1 tweet. 20,000+ illegal crossings
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Summary
On this episode of The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast, we're going to talk with Ted Falk MP and Glenn Motts MP about border crossing, what's happening at our borders, and why it's getting worse and worse.
Transcript
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On this episode of The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast, we're going to talk with Ted Falk MP and Glenn Macht's MP about border crossing, what's happening at our borders. Stay tuned.
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You're listening to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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Is the Prime Minister actually saying that taxpayers should be on the hook when he breaks the law?
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What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to have any respect for any laws in this country that may curb his out-of-control behavior?
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All these deficits leading to nothing but burying Canadians in taxes.
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Welcome to The Blueprint, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
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I'm your host, Tony Clement, member of Parliament for Paris-San Muskoka.
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And with me, I've got two special guests, MP Ted Falk from Provence.
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And MP Glenn Motts from Medicine Hat, Cardston Warner.
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The famous, or should I say infamous, tweet from Justin Trudeau, hashtag, welcome to Canada.
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And over 20,000 asylum seekers have illegally crossed into Canada.
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So we're going to talk about what this issue means for our communities
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and what our approach as a Conservative Party is to the illegal border crossings.
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I'm going to start with Ted Falk and talk a little bit.
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You're in Provence Riding, which is in Manitoba.
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It's a border riding. We've got five ports of entry right along the southern border of Provence.
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So tell our listeners what's been happening at the border.
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Okay. Well, we've seen a lot of illegal migrants coming to the border, coming across predominantly at night, but not always.
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And depending on the time of year, in winter, they invariably will call 911 once they've stepped across the border and hope that the RCMP will find them.
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And when the RCMP find them, they pick them up and they bring them to a border port of entry where they are processed by our CBSA agents.
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So tell us what that means, processed. CBSA is Canada Border Service Agency, so that's our border guards, per se.
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And so tell us what that entails and what happens next.
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Okay. Well, they're fingerprinted and they're checked. Their biometrics are also checked.
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And what they do is then they file an asylum claim and they want to call Canada a place where they're seeking refuge.
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And they're in Canada now, so they have rights.
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No. And our Canada Border Service agents have jurisdiction within a certain parameter around the official port of entry.
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And outside of that, it's the RCMP's jurisdiction.
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But, and their process then, as refugees, they can make their asylum claims, whereas had they come directly to the port of entry,
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our Border Service agents would have informed them that they need to apply for refugee status in Canada, as most people do.
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And they would have explained to them the process to do that.
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And they would have actually been told to do that and make application to come here.
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Glenn Motts, you're on the Public Safety Committee.
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Certainly, this is not just an issue for Manitoba.
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There's actually a larger issue in the province of Quebec.
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Ted's talked a little bit about the legalities of this.
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Give us your perspective on what's been going on.
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I've been told by CBSA agents that deal with these things that the initial entry interview process,
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which normally is an eight-hour initial interview process, has been reduced down to less than two.
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There used to be eight questions on that process, and now there's only two they ask.
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And one of the questions that used to always be asked is, why are you seeking asylum in Canada?
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And I'm told now that that question is no longer asked.
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And the whole idea behind speeding this up is they had such a backlog of people.
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They're then giving them a, you know, asking them where they're going to be.
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And then they send them away and hopes that when they have a secondary follow-up interview,
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that those individuals will then appear for their secondary interview.
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And in some cases, they are not, and they don't know where they are at.
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So it is a huge issue, and there is no end in sight.
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Now, part of the issue, as I understand it as well,
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is that there have been some hearings for some of these individuals,
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but the rate of determination that they are valid refugees or invalid refugees is very concerning.
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Yes, you know, the minister, Minister Goodale, suggested to the House
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that up to 90% of these asylum seekers would be returned in the initial flow from 2017.
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Well, that, you know, if that's the case, the problem is they're not being returned.
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I've heard numbers as recently as today that there's less than 300 of the tens of thousands
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have come across who've actually been returned.
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And so they are here in Canada, they are creating huge issues in the areas
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where they are now trying to be settled with, you know, housing issues
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and other concerns that those jurisdictions have with costs
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and just trying to find space for that influx of people.
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And it is creating a challenge on the other side.
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In my riding, and I'm sure riding's across the country, the legitimate border immigrants,
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and our, you know, as most offices, 80% of our casework is all immigration-related.
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We are having people wait an exorbitant amount of times right now
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because of, A, resources in immigration, not being available to deal with them.
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They're, you know, files have, these people's files have been put way behind,
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and we're talking about temporary foreign workers.
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And in my area, many of the industries rely on temporary foreign workers.
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They can't seem to find them and get them cleared for Canada fast enough.
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There are people who have been waiting months and months,
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and I'm hearing now that, you know, the 20- and 30-month wait period has been extended
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to over 60 months in some circumstances to get people connected with their families.
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Part of their family might be here, and it's all because of the backlog.
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And so my immigrant community, like I'm sure all of your immigrant communities,
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the legal immigrant people are saying, this is not fair.
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We apply the proper way, and yet our applications are not being processed.
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Exactly, and it is creating, you know, some huge concern on their part that it's not fair.
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and this seems to fly in the face of what, you know, Canadians even expect as a country.
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Ted Falk, even a year ago, there was concerns in your community
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about how to compassionately deal with the border crossers in terms of social services
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and the impact on social services in your community.
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I know the mayor of one of your border towns has been very outspoken about this.
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that even though the majority of residents in Provence are not happy with the situation,
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especially in winter when these illegal migrants do cross the border
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and they find these folks banging on their doors,
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banging on their windows in the middle of the night,
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They give them warm blankets and a place to sleep
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And so there's a high, high degree of compassion shown by the residents
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The Reeve there, Reeve Greg Jansen, has been very engaged as long as his first responders
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because every time there's a 911 call, the volunteers in that community
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that are first responders for fire and emergency situations respond to the call as well
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and they assist the RCMP who are always looking at staffing issues
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and they assist the RCMP with finding these individuals
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and then providing them a place of shelter and food and clothing.
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And, you know, some of these people are coming when it's 30 below.
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We've had individuals that have actually suffered the loss of limbs
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and there was one individual that didn't even make it to the border.
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That person was, and the American authorities believe that she was attempting
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to make her way to the border, somehow got disoriented, perhaps in a snowstorm,
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in a squall, and found herself lying in the ditch and she never did recover.
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Yeah, so this is a real issue of safety for these border crossers too.
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I understand that there is now plans to build temporary housing
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for up to 520 people at the Quebec border crossing.
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That shows they're putting more resources into the illegal border crossing
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and fewer resources into legal applications for immigration and refugee status.
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And what's so frustrating about this is that not only is, you know,
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We have said, you know, the official opposition has said repeatedly
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and let's create an atmosphere or an environment
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where we can have an orderly migration of immigrants.
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As Ted said, what's happening from a public safety perspective
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is immigration officials, CBSA officials, RCMP officers
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are being redeployed across the country to try and meet these demands.
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And from these frontline officers, they're saying not sustainable.
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The detachments that they come from and the border crossings that they come from
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and the offices across Canada for immigration people,
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Those officers can't provide the policing that the communities
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that they're assigned to expect of them to provide.
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significantly reduced staff across the country.
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To try and, as best as possible, manage an issue
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created by the lack of leadership in the Liberal government.
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part of our job is to highlight things that are going wrong in government
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to highlight things where Canadian interests are not being protected.
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But we also do have an approach, which is different from the Liberals,
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when the Liberals say, well, what would you do differently?
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It doesn't matter whether you're at a border crossing
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or on the invisible line between USA and Canada, it's a border.
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Canadians have a historical record of being very welcoming to Canadians,
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or to people wishing to start a new life in Canada.
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And conservatives have a great record for that.
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And I think one of the things that the conservatives,
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Everybody understands what it is, and everybody respects it.
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And so that's the expectation that immigrants should have.
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And the ones that have followed that say it's a good system.
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And now we have this system going on, this process going on now.
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And we've been 18 months into this, and we still have no plan.
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other than the throwing good money or, you know,
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taxpayer money after this issue, it's not solving the issue.
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Ted, you've been on the front lines of this as the MP for Provence.
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Tell us how you feel about the conservative approach
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where we actually address the problem and look for a solution.
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And the liberal approach is facilitating the problem.
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to actually encourage people to come across the border.
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And with, you know, as you mentioned earlier, Tony,
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the reckless tweets that the Prime Minister made.
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And then he made another tweet after that as well.
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It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from.
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Which the immigration people very quickly refuted and said,
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And the liberals did send out quite a few of their ministers
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into some of the diasporas that seem to be availing themselves
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to crossing the border at the Prime Minister's invitation
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and have been trying to say, oh, that isn't quite what was meant.
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And in fact, one of the things that folks crossing the border illegally
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don't realize, they say they're coming here to make a refugee claim
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and claim asylum, is that when their claim gets rejected,
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they don't get sent back to the United States of America
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And that's what a lot of these folks don't realize.
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And I think if they would take that into consideration
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before they sometimes make this very dangerous trek,
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especially in winter, into Canada and take their chances,
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they should consider carefully what the consequences may be.
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that we would like to see a much more aggressive stance
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by Canada in its negotiations with the United States on this issue.
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I think that's a reasonable first step that we need to take.
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we're hearing reports that we're going to have a Nigerian contingent
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And so rather than just saying we're going to build something
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that the Canadian government, the Liberal government,
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All they're doing is encouraging more immigration like this,
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But I do want to thank Ted Falk, the MP for Provence,
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and Cardston Warner for being on The Blueprint,
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Yes, and we want to thank our law enforcement officers
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that have been very engaged in going above and beyond.
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and in-depth discussions of politics in Canada,