The Candice Malcolm Show - Canada’s immigration system is BROKEN

00:00:00.160 Canada once had the strongest and most secure immigration system in the world. We had our

00:00:05.840 pick of the best and the hardest working immigrants, and illegal immigration was mostly

00:00:10.720 unheard of. But everything fell apart after Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015. And now,

00:00:16.160 by 2023, we saw the largest number of illegal immigrants entering our country in the history

00:00:22.240 of Canada. We're going to break down the numbers. We're going to break down the reasons behind this

00:00:26.640 huge surge in immigration on today's show. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:43.680 Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast. Today, we're going to return to

00:00:47.600 one of my favorite topics, one of the topics that I've written extensively about. In the early part

00:00:51.600 of my career, I was a beat writer on immigration. I broke countless stories in the Toronto Sun when

00:00:56.960 I used to write over there. And I've written two books on the topic, Losing True North, and then a

00:01:01.440 follow-up, No Border. I've written a lot about immigration, and I'm going to revisit a lot of

00:01:05.920 the work today. Now, before we get into it, don't forget to like this video. If you're new around

00:01:09.760 here, please subscribe to the True North channel. Leave us a five-star review if you enjoy the content.

00:01:14.080 Please head on over to our website, tnc.news, to sign up for our newsletter so you never miss an episode.

00:01:19.760 Now, when most people think about immigration, when most people talk about our immigration system,

00:01:25.280 the number that we hear, the number that we're told is that Canada welcomes roughly half a million

00:01:29.360 people per year into our country. Now, most people, according to the polls, they believe that that

00:01:34.560 number is too high. Somewhere between half a million and somewhere between half and three-quarters,

00:01:39.760 sorry, of all Canadians tell pollsters that they believe that half a million number is too high,

00:01:45.040 and they would like it to be lower. But let me tell you, that half a million number

00:01:49.200 that's often quoted, that's thrown around, it is wildly misleading. Canada welcomes 500,000

00:01:54.720 newcomers each year into one of our immigration streams, permanent residencies, which is the

00:02:00.080 equivalent of a US green card, people who are on track to get their citizenship in Canada. Those are

00:02:06.240 not people who have been living in Canada for a while, who have finally obtained permanent residency.

00:02:10.560 These are people who are entering Canada for the first time. So for the numbers I'm talking about,

00:02:14.720 2023 was the first year that they came to Canada, and the visa that they were given is a permanent

00:02:19.840 residency. So that's the half a million number that we often hear thrown around. But it's not accurate.

00:02:25.200 It's not a full picture of the immigration system and the people that are entering our country. So on

00:02:29.920 top of that half a million, Canada also admits approximately 660,000 people as temporary foreign

00:02:36.800 workers. That's 2023 numbers again. And in 2023, the government put a cap of 900,000 international

00:02:43.840 students. So 600,000 temporary foreign workers, 900,000 international students. And then in 2023,

00:02:51.680 Canada saw an absolute explosion of illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants coming into Canada,

00:02:57.280 we saw 143,870 people enter the country illegally and request political asylum. That is so out of step

00:03:06.480 with our historical numbers. For context, under Stephen Harper, Canada dealt with a range of between

00:03:12.080 10,000 and 25,000 illegal migrants each year. And we thought that was too high. You know,

00:03:17.680 the government took countless steps to try to lower that number to try to stop that illegal

00:03:22.640 immigration when the number was 25,000. Well, under Trudeau, the number has absolutely exploded.

00:03:28.320 It's grown tenfold more than that 14 fold in the past decade. It's really unbelievable. So when you add

00:03:33.760 all these immigration streams together, the total number of newcomers you get arriving into Canada

00:03:39.200 each year is 2.2 million people. 2.2 million people. That's how many people Canada had welcomed,

00:03:48.400 entered our country, admitted in the last calendar year in 2023. So it's no wonder that our infrastructure

00:03:54.240 is crumbling. It's no wonder that there are housing shortages. It's no wonder that there are viral

00:03:58.560 videos showing dozens, if not hundreds of migrants lining up for minimum wage jobs in the service industry.

00:04:04.720 Remember, we're told that Canada has a labor shortage. And so we're bringing in these people 0.80

00:04:09.600 to do construction jobs and fill roles that Canadians supposedly can't fill. And yet we see them lining up

00:04:17.280 for minimum wage jobs, taking jobs away from young Canadians. It doesn't make any sense. So under the

00:04:23.520 current Trudeau government, Canada's range for landed immigrants, which are those permanent residents,

00:04:29.120 was 226 as a low during COVID, 226,000, and an average of just under 500,000 in the few years since the

00:04:37.760 pandemic. We're supposed to hit 500,000 in 2025. This is double the sustained averages of the past two

00:04:45.280 decades. So Trudeau has doubled that number of permanent residencies coming into Canada. And it's really

00:04:50.960 unprecedented in Canadian history, especially considering all the streams together, as mentioned, the true

00:04:56.880 numbers upwards of 2 million. So it's really hard to overstate how drastically out of step this is

00:05:01.920 with Canada's traditional approach to immigration. I like looking at the numbers. I like looking at the

00:05:06.480 stats. There's one page that I always look at that I find really interesting. Stats Canada tracks the

00:05:10.880 number of immigrants who have come here since 1850, so before Confederation. Now, curiously, Stats Canada has

00:05:18.160 all the data in one place from 1850 all the way up to 2015. For some reason, they stopped adding new

00:05:25.440 numbers and showing the new annual figures in 2015. Isn't that interesting? What else happened

00:05:30.080 in 2015? Well, anyway, we can look back at this graph and we can see the history of our immigration.

00:05:37.040 The graph is really interesting because what you really notice is that there are peaks and there

00:05:40.720 are valleys. So Canada has always had years where we've had huge influxes of newcomers coming into our

00:05:46.400 country. For instance, you can see this big peak that happened right before World War II in sort of 1910,

00:05:52.560 1911, 1912. There was a huge, huge spike in the number of folks coming and then we saw more spikes

00:05:59.360 sort of in the post-World War II years. So these peaks in immigration are then historically followed

00:06:05.760 by valleys, years when Canada significantly decreased its immigration intake. Now, the valleys are as

00:06:12.160 important as the peaks. These are the years when newcomers would acclimate to their new surroundings.

00:06:17.200 They would integrate into the Canadian community and into the Canadian economy and they would

00:06:22.400 adopt a Canadian identity. These are the years that ensured the continued success of our immigration

00:06:28.720 system. But you can see that everything changed starting in the 1990s. Canada abandoned this key

00:06:34.720 component of our immigration system. So starting in the 90s, we had successive governments, both liberal

00:06:40.080 and conservative, and they realized that they could sort of combat the demographic realities which were the

00:06:45.520 declining birth rates and the increased cost of social entitlement programs like health care, pensions,

00:06:50.320 and old age security OAS payments by simply importing more working age people. They kind of got addicted 1.00

00:06:57.840 to that artificial growth that you see when you bring in new people, all those new working age people 0.97

00:07:02.960 paying taxes and paying into the economy. And they didn't want to do the gaps. They didn't want to do

00:07:08.000 the valleys anymore. They didn't want to have years where they basically paused immigration intake

00:07:12.640 to let everybody integrate into the economy, into the community. Instead, they just kept it going,

00:07:19.520 kept the floodgates open, kept bringing more and more people. Well, the Trudeau government,

00:07:23.360 Justin Trudeau, has taken this hack to an extreme. They've attempted to cover up ruinous economic policies

00:07:29.920 like the carbon tax and excessive runaway deficit spending by simply and dramatically increasing the

00:07:35.680 number of people who come into the country. So more people means a higher cumulative economic output,

00:07:41.200 which we measure as GDP. And so with a straight face, government officials can say that Canada's

00:07:46.560 economy is growing and our GDP continues to rise when we all know that that is not the real case.

00:07:51.600 It's not happening. And we recently had this pointed out to us. So a Waterloo economics professor

00:07:56.800 named Mikkel Scudderlin said this on Twitter. He wrote, Canada's GDP grew by 1.1% in the fourth quarter

00:08:03.680 of 2022, while our population grew by 3.2%. So that means the real GDP per capita is actually falling

00:08:13.040 at 2% annually, roughly the difference. So we can pretend that our economy is growing by 1%. But when

00:08:19.120 you subtract the fact that we've imported and grown our population by 3%, the reality is that per person,

00:08:25.760 the economy is much worse. So politicians will tell you the economy is growing. It's not true. It's only

00:08:30.720 technically true. And that is because of mass migration. They're using mass migration to cover

00:08:35.360 up their terrible economic policies. The average Canadian is much poorer under this system. And it

00:08:42.400 gets even worse because GDP figures are further distorted when you consider that it includes government

00:08:48.320 spending in their calculation. So government spending is part of GDP. The government can simply

00:08:53.680 increase the GDP by taxing and spending more of your money. And that has been the case in recent years.

00:08:59.280 So look, immigration only works when it is well managed and when it has the approval of the vast 0.66

00:09:04.080 majority of Canadians. Our current system is the opposite of that. It's being completely overrun. 0.95

00:09:09.120 It's being completely mismanaged. This is harmful to the economy. It's harmful to Canadians who are 1.00

00:09:14.560 struggling with the rising cost of living. Now, I want to zero in on one element of immigration that I

00:09:21.200 find to be the most alarming, the most disturbing, and sort of the worst when it comes to how poorly

00:09:27.120 managed, mismanaged the system is. And that is a surge in illegal immigration that happened in 2023.

00:09:32.880 I'm telling you, I look at these numbers closely and I've never seen anything like this. I've never

00:09:36.480 seen a jump or spike in one category of immigration look anything like this. So a shocking, shocking 143,830

00:09:46.160 people entered Canada illegally. Let me say that again. 143,830 people entered Canada illegally in

00:09:55.600 2023. They made an asylum claim. And this is according to raw data that I found on Canada's

00:10:00.640 immigration department website. So who are these people? These are wannabe refugees who entered 1.00

00:10:05.840 illegally. They either snuck across at an unmanned border crossing. They entered using fraudulent or

00:10:11.360 falsified passports and documents, or they entered under false pretenses. So they came as a temporary

00:10:17.360 visitor, pretending to be a tourist, only to later place an asylum claim and ask Canada for refugee

00:10:23.600 status. So they're trying to obtain refugee status, but they're not yet legal refugees. They still have 0.98

00:10:28.880 to have their case scrutinized by an immigration judge. And this is a process that has historically been

00:10:34.160 very difficult. Most claims ended up being rejected or abandoned. Although I must admit, in recent years

00:10:39.040 under the Trudeau government, they've significantly loosened the rules to allow more of these asylum 1.00

00:10:43.680 seekers to become permanent refugees and to stay in Canada permanently. Now, even if these individuals 0.99

00:10:50.160 have their claim rejected by an immigration judge, or they choose to abandon them, maybe they choose to

00:10:54.560 go to another country, usually the United States, or they just decide to go dark and live on the lam here 0.92

00:10:59.840 in Canada, there are significant benefits to just putting your name in that system and being in that

00:11:05.600 process as an asylum claimant. So asylum seekers receive government benefits, including welfare,

00:11:11.600 social housing, and a gold-plated program called the Interim Federal Health Program. This is a program

00:11:17.440 that the government spends about a billion dollars a year on. They send money, the federal government

00:11:21.680 sends money to the provinces, and the provinces provide health care to these asylum seekers. It is 0.54

00:11:27.040 above and beyond what Canadians receive. It includes the cost of any medication, dental visits, eye doctor

00:11:33.200 visits, and other services that Canadians typically pay out of pocket for. So when you when you look

00:11:39.920 back at historic numbers of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, the numbers just look so quaint 1.00

00:11:45.440 in comparison to what we're seeing today. So here's a graph that I found on the Immigration Department

00:11:50.160 website. It shows illegal immigration from 2000 to 2018. It's interesting because according to the IRCC,

00:11:58.720 which is the Department of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada, prior to the Trudeau government

00:12:03.520 forming in late 2015, Canada's previous high in asylum seekers was in 2001 when we have 44,000,

00:12:11.040 and in 2008 when we had 37,000, and the low was in 2013 when there were only 10,365 illegal immigrants

00:12:20.800 entering the country and claiming asylum. And even the government's own sort of communication on this,

00:12:26.320 you can see what the bureaucrats wrote here. They said that the number of asylum claims more than

00:12:30.480 tripled since 2015, increasing from 16,000 in 2015 to over 50,000 in 2017. So in 2017, when there were

00:12:39.360 50,000 illegal immigrants coming to Canada, the bureaucrats thought it was a big deal. They were 0.87

00:12:43.120 worried about it. They noted that they had tripled in just a few years and you could tell that they

00:12:47.120 didn't like that. Now Trudeau had an opportunity to put this all to an end because during COVID,

00:12:51.840 the Trudeau government implemented incredibly tight restrictions on who could fly in and who could fly

00:12:57.040 out, who could enter and who could leave Canada. So in 2020, we only had 23,600 asylum claims,

00:13:03.440 and in 2021, we only had 24,900. But rather than take advantage of the natural reduction that happened

00:13:11.360 in illegal immigration caused mostly by the global travel restrictions that governments implemented

00:13:16.720 during the pandemic, instead of taking advantage of that, the immigration department under the Trudeau

00:13:21.840 government made a series of policy errors that led to the 6x jump in illegal immigration in just two

00:13:27.280 years from 2021 to 2023. And that staggering 14 fold increase from 10 years prior from 2013. So I'm

00:13:35.760 going to go through what I believe are the four factors behind this unprecedented surge in illegal

00:13:42.160 immigration. The first reason why this is happening is because of the Prime Minister, because of Prime

00:13:47.280 Minister Justin Trudeau and his messaging. So you'll remember this. This was back in 2017,

00:13:52.880 the same day that US President Donald Trump announced an executive order that would restrict

00:13:57.840 travel from seven countries that were known state sponsors of terrorism. That's why those seven countries 0.95

00:14:02.720 were picked. It became known as the Muslim ban, even though it wasn't a Muslim ban per se, but

00:14:08.240 it blocked people from coming from those seven countries that were state sponsors of terrorism.

00:14:13.120 On that same day, January 28, 2017, we had our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say, give a completely

00:14:19.440 different message. So this is what he tweeted. To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians

00:14:24.400 will welcome you regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. So that was Justin Trudeau virtue

00:14:30.320 signaling. Well, according to records obtained from bureaucrats inside the immigration department,

00:14:35.280 Trudeau's tweet created an absolute frenzy, created a frenzy at embassies, consulates,

00:14:40.400 immigration offices around the world. As many people, many potential wannabe refugees,

00:14:46.320 interpreted Trudeau's statement as a literal invitation. They thought that Trudeau was literally

00:14:51.360 inviting everybody to come be refugees in Canada. And the reality is that hundreds of thousands of

00:14:57.520 people around the world heeded this call. This contributed to the tripling of asylum claims in that

00:15:03.120 calendar year, in the year that Trudeau put out that tweet, which was 2017. And it still contributes

00:15:09.680 to the earth shattering figures that we see today. So that was number one reason is Prime Minister's

00:15:14.560 messaging. Number two reason is Canada's decision to abandon the visa requirement for Mexican nationals.

00:15:21.680 So Mexico, Mexicans are the number one source country of illegal immigration into Canada, the number

00:15:27.120 one source of asylum seekers. So just under 10,000 Mexican nationals enter Canada, they overstay their

00:15:34.320 visas, and they eventually make refugee claims each year. And there's a really easy way to fix this 0.76

00:15:40.480 problem. There's a policy tool that was previously introduced by the by the Stephen Harper government

00:15:45.520 back in 2009. It really works. It's simple. It's just a visa requirement, a simple visa that requires

00:15:52.000 Mexican visitors to submit some basic paperwork prior to coming to Canada, just basically proving

00:15:57.440 that they have a place to stay, that their stay is temporary, and that they have purchased a flight

00:16:01.840 home. It's really, really basic. Most countries that you go to will ask to see your flight home when

00:16:07.040 you're entering. And that's just sort of part of traveling to a different country. So personally,

00:16:11.920 again, as a Canadian, I've traveled extensively around the world. And many countries that you go to

00:16:16.960 require some kind of visa. I've had to do one when I've gone to places like Brazil,

00:16:21.360 Russia, India, China, Vietnam, so many countries require visas. And so it's not that big of a deal

00:16:26.800 for candidates to say to Mexicans, have a visa when you come. We used to have that. But in 2016,

00:16:33.040 the federal government under Justin Trudeau decided to eliminate this visa requirement for Mexicans.

00:16:38.160 And as a result, I mean, it was completely predictable. There was a huge surge in asylum

00:16:42.880 claims for Mexicans. They come to Canada pretending to be tourists, and then they never leave. 1.00

00:16:47.120 Okay, the third reason why we've had this huge spike in illegal immigration is because the government

00:16:53.600 has eliminated important rules that are meant to limit other streams of immigration that could

00:16:58.080 potentially be misused. So over the past several years, Canada's seen an explosion in two categories,

00:17:05.200 temporary foreign workers and students coming to Canada. So as I reported in True North, the number of

00:17:11.760 international students has tripled in the last decade. We used to welcome about 300,000 back in

00:17:17.280 2013. And then as I mentioned, in 2023, the government had to actually cap the number of student visas

00:17:22.640 because they were just getting so many applications. We now allow 900,000 students into the country

00:17:28.880 each year. Likewise, there's been a jump in those temporary foreign workers that went from about half a

00:17:32.800 million in 2013, up to 700,000 2021, which is the last figures that we have available. So by allowing all of

00:17:40.560 those people to come into Canada on a temporary basis, you're basically inviting them, there's

00:17:45.520 opportunity for fraud and abuse. Because once a migrant is legally in Canada, there's nothing stopping 1.00

00:17:51.840 them from asking for refugee status. They literally just have to go to an office, throw up their hands,

00:17:55.920 say, I'm a refugee, fill out a bit of paperwork. And all of a sudden, they're placed in that stream

00:18:01.280 of refugees, they get all the benefits that I mentioned earlier, including that interim federal health

00:18:06.160 care. So really, you're kind of creating incentives by allowing 1.5 million people to come into the

00:18:12.480 country under the guise of either a visa or temporary firm worker. And all they have to do to jump to that

00:18:18.320 other category where they could become a refugee and potentially state in Canada as a permanent resident,

00:18:24.000 all they have to do is pretend that they're a refugee. And there you have it. So again, that's a huge 0.88

00:18:30.320 mistake. And finally, the fourth reason why Canada has seen this unprecedented surge in illegal immigration

00:18:36.800 is because of the bureaucracy. It seems to me by looking at the numbers and reading into it,

00:18:41.440 that the bureaucracy has basically taken over. They're not being tamed by the political staff.

00:18:45.600 The Liberals aren't stopping them from doing what they want. It's a situation where the sort of the

00:18:49.920 inmates are running the asylum. The bureaucrats are obsessed and focused on reducing the backlog. So

00:18:55.680 Canada gets 2.5 million applications for visitor visas each year. And the bureaucracy has to process

00:19:02.800 each of those. This is a huge undertaking. It's a huge problem. They don't have enough staff to do it.

00:19:08.080 And so they're always looking for shortcuts and tricks to get through that backlog as fast as possible.

00:19:14.080 You know what would stop the backlog and what would make it all much more obtainable would just be to

00:19:19.760 put a fee on an application. Like you want to apply for a visa to Canada, you have to pay 50 bucks to pay for it.

00:19:25.280 To get processed, but they don't want to do that. And so it's this huge undertaking for the bureaucracy.

00:19:29.680 They're obsessed with reducing their backlog. And so that's why they take they take shortcuts.

00:19:34.720 They take steps that lead to problems in other areas. And this is what we've seen happen.

00:19:39.200 So I found this Globe and Mail report from October 2023. It says asylum claims jump at Canadian airports

00:19:45.360 after Ottawa eases some visitor visa requirements. So let me just read a little bit from the story.

00:19:50.480 It says earlier this year, Ottawa waived some eligibility requirements for visa visitor

00:19:55.200 applications. In particular, those individuals no longer have to prove that they have sufficient

00:20:00.080 funds to stay in Canada or demonstrate that they will leave the country when the visa expires.

00:20:04.960 The policy went into effect on February 28th and last through the end of 2023. So think about that.

00:20:12.080 People who are coming to Canada no longer have to prove that they have a return flight.

00:20:16.000 They no longer have to prove that they actually have money in order to fund their stay or pay for

00:20:21.440 their trip to Canada. They just they just get the visa. Basically, they apply and they get the visa.

00:20:26.720 So what could possibly be the reason for eliminating this is an important safeguard

00:20:30.960 for Canada's immigration system to stop fake tourists who plan to just stay in Canada indefinitely.

00:20:37.360 Well, there is a memo that was leaked from the immigration department,

00:20:41.120 and it says exactly what the issue is. And so this is from the same Global Mail report says

00:20:46.560 the IRCC memo, which dates to December, said waiving eligibility requirements would apply to roughly

00:20:52.160 450,000 visa applications in the system. The documents of the stockpile of application was eroding

00:20:58.960 the public's trust in the department and its ability to manage migration.

00:21:03.360 Hopeful immigrants and visitors often complain that can take years for the government

00:21:07.360 to render a decision on their files. So they're talking about how basically foreigners from 0.56

00:21:13.280 other countries, foreign nationals in foreign countries, are complaining that it takes too long

00:21:18.720 to get their visa approved. And the bureaucracy thinks that this is going to erode public trust.

00:21:24.080 Okay, so that's the reason why there's a huge surge. They got rid of all these shortcuts

00:21:28.400 because they didn't want to erode the public's trust. When they're talking about the public,

00:21:32.480 let's just be perfectly clear. They're not talking about you and I. They're not talking about

00:21:35.760 Canadians. Canadians don't know anything about the backlog. They don't care how long it takes

00:21:40.320 for someone visiting from India to get a visa. They don't care about that at all. 1.00

00:21:44.480 What the bureaucracy cares about when they talk about the public trust, they're talking about

00:21:48.000 the public in foreign countries. They're talking about non-Canadians, the public in places like

00:21:53.200 India and China and people who want to come visit Canada. The bureaucrats are literally more concerned

00:21:58.640 with quelling the concerns of hopeful immigrants and visitors rather than protecting the integrity of

00:22:05.520 our immigration system. It's really unbelievable. So these are the four factors that I believe

00:22:10.080 are contributing and led to that 140,000 illegal immigrants entering Canada, that shocking figure,

00:22:16.880 and those people who are pleading for asylum. Look, it is clear that the system is broken.

00:22:22.320 It is clear that Canada needs a total overhaul. We need a total redesign of our system

00:22:27.360 from top to bottom. The only question that remains here is who will have the political courage to take

00:22:34.720 on this issue and finally fix Canada's immigration system. That's the only question that remains.

00:22:39.920 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - March 12, 2024

Canada’s immigration system is BROKEN

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