The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Canada’s Immigration System： Once the Gold Standard

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your

00:00:07.640 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Caworthal Lakes, with new content for

00:00:11.360 you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and

00:00:15.980 share this program. Tell your friends, too. They can download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes,

00:00:20.560 Google Play, and Spotify. On today's show, we are talking about the terrorist group, the IRGC,

00:00:26.420 and much, much more to hear the details.

00:00:29.600 We bring on the Greek God himself,

00:00:31.380 the member of Parliament for Aurora, Oak Ridge,

00:00:33.840 it's Richmond Hill, Costas Metagakis.

00:00:36.200 Thanks for coming on the show.

00:00:37.160 It's a pleasure to be here with you today, Jamie.

00:00:38.840 My day is perfect because you are here on the show

00:00:41.180 first time, but I will have you back again

00:00:44.200 because you're just awesome to have in caucus.

00:00:46.420 Love hanging out with you and listening to the wisdom

00:00:48.500 that you give to not only myself, but to others.

00:00:51.180 You're far too kind.

00:00:52.100 It's a pleasure to be here and an honor to serve once again.

00:00:54.280 You're right, I am a kind person.

00:00:55.380 But let's talk about the IRGC. Okay, this is a terrorist group. You know more about it than I do. Why don't you describe what is going on? We think we have about 700 in Canada that seem to be milling about. Why don't you give us a brief description? We have some clips to take us from there after that.

00:01:12.300 So the IRGC is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the strong arm of the brutal, oppressive Iranian regime that's been brutalizing not only the country of Iran, but the region in general and other places around the world for the last 47 years. 0.53

00:01:29.260 Sadly, because of liberal mismanagement of our immigration system,

00:01:33.500 reportedly about 700 members, IRGC members, are in Canada today,

00:01:38.820 walking in our streets, around our schools, in our community centres,

00:01:42.960 living and being our neighbours.

00:01:45.480 Okay, put up this graphic here from the Prime Minister.

00:01:47.860 Okay, so the Immigration Minister, Minister Diab, says she'll take responsibility.

00:01:53.800 OK, we granted a visa somehow, someway to a member of a terrorist group.

00:02:00.220 Right. OK. Was there any accountability? She says she's taking accountability. Anything?

00:02:03.700 No, there's no accountability whatsoever. It's they never they never to take accountability.

00:02:08.120 There has to be some action to ensure that nothing it doesn't happen again.

00:02:13.280 They basically have absolved themselves of any of that responsibility other than to say we take accountability.

00:02:19.900 But the person went back type of thing.

00:02:22.520 So why doesn't the government know where these people are?

00:02:25.860 Because they don't keep records when the people come in the country.

00:02:28.680 No records.

00:02:29.420 No records.

00:02:30.960 So they could be anywhere.

00:02:32.000 They could be anywhere.

00:02:32.920 Doing whatever.

00:02:33.540 They could be anywhere.

00:02:34.680 Not only are they just anywhere, they are actually perpetrating some terror on Canadian citizens, people that are here.

00:02:42.600 Because how they work is this. 0.85

00:02:44.440 They know they can't have the strong arm that they have in Iran here in Canada because we have a judicial system. 0.90

00:02:49.540 We have law enforcement. 1.00

00:02:50.540 They can't get away with things here.

00:02:52.220 However, these people that are here, not only the 700, but sympathizers of theirs,

00:02:57.060 report them back to Iran, and then their families are in danger.

00:03:00.900 People are beaten up.

00:03:01.920 People are killed.

00:03:03.380 People are imprisoned.

00:03:05.320 So people, Canadian citizens, people here, permanent residents and Canadian citizens

00:03:09.240 and temporary residents here from Iran are afraid to speak out for fear of repercussions

00:03:14.480 of what would happen to their families back home.

00:03:16.440 And we all know that there doesn't seem to be any hesitation on the government of Iran's part to actually hold restraint against their citizens.

00:03:24.740 Tens of thousands were murdered not too long ago and consistently.

00:03:29.420 They've been doing this for 47 years. 0.67

00:03:31.260 These are the people on the IRGC, these are the people that programmed a computer and pressed not once but twice the button to send two missiles into a civilian aircraft that killed 176 people, 85 of which were residents in Canada, 55 of those were Canadian citizens, 30 of those were permanent residents, and even a non-born baby. 0.61

00:03:54.200 These are people that not only in prison, but actually immediately sentence people to immediate death. 0.69

00:04:04.580 So if somebody in Iran, for example, speaks truth to power, they come out and they say, we don't like what's going on.

00:04:10.060 They don't only murder them.

00:04:11.060 They then hang him from a crane in the squares of their cities so that other citizens can see them hanging to threaten them, to ensure that they don't have the courage to speak out again.

00:04:23.660 This is not, we're not talking about a democratic country like Canada.

00:04:26.980 We're talking about a very oppressive regime that's been perpetuating terror on its own people for 47 years now.

00:04:33.820 The threats are real.

00:04:34.840 All right, Q&A, cut one.

00:04:36.280 We have you in the House asking the Immigration Minister kind of exactly what we just talked about.

00:04:41.040 Play cut one.

00:04:41.740 The Minister of Immigration bungled a simple decision to stop an annoying IRGC terrorist from entering our country.

00:04:48.240 And Canadians still don't have clear evidence that he was actually stopped and turned back.

00:04:53.200 There are reports, in fact, that say he actually just turned himself around and left the country.

00:04:57.920 The Liberals are keeping the minister from answering questions because they're concerned about what she'll say next.

00:05:03.420 Now, everyone is wondering why the prime minister is protecting the minister and not letting her answer your questions.

00:05:08.820 Can he tell Canadians, please, why she still has a job?

00:05:12.780 Did you get the answer you were looking for?

00:05:14.720 No, I did not.

00:05:15.520 This was this was a soccer official from Iran that was coming here for FIFA, who has a known record of being an IRGC officer. 0.85

00:05:24.140 And one of these monsters that perpetrated, you know, pure terror on its own people was granted a visa, a temporary visa to come into our country. 0.61

00:05:33.720 Basically, Miss Diab, the minister in her department, said, you know what, we're going to allow him to come into the country so he can enjoy FIFA.

00:05:41.660 Of course, when we found out that this was happening and media found out when he arrived in Canada, he was spoken to at the airport and he says that he didn't like the way he was he was being questioned.

00:05:57.480 So he turned around and left himself. Of course, government is saying that we didn't allow him to come to enter the country.

00:06:03.580 Well, if you're going to do the due diligence and find that you're allowing somebody like this to come into the country by giving him the visa and then stopping him at the airport, it doesn't make sense.

00:06:13.340 You should have never given him that visa in the first place.

00:06:15.660 Why should he even get on the plane with other civilians, a character like this?

00:06:19.660 And why should he even step on Canadian soil when you know up front that this is a known terrorist?

00:06:25.320 Cue up cut two. We have the minister getting grilled and, you know, credit where credit is due.

00:06:31.640 The media did do a bit of their job here asking some tough questions. Play cut two.

00:06:37.300 Over the 11,000 people in your department, how many are in a team investigating these cases?

00:06:45.900 Can you give me a number? We'll have to get back to you with that.

00:06:48.100 23,000 people, according to the Auditor General, said that they were here, passed their visa.

00:06:52.300 Maybe, Mr. Hernandez-Anger, you can answer this. It's about the CBSA.

00:06:55.320 I'd like to say something.

00:06:59.020 I'm even less confident now in the system than I was after watching that.

00:07:02.920 Here's the reality.

00:07:04.040 The minister has had this report for some time.

00:07:06.280 That's how Auditor General's reports go.

00:07:08.080 The fact that she's coming out here and cannot come up with a few key, clear deliverables to change the system

00:07:17.400 and ensure that all of these cases are being reviewed is crazy to me.

00:07:22.260 But also, like, some of the things she said were just wrong.

00:07:25.320 Like, for example, she said that some of these permits were extended, but they got PR.

00:07:30.920 That's not the same thing.

00:07:32.100 So we have the first issue with the IRGC.

00:07:35.020 People here, 700 or so, we're not sure exactly where they are, what they're doing, what they're up to,

00:07:40.520 other than probably threatening, you know, Canadian citizens with Iranian background.

00:07:45.580 Then we have a few thousand people that have overstayed their visas or their, you know, their permits to be here.

00:07:53.540 And the government, again, doesn't know where these people are and has no plan to figure it out.

00:07:58.220 And when asked, the minister was like, I have to get back to you.

00:08:01.460 Well, should this not be a very important issue to the top of your desk to get to the bottom of?

00:08:06.380 Well, 100 percent.

00:08:07.460 But let's remember that in the last 10 years, there have been seven, seven immigration ministers, liberal immigration ministers.

00:08:15.020 all of which have shown tremendous incompetence on handling the file they don't have answers to

00:08:20.140 simple questions you would think that a government that's been in in place since 2015 this is their

00:08:25.560 11th year you would think they would have a handle on being able to answer simple questions like that

00:08:30.380 from the media but they don't they don't because they they have no control of the immigration

00:08:35.040 system it's gone completely out of out of line of what it used to be back in when when the

00:08:41.420 Conservative government was in place under Stephen Harper for the 10 years.

00:08:46.060 They've changed it completely.

00:08:48.000 They have no sense of understanding of what it's like to run a responsible, sustainable 1.00

00:08:54.100 immigration system that brings a plus to Canada and a plus to the newcomers that come here

00:08:58.680 looking and seeking for a better life.

00:09:00.420 And Canada used to have the gold standard in immigration on how our system worked, our

00:09:06.080 point system, how we vetted those looking for a better life here.

00:09:10.600 And then the Liberals in 10 years have just completely dismantled that and to the point where we are now, where we have thousands that have overstayed and they don't have any idea where they are and no plan to figure out the next steps.

00:09:26.720 We had an overall policy, and it was simply this, the overlying guidance for managing the immigration file in the Stephen Harper government.

00:09:36.860 65% of the people that we accepted as newcomers to our country would have to come through what we call economic streams.

00:09:43.160 Someone who would have some knowledge of either one of the two official languages or had a skill or a profession that we needed here in Canada.

00:09:51.100 that people that could contribute basically on day one

00:09:53.780 when they came here to Canadian society

00:09:55.480 and to themselves and for their families.

00:09:58.300 25% we had set aside for family reunification,

00:10:02.560 understanding that people that come here

00:10:04.120 want to reunify with their parents,

00:10:06.080 with their brothers, with their sisters.

00:10:07.280 And then we had a 10% set aside

00:10:09.580 for what we call humanitarian extremes,

00:10:11.720 which are asylum seekers and refugees.

00:10:14.060 So 65, 25, 10.

00:10:16.140 In comes the Trudeau government

00:10:17.440 and the continuation of the Trudeau government

00:10:19.480 now with Carney.

00:10:20.220 They threw that completely out the window, opened the doors.

00:10:23.140 There used to be a one-on-one, complete, thorough discussion with someone when they arrived here.

00:10:28.900 Now that doesn't exist anymore.

00:10:30.200 Now you do a little five-minute meeting, and they give you a questionnaire.

00:10:33.460 Come back 45 days or send it to us, even email it to us 45 days later with answering all of these questions.

00:10:39.200 You're in the country.

00:10:40.000 They don't do proper vetting, and they've lost total control of the system.

00:10:44.220 They don't know who's here.

00:10:45.980 They allow people in that should not be here. 0.53

00:10:48.100 in my community alone, in Richmond Hill, just about 24 months ago or so, a father and a son 1.00

00:10:55.340 that came here from Iran were reported to be planning a terrorist act. The police raided

00:11:04.980 their apartment right in my writing where I live. They found bomb making equipment. They found all

00:11:10.800 kinds of firearms and so forth. They were able to arrest the father and the son. These people got in

00:11:16.460 from Iran without proper vetting. 0.97

00:11:19.520 Now, that's a case where people got caught.

00:11:21.640 What about all the ones that we don't know of that are living amongst us?

00:11:25.180 And when the conservatives were in charge, and prior to,

00:11:29.740 the immigration system not only cost very little to the taxpayer,

00:11:34.560 because, as you said, the majority were coming in ready to contribute on day one,

00:11:39.000 but it was also used as a check against inflation, too, right?

00:11:42.320 If there were more jobs and people able to fill them,

00:11:45.420 The numbers went up a little and then the taps were turned off when the opposite happened.

00:11:51.320 But this, what the Liberals have done in just 10 years, as you just mentioned, has completely upended the system to the point now where, you know, the government almost used it as a way to hold off any downturn in the economy, right?

00:12:08.300 More people spending more money.

00:12:09.900 it kept the economy kind of going. And now that they've kind of leveled off a bit, now we're

00:12:15.180 seeing the results that the economy starts to slow and real problems are happening. Just delayed.

00:12:22.000 Absolutely. Look, immigration is good for the country. It funnels the economy of the country.

00:12:27.040 We need people to come. We have more deaths than births in Canada on an annual basis. So immigration 1.00

00:12:32.000 is very important for our country. But it needs to be at a sustainable number of people. Up until

00:12:37.820 2015, the most number of people that we welcomed into Canada as newcomers in the year was about

00:12:44.240 270,000, 275,000. That's the maximum number of people that the infrastructure of the country

00:12:49.760 can absorb while at the same time providing every opportunity for positive outcomes for those folks

00:12:54.820 that come here. In come the Liberals. And for the last 11 years, they threw that out the window

00:13:00.540 where in 2024 and 2017 and 2018 and 29 the numbers kept creeping up to well over a million people

00:13:08.880 coming into the country at a time when there's a housing crisis time when there's uh health care 1.00

00:13:14.620 is strained to the hilt jobs young people can't find work they just keep bringing all these folks

00:13:19.660 over and it's not only not fair to canadians who have contributed to the system and expect to get

00:13:24.920 the services that they paid for all of their lives it's also not fair to the people coming

00:13:29.500 to the country who come here with an expectation that are coming here for a better life. There's

00:13:33.860 a reason why we have limits, quotas, on the number of people you can accept into the country on an 0.66

00:13:39.640 annual basis. If you don't follow that and don't respect that, then you end up with this colossal

00:13:45.720 problem that they have created where the ministers are running away from the microphones because

00:13:49.640 they can't answer the question because there's no competence in being able to answer the question

00:13:52.960 because the record speaks for itself. So now, along with that, we have a situation, as you

00:13:58.000 just mentioned, perfect segue, is our institutions, hospitals, schools, having trouble keeping up to

00:14:05.560 the level of growth that we've seen. So we have a report that come out, I think we have a headline

00:14:11.680 here, talking about how much money was spent on asylum seekers whose many cases their stay was

00:14:19.780 declined and they were supposed to be back to their home country and weren't. So the government

00:14:25.760 spending $722 million on health care for the people that shouldn't be here because they were

00:14:33.080 ordered to leave, while Canadians are dealing with closures to medical centers and hospitals,

00:14:38.920 shortages in doctors and nurses. And I think this goes to your point earlier about why Canadians

00:14:45.080 are getting a little frustrated. Well, an independent officer of parliament,

00:14:49.980 the parliamentary budget officer, found that 74,000 failed asylum claimants. Failed. They

00:14:57.540 claimed asylum. They didn't meet the criteria. We're getting luxury health benefits and continue

00:15:03.420 to get luxury health benefits that Canadians don't get. They don't just get the basic health 0.61

00:15:07.960 benefits that a Canadian gets. They get additional stuff. They get hearing aids. They get eyeglasses.

00:15:12.200 They get physiotherapy. They get all kinds of additional stuff. And it's failed. To me,

00:15:17.280 and to, I think, most Canadians,

00:15:19.540 if you're coming to Canada and claiming

00:15:21.340 you're an asylum seeker

00:15:23.580 and you're found, it's found 1.00

00:15:25.600 that it's a bogus

00:15:26.680 claim,

00:15:28.960 it's a failed application,

00:15:31.420 you go back, you should be sent back immediately to the 1.00

00:15:33.540 country where you came from. Not us, 0.98

00:15:35.380 not here in Canada, not with this government. With this

00:15:37.400 government, they welcome them in,

00:15:39.520 they give them full benefits,

00:15:41.440 more than Canadians get, waiting for

00:15:43.500 appeals and all this kind of stuff,

00:15:45.540 it makes no sense.

00:15:47.280 At a time when there are about 6 million Canadians that can't find a family doctor, over 2 million in the province of Ontario alone, we're clogging down the system.

00:15:56.160 And let's remember one thing, that when someone gets sick and they're in the country, whether they're a Canadian citizen or not, if they don't have a doctor, where are they going to go?

00:16:06.180 Where's a Canadian going to go that can't find a family doctor and they get sick?

00:16:09.620 They're going to go to the hospital.

00:16:10.520 And the hospitals are now inundated with cases that a regular general practitioner can look after by prescribing some medication and looking after the person.

00:16:20.720 Because you don't have a doctor, you go to the hospital because you're sick and you don't know what you have.

00:16:25.800 They've just strained the system so much in so many ways.

00:16:29.740 It makes no sense to anybody I've spoken to that you would continue to give luxury health benefits to 74,000 people that have no right to be here.

00:16:38.300 And that is over and above.

00:16:40.140 Like, we're not talking about if you're here, you're waiting trial or whatever, and you have a heart attack, right?

00:16:44.900 That's not what we're talking about.

00:16:46.080 We are talking about the over and above, like you said, hearing aids and stuff like that, where regular Canadians don't have that.

00:16:51.880 So let's cue up cut number three.

00:16:54.220 We have our health critic going against the immigration minister, asking a few more details on this number, this massive number that we have.

00:17:03.280 Play cut three. 0.51

00:17:03.800 Why should a rejected asylum claimant receive physiotherapy, counselling and home care and most Canadians pay for those benefits themselves?

00:17:12.200 These are essential services for the most vulnerable of the population and they are aligned to the work and services that social services clients receive in provinces and territory.

00:17:26.060 The immigration minister is saying it's the most essential, but that's not exactly true.

00:17:29.660 That's not what we're talking about here. That number was way over and above the essentials that you'd get if you're having a heart attack or something immediate where you need medical attention, which I believe we all agree that should happen.

00:17:41.300 Yeah, absolutely. It's not essential services. Clearly, the minister doesn't understand the question.

00:17:45.420 When she's talking about giving people essential services, sure, you give someone an essential service, but the question from the health shadow minister, the conservative shadow minister, was why are failed asylum claimants getting these benefits, these additional benefits that Canadians don't get?

00:18:02.780 She has no answer to that.

00:18:04.220 They have no answer because they've lost total control of what it should be like to run an effective, efficient immigration system that benefits the entire country and not just, you know, people that are trying to take advantage of us. 0.92

00:18:20.420 Kostas, we've gone a bit over time, but very good discussion otherwise. 0.89

00:18:24.260 As you know, the guests get the last word, so the floor is yours.

00:18:27.080 Well, thank you very much for having me here today.

00:18:29.120 look, Jamie, you and I are both members of Parliament.

00:18:32.680 We both know that we sit in borrowed chairs.

00:18:34.900 They don't belong to us.

00:18:35.860 They belong to the people that gave us a right to sit in them,

00:18:38.560 to represent them, and we have a right to speak up for them.

00:18:41.400 And that's what we did here today, and we'll continue to do that.

00:18:44.020 Can we continue fighting the good fight

00:18:46.300 as members of His Majesty's official opposition?

00:18:48.920 Because there are so many things that are going awry

00:18:51.440 with this Liberal government.

00:18:52.940 It's high time that they leave in a good, effective, strong,

00:18:57.160 stable national majority conservative government governs this country.

00:19:00.880 I love it.

00:19:01.480 Costas Menegakas, Member of Parliament for Aurora Oak Ridges, Richmond Hill.

00:19:05.580 Thank you very much for your time.

00:19:07.020 Once again, thank you for yours.

00:19:08.840 Don't forget, we will have new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern

00:19:13.360 time, even throughout the summer.

00:19:15.380 Don't forget to like, comment, share and subscribe this program and tell your friends

00:19:19.480 too, because we need to get the word out about what the Liberal government is doing here

00:19:23.400 in Ottawa.

00:19:23.760 so download it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. You name it,

00:19:28.580 it is out there. Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom.

00:19:33.380 That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - July 14, 2026

Canada’s Immigration System： Once the Gold Standard

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