try to put the ball in the net

00:19:47.960 when they have it but i don't think you're that wrong wrong in that sense wherein obviously like

00:19:54.080 i feel like soccer isn't like the sport to really you know cheat on you know when uh when there's that

00:20:00.540 plot by the new england patriots uh football team andrew just so just so you know i know i know what

00:20:05.380 i know about the new england patriots i know about tom brady's deflated balls that's the one thing i

00:20:09.740 know about football because they made jokes about it oh i didn't know i didn't know but darn it

00:20:14.380 here i was trying to be all indignant that i knew but i actually have no idea what you're talking

00:20:17.820 about all right fine let me know what's bygate where uh you know that they try they try to

00:20:25.660 recording the other team um they basically the other team's uh coaches or whatever to see like

00:20:30.600 what plays they're recalling uh and you know obviously that's enormously beneficial so i don't

00:20:35.540 i don't really know like what the equivalent of that would be in soccer i'm not you know a big

00:20:40.080 soccer guy i'm more of a basketball guy but at the end of the day uh i feel like any sort of

00:20:44.320 advantage that you can get whether that's like you knowing which players are going to start and

00:20:49.060 which players are going to be subbed in you know what formation uh they're going to use uh what sort

00:20:54.040 of uh you know people i guess they're going to play through whether that could be the center

00:20:58.580 midfielders or on the wings i guess that's you know the sort of thing that they want to figure out

00:21:02.960 um but you know even that didn't work out well you know it's like the the one sport where spying

00:21:08.720 uh isn't going to grant you a massive tactical advantage uh is the sport that they decided to

00:21:14.700 you know go out and uh do some spying operations so i think i think it's just you know pretty

00:21:20.140 embarrassing you know as a canadian who you know kind of cares about you know canadian sports teams

00:21:25.100 doing well uh although i don't know andrew does this uh affect your uh sense of national pride

00:21:30.560 no i so someone told me the other day that there's i think it's like the toronto star or

00:21:37.300 something has a newsletter where you can like subscribe to get an email alert the minute that

00:21:42.600 a canadian wins a medal and i'm like i get enough emails i like i don't need like just give me the

00:21:47.620 metal tally at the end of it or so and i'll figure it out there i know there i did hear that breakdancing

00:21:53.620 is in the olympics for the is it the first time i i don't follow the olympics that that uh heavily

00:22:01.460 i mean i don't know why you wrote the story that we're talking about yeah but i didn't write all

00:22:06.460 right let me let me look up if it's the first year for breakdancing while you're looking that up i'll

00:22:10.420 just give some background on uh one of the sports where spying has actually been extremely relevant

00:22:15.780 and probably more relevant than any other sport of course which is baseball uh that being stealing

00:22:20.580 signs because obviously every pitch comes with a sign designating what the pitch will be and some

00:22:25.180 pitchers can throw up to 10 different pitches so obviously that makes a huge difference and um

00:22:29.660 in 2019 news of the houston astros cheating in 2017 and 2018 dropped they were using illegal video

00:22:38.860 technology to steal signs uh from other teams which was interesting when when i was thinking whether

00:22:44.660 this uh i was asked whether the soccer team would uh repeat their gold medal performance and of course

00:22:49.780 the astros won the world series uh in 2017 and then the news broke in 2019 but they returned to

00:22:57.060 the world series in 2019 and 21 losing both times but then they won again in 2022 so obviously the news

00:23:03.460 of the astros and none of them got punished or the world series won takeaway or anything of the sort

00:23:07.300 uh didn't affect their performance in any way all right there we go we got all the trivia um okay

00:23:13.860 so let's move on to uh this story uh isaac which is one of yours goes back to alberta i had actually

00:23:20.980 forgotten about this discussion because this came up when danielle smith was running for the ucb leadership

00:23:26.500 and ultimately the premiership but now it sounds like she's making good in a part on a promise that

00:23:31.620 goes back to a very turbulent time in alberta politics yeah uh so smith is basically falling through

00:23:39.300 with one of her uh campaign pledges here and she's saying that the fall update to the province's

00:23:45.940 bill of rights will protect alberta's personal medical decisions including the right to refuse

00:23:51.300 a vaccine so this pledge initially came during a recent town hall in bonnieville attended by about

00:23:56.820 300 uh ucp members where smith also discussed strengthening alberta's liberties and freedoms

00:24:02.820 lowering taxes protecting the province from federal overreach and improving health care

00:24:06.980 all things you'd expect from her but then smith confirmed the plans in a statement to true north

00:24:12.820 where she said quote in the fall we will be introducing legislation to amend alberta's bill

00:24:18.100 of rights several amendments are being considered to strengthen albertans individual and property

00:24:23.140 rights including an amendment to guarantee albertans the right to accept or refuse a medical treatment

00:24:29.940 so yeah as you mentioned andrew before becoming premier in 2022 smith initially pledged to

00:24:34.660 amend the alberta human rights act which would prohibit employers from firing anyone based on

00:24:39.860 their vaccination status but those were scrapped after she was elected and she also promised to ban

00:24:46.420 post-secondary institutions from imposing vaccine mandates on students at the time she said that any

00:24:52.100 albertan who lost uh their job for basically declining to take a vaccine was a quote human rights violation

00:24:58.420 however uh it was realized after the fact that the public health act takes precedence over all laws

00:25:05.060 except the alberta bill of rights so her initial plans to uh amend the alberta human rights acts wouldn't

00:25:10.420 have done anything basically uh and obviously one of her first actions when she was elected was to fire 1.00

00:25:16.020 all 11 members of the alberta health services board including the chief medical officer dr dina hinshaw

00:25:22.740 who uh as any albertan will remember advised former premier jason kenney to implement vaccine mandates

00:25:30.500 to close schools close churches and then they sent officers to those areas to ensure that they were

00:25:34.820 complying uh and just for the last point here many people may remember this which was uh during smith's

00:25:43.220 first press conference as premier she said that the unvaccinated had experienced the most discrimination of

00:25:49.220 any group in her lifetime and i'll refresh your memory on a quote from justin trudeau in french

00:25:56.260 so there's a bit of different wording depending on where you're reading it but he said something

00:26:00.020 along the lines of quote there are also people who are fiercely opposed to vaccination who don't

00:26:05.220 believe in science who are often misogynistic often racist too it's a small group but it takes

00:26:11.380 up space and then he went on to say do we tolerate these people so uh yeah i mean a lot of

00:26:18.740 information in there obviously but um what do you guys feel about uh smith finally following through

00:26:24.340 with her one of her initial campaign promises to to to protect the unvaccinated from from being 1.00

00:26:32.180 fired by their employers well i think it's interesting because in in a lot of ways and even

00:26:37.700 in alberta to some extent there's just been a desire to move on from it to accept that uh this is in the

00:26:42.900 past now in some provinces it's not alberta or bc rather still has vaccine mandates for health care workers

00:26:48.980 alberta has moved on i mean all the mandates have been repealed and i think danielle smith becoming

00:26:53.220 the premier was a pretty strong rebuke of what a lot of people including conservatives especially

00:26:58.420 were frustrated about in jason kenny's government so i i think it's good to know that she hasn't

00:27:03.620 forgotten that that is an issue and that at some point in the future there could be another

00:27:07.940 government that would say hey we want to mandate this we want to impose this and i think she's saying

00:27:13.620 pretty decisively here no this is something that we will not stand for as a province now

00:27:18.020 look it's a simple act of legislation it's not like the constitution which means that theoretically

00:27:23.300 if a future government did want to do it they could still change that law but they would have to go

00:27:27.780 through that process of doing it and they would have to stare voters in the face and say we are

00:27:31.220 taking away this right you have to medical autonomy so i i think it's a very strong move from danielle

00:27:36.180 smith and probably in part because she's trying to make sure that her base doesn't forget uh you

00:27:42.020 know that her base still supports her that her base remains in her corner yeah i think you know you

00:27:47.940 bring up a good point about the base because uh any first minister in canada whether you're a premier

00:27:52.980 or a prime minister you have to be able to feed the base i think one of the uh problems with

00:27:58.660 the harper government is that he didn't you know sufficiently feed the base uh you see a lot

00:28:02.900 of discontent with doug ford because he definitely doesn't want to do anything for his base he only

00:28:07.220 really wants to do anything that keeps him in power and the thing that got jason kenney to pose

00:28:12.100 is that yeah he wasn't you know uh doing anything that the base wanted you know he told

00:28:16.260 he talked about the summer of fun and you know the summer of happiness and then uh you know lockdowns

00:28:21.780 you know a few weeks later or something like that so you know when you're not you know attentive

00:28:26.580 to the needs and wants of your base uh they're going to get rid of you and especially in a

00:28:31.140 political culture like alberta uh where there isn't you know a lot of regard uh for you know

00:28:36.980 premiers and uh leaders of political parties if your name is not ralph klein so i think that you know

00:28:42.900 premier smith uh you know pushing on this uh on this issue is a good thing to you know keep those people

00:28:48.900 who are starting to get a little discontent with uh you know premier smith having to do you know

00:28:53.620 premier like things you know ribbon cuttings and you know talking uh to you know mayors of uh big cities

00:28:59.620 that like um calgary with jody gondek who you know she probably has to work with but you know it's

00:29:04.980 not you know good optics for the base so i think doing this uh for the base is a good thing my one

00:29:09.620 concern will be that i think that adding things to the uh alberta bill of rights uh will uh especially

00:29:17.220 things that are a bit more frivolous uh will lead to future governments perhaps a future ndp government

00:29:22.740 adding things that you know conservatives uh do not like i think once you open open the door to

00:29:27.380 you know exempting uh or you know adding say a vaccine as a vaccine status as a protected

00:29:33.940 protected status under the bill of rights you know you might get um the ndp coming in and adding you

00:29:39.140 know transgenderism or the the right uh to be able to access uh transgender health care as a youth uh you

00:29:44.900 know it's it's a slippery slope that you don't want to sort of give the other idea uh the other side

00:29:49.940 ideas uh how to you know sort of abuse that power but uh all in all i think that i agree with the policy

00:29:55.860 uh and you know people being discriminated against vaccines is exactly something that uh we we care

00:30:01.780 for uh to north that's for sure yeah i i so i would agree with that my sense would be that you know

00:30:09.940 effectively we're looking at constitutions and bills of rights should be broad for that reason and and

00:30:17.860 you know and not to get too boring because i'm the one that always says we have to keep things light on

00:30:20.980 off the record but you want like you want these things to be negative liberties where you're trying

00:30:26.740 to protect against the government doing something rather than to guarantee something so uh the charter

00:30:32.020 is really meant to constrain government it's not meant to constrain canadians and i think the same

00:30:36.500 should be true of a bill of rights so you're right there is a risk though that once you start just

00:30:39.620 tacking things onto this that it becomes a tool where any other government can start like trying to

00:30:44.660 manufacture these rights so i i think these things should be done sparingly i know this is part of a

00:30:49.220 broader update it's not like the government's just going in to make this one change which i think

00:30:53.540 is is uh is an important part of this but i i think you raise a valid a valid issue there a valid

00:30:59.140 possible issue uh just keeping with the theme of alberta noah you had this story this week which was

00:31:04.500 phenomenal so we've seen all sorts of examples across the country of activists trying to take down

00:31:10.340 statues and monuments and murals and rewrite history and there's yet another example of this at the

00:31:16.100 university of alberta take it away yeah so there is this mural in the library of the university of

00:31:22.500 alberta it is called the alberta history mural also known as the glide mural because it was painted

00:31:28.580 by a renowned artist named uh henry george glide back in 1951 he helped to establish the fine arts

00:31:36.020 department in the university of alberta in 1946 and he is just an influential uh artist in his own right

00:31:43.140 but and he drew a image of basically alberta's pioneer history and uh the history of christian

00:31:50.340 missionary work uh in alberta so uh if you see the mural you have uh father uh lacombe on the right and

00:31:58.980 you have uh another uh christian uh missionary george mcdougall on the left and they're seen sort of

00:32:05.780 preaching toward uh to a group of indigenous people as uh you know some tps are in the background you see a

00:32:11.540 church in the background and in the very back you see uh fort edmonton old uh fort edmonton uh and

00:32:18.180 this is really supposed to be a mural to help commemorate uh alberta's history and it's not

00:32:23.140 a mural to denigrate the indigenous people in fact back in 1951 to put uh indigenous uh people in such

00:32:30.260 a prominent place on a mural in a public library like the university of alberta's uh you you know it

00:32:36.100 was a a groundbreaking thing this is not something that was done back uh in those sort of uh backwards 0.99

00:32:42.500 times however uh nowadays uh nowadays um you have uh activists you know anti-colonial anti-racist uh

00:32:49.860 this those sort of types uh who are trying to reinterpret what this uh mural is actually supposed to be

00:32:54.580 they're trying to say uh that the glide mural is some racist monument that needs to be uh torn down

00:33:00.580 and you know anytime someone walks by this mural especially if they're of indigenous ancestry you

00:33:06.100 know they're just filled with a hatred and you know uh you know they're like victimized or something

00:33:10.900 like that even though uh you have a uh indigenous uh professor uh who came out in opposition uh to

00:33:18.580 destroying and removing them uh the mural there's a indigenous professor at the fine uh of in the

00:33:23.620 department of fine arts named tanya harnett who said that uh quote rather than destroying the mural a

00:33:28.740 a diet a didactic panel is needed one that gives context to this uh complex subject matter and she's 1.00

00:33:34.580 right this is you know a complex uh subject you know there uh was uh some uh terrible things that

00:33:40.100 were done to the indigenous people in canada uh and you know during the process of colonialization

00:33:45.380 but at the end of the day uh this mural is not a depiction of you know glorifying you know

00:33:51.780 uh conquering the indigenous peoples it is instead you know depicting two christian missionaries uh doing

00:33:56.740 missionary work and helping uh to you know um introduce uh christianity uh to peoples who

00:34:03.620 had not known christianity and you do have uh communities of indigenous christians around canada

00:34:09.060 who i i would assume would reject the tearing down of this mural but we've seen this before we've seen

00:34:14.500 the left try and tear down statues they've tried uh you know whenever they are you know trying to

00:34:19.940 protest environmental issues they put pasta sauce on you know uh very uh historic uh pieces of art

00:34:26.580 uh so uh this is you know a trend that has been going on for about a decade or so now but um it seems

00:34:33.380 as if there's some pushback uh toward this mural being taken down but what is your guys's thoughts

00:34:39.140 on uh this issue yeah just uh i don't know you're dressed like an art critic isaac so you have to take

00:34:45.380 this i know i'm like hey my uncle lives in lacombe but i'm hardly a historian so i don't know if it was

00:34:49.380 named after that missionary but uh yeah just just maybe thinking of the last story even uh in regard to

00:34:56.580 legislative protection i mean maybe there has to be and i'm not normally someone to advocate for

00:35:01.940 additional bureaucracy in any sense but maybe there has to be some further protections against

00:35:08.900 historical destruction let's call it i mean erasing of history really is what many of these

00:35:13.460 examples are wherein not just woke ideologues but any extremist or other group could could try and

00:35:23.460 rewrite history if you will to to make it more to their liking which i mean look history was a

00:35:30.260 terrible thing uh in in many points in time but it's there so that we can learn from it and grow as

00:35:35.460 a society so if we erase that in any way i mean we're really shooting ourselves in the foot here

00:35:42.260 because the the most important thing that history serves to be is is a lesson for modern and future

00:35:48.580 societies so i i really i don't know whether either of you have any ideas on how some sort

00:35:55.300 of protections could be implemented especially in the scholarly setting because we've seen so many of

00:35:59.540 this of these uh occurrences happen at university or or colleges uh but i don't know what do you guys

00:36:06.740 think about that well i i mean my the problem is that if you have two choices between take the thing

00:36:13.060 down or destroy the thing and add interpretive panels or additional context to it i'll obviously

00:36:19.940 pick that but even that i feel is coming oftentimes from a negative place because it starts from the 0.59

00:36:25.060 bench from the the baseline position that history is something we need to apologize for i mean art

00:36:30.660 is uh reflecting a lot of things it reflects the artist's view of a search of a circumstance and

00:36:36.500 it reflects the circumstance itself i mean remember the last supper is not a depiction of the last

00:36:41.940 supper as itself it's a depiction of the last supper as envisioned by leonardo da vinci and i think

00:36:47.860 that's important and in the case of this mural the context is very much not anti-indigenous and and the

00:36:54.740 relationship that the uh people in the picture had were actually not anti-indigenous and it's

00:37:01.700 interesting when you study early canadian history and you study the the people that engaged with

00:37:08.100 like the first you know literal settlers or even before settlement the first traders people like

00:37:12.980 jacques cartier and then champlain and all of these people oftentimes they forged incredibly

00:37:18.500 strong relationships with indigenous people they had a tremendous amount of respect for them and

00:37:23.220 that respect was reciprocated and that doesn't mean that attitudes might not have you know been

00:37:28.900 antiquated by today's standards but we we oftentimes paint indigenous people quite wrongfully as victims

00:37:35.460 when they had agency they chose to trade they chose to engage remember these people could have just

00:37:39.380 killed anyone that turned up at their shores and in some cases that did happen in some parts of the

00:37:44.020 world that did happen to people that attempted to colonize or settle but this art is not at all

00:37:50.180 anything to be ashamed of or afraid of and it's quite despicable that there is a push for that

00:37:54.020 no and you know in the picture is uh you have depicted uh father albert lacombe albert lacombe is

00:38:01.300 of partly indigenous ancestry he is not someone who hated the indigenous people he was one of the first

00:38:07.060 pioneers who came uh to alberta and he actually helped uh helped work with the indigenous people

00:38:13.620 well he was a pastor he was a minister who had you know uh worked with the indigenous people he had uh

00:38:19.860 shared the word of god uh with indigenous people who had previously not uh you know been uh accessed

00:38:26.100 the word of god and uh he was a great friend to a great many uh indigenous people uh in his time uh

00:38:33.860 he was a friend of indigenous people indigenous people uh loved him and in modern times he is

00:38:38.740 someone who is scorned uh which is a real shame because it is the erasure of history and is uh the

00:38:45.220 sort of smearing of someone who cannot uh you know in modern times defend themselves if he if he were

00:38:51.060 here to defend himself himself he would be able to you know say those things but it is incumbent upon

00:38:55.780 people like us uh to you know spread that his story to really you know correct the facts and we see the

00:39:02.900 same thing happening to egerton ryerson uh we see um the same thing happening to dundas you know the

00:39:07.940 removal of his name from young and dundas square uh you know these people they can't you know from the

00:39:12.900 grave defend themselves uh and we don't have enough good people who are willing to stand up for them

00:39:18.260 saying no these aren't aren't vicious racist uh people these are people who in their own time

00:39:23.540 tried to do good things maybe made some mistakes you know from researching uh father lacombe i didn't

00:39:28.420 see anything wrong that he did he just seemed like a good friend to the indigenous people and helped to

00:39:33.300 establish um would now become alberta so i i think that it is really uh destructive uh when we try to

00:39:41.380 you know destroy our history uh because that is the foundation upon which canada was built and

00:39:47.060 once we destroy the foundation uh we we can't exactly um we can't continue on as we are continuing

00:39:54.500 now uh you know these activists they do want uh to destroy canada they do want to destroy the west

00:39:59.700 they're pretty open and about open about it uh but you know they're doing it one step at a time and

00:40:04.820 this is uh one step that that they are taking and i hope that you know mcdougall uh lacombe and the

00:40:11.380 person who uh drew this um mural glide uh they have their reputations restored because right now

00:40:16.900 they are being smeared well i was going to and i mean i always say we have to keep it light and then

00:40:22.500 you go with western civilization as being destroyed but you also had such a mic drop there there's no

00:40:27.060 point in adding anything on to it so uh we're out of time for the show today uh isaac lamroo and

00:40:33.220 noah jarvis catch their work over at tnz.news including on daily brief i'm andrew lawton good

00:40:38.900 to see you all we will have yeah i don't even know what i'm saying now this is the problem we're

00:40:42.820 going live today i don't edit that out i leave my nonsense in i sound like joe biden there for a

00:40:47.460 second anyway uh there we go we can end on a light note have a great weekend everyone we will talk to

00:40:53.780 you next time i forgot to do the tagline i knew that's why i was fumbling i knew there was something

00:41:05.860 i was forgetting and i was supposed to say everything you heard was off the record and i

00:41:10.180 missed it all right i'm firing myself from off the record now you've been uh you've caught biden

00:41:14.820 fever that's for sure you know i think that when uh when when biden you know is done with the

00:41:18.900 presidency we should invite him to you know become part of the true north team see see how that go

00:41:23.700 how that go over with our donors not well

Off the Record - July 26, 2024

Too many immigrants in Canada？

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