This week on EdStream, we have a special guest co-host Lee Stewie, who is recovering from his AIDS diagnosis. We also hear from Dan Savage, who has been covering the issue of the migrant hotels for asylum seekers in Niagara Falls that are being paid for by the Taxpayers Dime.
00:10:12.360I think this is just worth reading the whole thing all throughout.
00:10:16.440It's very nicely condensed with the information.
00:10:20.540So, yeah, I'll get right into it here.
00:10:22.68087 hotel rooms increased to 300 hotel rooms, eventually turned into 600 hotel rooms, and now it's over 2,000 hotel rooms.
00:10:32.200So, urged to keep quiet, the Niagara region has received an influx of over 5,000 illegal migrants who unlawfully crossed via Roxham Road in Quebec, the unofficial but most popular entry point into Canada from the USA.
00:10:47.160So, do you think we should read all the way through it and then comment?
00:10:52.640Yeah, that's probably best because it'll give a good primer to what's going on here.
00:10:58.860In June 2022, the Canadian federal government began quietly shipping the legal migrants to Niagara as a temporary solution.
00:11:07.340After the Quebec shelter system reached full capacity, stopped taking referrals from migrants at hotel rooms leased by the IRCC, so that's the Immigration something Canada, and began turning away claimants.
00:11:21.960Eventually, word got out, the famous tourist destination was selected by the government to accommodate the migrants solely based on its large number of hotels, but did not take into consideration Niagara's looming housing, rental, and affordability crisis.
00:11:35.980Ontario works cases increased from 10,428 to 11,357 in two months.
00:11:42.200Over $5 million has been spent so far on temporary full-time staff, including interpreter services, discretionary services, rent deposits, life stabilization, including bus passes, and cell phones.
00:11:56.000With no end or deadline in sight, Mayor Jim Diodati says tourism season is knocking at our door.
00:12:03.840We are coming off three years of devastation from COVID and are trying to get back on our feet.
00:12:08.360At the very least, we need to be privy to the plan.
00:12:10.820The federal government needs to be more transparent about what is actually happening.
00:12:17.000Now, for as far as accommodating the surge of illegal migrants, it is unsustainable.
00:12:22.380The use of resources for illegal migrants means that there are fewer resources available for Niagara residents, leading to longer wait times and lower quality of services for the people who have been paying taxes and contributing to the region.
00:12:34.560A majority of the migrants have not submitted paperwork for their refugee claim, and the processing for the ones that have is already extremely backlogged.
00:12:43.080Without that paperwork, migrants are unable to work.
00:12:46.060Allowing illegal migrants to stay in hotels and use resources for free is a violation of immigration laws and creating a culture of impunity.
00:12:53.560This sends a message that breaking the law is acceptable and has no consequences.
00:17:31.060But yeah, so this is actually kind of a historical tweet in that it, it predated Roxham Road being opened.
00:17:40.040Now, I wonder if there was some coordination after he made this tweet.
00:17:46.500Well, all these people want to come here.
00:17:48.300So are we going to, how are we going to let them through?
00:17:50.600Like, did the government conspire to let people in through this port, this unofficial port of entry?
00:17:56.940Well, that's, that's a good point because not a lot of people before this tweet knew about the loophole, right?
00:18:02.880It was the, the safe third party agreement between the U.S. and Canada.
00:18:07.480And I don't know if it was NGOs that, that discovered this and put it out there and discovered this third party loophole that normally if you're seeking asylum in a country, you would seek asylum in the first country that you land in, right?
00:18:22.840So if you're from Haiti and you, you seek asylum and you land in the States, that's where you have to seek asylum.
00:18:27.300But it got out that there was a safe third country agreement from Canada, like with the United States that says, if you enter Canada illegally, you can seek asylum twice.
00:18:41.560They were seeking asylum in the U.S., staying there for X amount of years or days or whatever it is, and then coming through Roxham illegally.
00:18:49.660That's the loophole, that's the loophole.
00:18:50.960If you cross in illegally, then you can stay and seek asylum.
00:18:54.640So they had to cross in illegally in order for that loophole to work.
00:29:55.240I went to a hotel, the Radisson in Toronto, where it was a four-star hotel that went down to a 2.5.
00:30:02.960I've been to another hotel in Cornwall, the NAV Centre, where I was proposed marriage to in order to speed up the process of a, of a immigration claim.
00:30:13.860This has been going on for years and people have just, you know, Canadians have been ignoring it because they don't want to be deemed as a racist or a Nazi or a bigot or, you know, whatever the names are by the mainstream media.
00:30:38.740And the funny thing is here, first off, they're going to call you that no matter what you do.
00:30:43.920And especially because this is such a crucial issue, they're going to call you that.
00:30:48.300And especially people like us, you know, who have a, we throw up some, some weird hand signals, some weird diagonal hand signals and other such things.
00:31:00.660Anything we do, anything we do, anything we touch, they're going to smear us.
00:31:05.200And so like, what do you have to lose at this point?
00:31:25.040This poor mayor, he's like begging people for help.
00:31:28.880I feel like he needs, it's funny because we want to get behind him in a sense, in a sense.
00:31:35.160I like, I'm sure our views are not aligned with him in many ways, you know, non endorsement, but he's basically begging people for help.
00:31:43.620And he's blowing the whistle saying that, you know, he hasn't been given the money.
00:31:48.280He's been cut out of the conversation.
00:31:50.140Like he did an interview with Andrew Lawton, uh, from True North, uh, couple of like one or two months ago, basically saying, uh, he needs millions more, uh, in funding in order to be able to support these migrants over here.
00:32:07.200He has been left in the dark the whole time.
00:32:09.560Like when they originally sent the migrants to the Niagara Falls hotels, which he has to be in charge to make sure people are like living properly in his city.
00:32:20.140To make sure the tourism industry helps feed what 40,000 people, 40,000 residents who rely on that as their income, the whole tourism industry, the whole tourism season yet.
00:32:34.560Uh, what is it like five, 10% of, uh, his hotels are now booked up by migrants in a city where hotels are going to be booked up completely.
00:32:46.320All sold out, like just on a normal, regular basis, especially in a season where they're supposed to have their comeback season after COVID and like replenish their economy over there.
00:32:59.500Something they haven't been able to do over the past few years, this poor guy is just begging for help.
00:33:05.300So he goes on True North and there was one article, I think it was from the star where, um, they, they have, uh, another counselors or I think it was someone involved, uh, with Ottawa and sending the migrants over there saying that he, he, he shouldn't have gone on a white nationalist, uh, podcast.
00:33:26.500In order to air false grievances about homeless people being kicked out of hotels.
00:33:32.940Well, he also went on the CBC and said the exact same thing.
00:33:36.680So they're cherry picking, but nice try.
00:33:38.760I thought it was pretty ridiculous that they're, uh, smearing now True North as white nationalist, transphobic, homophobic, all this stuff.
00:33:48.640But, uh, that's literally what will happen to you if you try to, to, uh, you know, shed light to these issues in any way possible.
00:33:57.300The mainstream media does have a lot of articles about this, but they want to maintain control of the narrative.
00:34:04.340And the narrative is that it's just, uh, it's just taken for granted.
00:34:10.140It's just a given that you need all these migrants to be coming in.
00:34:13.780It's just, how are we going to, uh, spread them out?
00:34:17.240You know, how are we going to share the responsibility?
00:34:19.880That's more so what they're bickering about.
00:34:21.940Now, well, I will say, um, cause I have some numbers here that I just like where the numbers are allocated.
00:34:36.800So they're asking, so Niagara Falls, the mayor asked for, I think it was 5.9 million to allocate for expenses that Niagara Falls has covered and it's on its own.
00:34:49.500Um, so they require 50, 15 temporary full-time staff at 1.2 million.
00:34:55.380They need a $453,000 for interpret interpreter services, discretionary benefits, which means rent deposits is 2.3 million.
00:35:04.860So, and the mayor actually said that there's approximately three migrants per hotel room.
00:36:52.960So, of course, the media always props up some lady that they could get, usually an older boomer woman, uh, you know, to sell out their younger generations.
00:37:04.180You know, the, so, these people are coming.
00:37:09.260Like, we're paying for them in the hotels to stay, what, they say two, three months, but we know it's going to be longer than that, obviously.
00:37:17.420And then they're going to live here and have kids here?
00:37:20.900Probably have more kids than the resident Canadians are going to have.
00:37:57.940But, however, when you look at these comments, like, this is from CBC and I know, uh, that they probably have much more vetted comments and, you know, much more censored than what Canadians actually really think.
00:38:12.520And, right away, you just have pure condemnation of this.
00:38:19.120Justin Trudeau and the libs have to be the most incompetent government this country has ever seen, bar none.
00:39:50.560They've loosened up the requirements to even get into Canada.
00:39:54.520If you have a family member here, which includes if you get a student visa to come here for school, you can bring your entire family and pay nothing.
00:40:04.220Like, remember back in the day to immigrate to Canada, you needed at least $1,000 in your bank account, which was quite a lot back then.
00:40:12.100And yeah, it's, it's pathetic and it's on purpose.
00:41:32.920Well, just to touch on something you brought up before is we were, we've been talking about Roxham Road and it's part of this safe third country agreement where they could just,
00:41:46.500since, since Roxham Road was not an official port of entry, it wasn't included in this agreement where you couldn't go, just go to America as a refugee and then go into Canada to claim asylum again.
00:42:02.220But since Roxham Road was an unofficial port, they could just get in and then Canada would just cater to them and send them to one of these different migrant hotels all the way from 2017 to now.
00:42:16.560They, they kind of did make Roxham an official port without labeling it one.
00:42:20.660Um, the RCMP started out, first of all, with like a tiny little trailer when they first got there in, in 2017 and then they built like a giant structure.
00:42:30.360Like it used to be a little dirt path through a ravine.
00:42:34.220And, uh, you know, like when it first started becoming a thing, it was like a dirt path with like, they had a, you know, a little, uh, trailer that was just set up.
00:42:43.980Um, when I went there, like two years later, it was cement, like a, a paved pathway with, you know, like a huge structure that they had a permanent structure.
00:42:54.740Um, you know, uh, a brand new bus that was there to, to take people all over the place, like drive them from, uh, the processing center to a secondary location.
00:43:06.560And then they would be shipped off to a hotel or whatever.
00:43:09.640Um, it looked pretty permanent and official to me.
00:43:12.580So, um, I don't know for them to call it an official port.
00:43:16.800It's just anyway, it's almost like it was, uh, you know, one of those Terry Fox runs where you go through the forest, like caught cross country and it's like, they're getting to the finish line and, you know, then they're going to take care of them.
00:43:33.140Once they get there and then they have a whole, um, yeah, it, it seems like it was all manufactured in that sense.
00:44:27.400You know, and it is causing some backlash, not in all the appropriate areas, but it, it's definitely getting all these different officials in different cities, uh, from the federal and provincial government to go, what the hell is going on?
00:44:45.960You're just springing this upon all of us, right?
00:44:50.040So this mayor, Jim Diodati, he, he's got his hands tied behind his back.
00:44:54.800He doesn't know where this is coming from, like how, how to get in contact with people to, to lessen the impact of it.
00:45:03.000And, and I want to let everyone know too, um, Niagara Falls is a conservative riding.
00:45:09.960There's, uh, um, Tony Baldinelli, conservative party, and also Dean Allison.
00:45:28.060But now just for some greater context about Roxham road.
00:45:32.920So, uh, Biden met with Trudeau or basically U S or Canada.
00:45:38.880I don't know who exactly met with who, but they came to an agreement that they're actually going to amend the third country agreement.
00:45:46.380So that includes all of the border of Canada.
00:45:49.420So that essentially makes it so that you can get detained when you go through Roxham road and sent back to the U S.
00:45:56.720So basically in principle, they did close the loophole, but now this part of that agreement is that they're going to let in 15,000 more asylum seekers into Canada as part of that agreement.
00:46:13.020So these people are still going to be going into hotels and staying at the taxpayer's dime while they get, uh, moved to assistance, uh, in order to hopefully be able to work.
00:46:25.020But then again, that just adds so many more questions here.
00:46:28.760You're throwing so many things down the road, making a very uncertain future for everybody.
00:46:35.920Well, you got to meet those century initiative goals, right?
00:46:57.060The cost of living will keep on going up and, uh, we won't be able to have children.
00:47:01.100And yet people who just dump out their children and get on assistance like this can just, uh, keep repopulating and making it even more and more difficult for people to start having families and living in houses.
00:47:14.420But that boomer lady from the last article, she's doing fine.
00:47:42.640So if you try to get into Roxham Road, you'll still be allowed to get in.
00:47:46.460If you have a spouse, legal guardian, child, father or mother, sister or brother, grandfather, grandmother, grandchild, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, common law, partner or same sex spouse.
00:47:59.160That is a permanent resident, holds a valid, any of these qualifications.
00:48:06.540They don't even have to be, they just have to be able to work in Canada.
00:48:19.780So after they shut it down, there was like a CBC article all about this Turkish family who tried to get in and they, they only had cousins that were in Canada.
00:48:28.840And then it tells a long sob story about like how they came from here and there and they got into the U.S.
00:48:35.240And I'm thinking like, you were in the U.S.
00:48:38.120You were in a safe-ish area and how long were you there for?
00:48:41.660Like, second of all, do we have to solve all of the world's issues and make our country over here into one of the world's issues even worse than it already is?
00:48:53.180But it's like if all these people, you know, want to work and work hard and they're these upstanding, you know, smart people that they're bringing over because of the labor shortage.
00:49:03.240It's like if they, if they stayed in their own country and they're these wonderful workers, wouldn't their country be flourishing?
00:53:36.800It affects everywhere, not just Quebec.
00:53:38.900So, these migrants have gone to Niagara Falls, first and foremost.
00:53:45.920Windsor is another city that they've sent, I don't know, probably over around 1,000 now.
00:53:53.220But they've decided to cap off the hotels in Windsor.
00:53:57.240They came to agreement with their city council or whoever there that they would cap off the amount of hotels given to these asylum seekers at 500.
00:54:08.900So, it's interesting that Niagara Falls didn't get a cap and the mayor is just freaking out about it, not knowing, like, when this is going to stop, how this is going to affect the tourist season, which is starting now.
00:54:19.640So, we might actually start seeing the consequences of what's going to happen with these migrant hotels now that the tourists are going to be there.
00:54:32.480I have a feeling that the asylum seekers are going to try to be well-behaved at first.
00:54:38.900But there's going to be inevitable clashes going on.
00:54:44.260And then especially come winter when they're out of work with all these hotels and all the tourist-based employment, things are really going to come to head.
00:58:02.680It really is a sad state of affairs, especially for older people, since, you know, this is only going to add to the amount of pressure that and the ability or the lack of ability for old people to retire peacefully.
00:58:18.880Now, I saw this article, it seemed kind of like propaganda to try and push the idea that boomers need to keep working even after their retirement age.
00:58:36.320So this article says, why rethinking retirement might help solve Canada's demographic crunch.
00:58:41.900So throughout this whole article, you just have them interviewing a bunch of people.
00:58:58.080And to me, this is kind of just like coded language to kind of push people into thinking that, you know, you still need to, you should still want to work.
00:59:11.420Because you're getting older in order to support yourself because you won't be able to support yourself otherwise.
00:59:16.340Well, and this is also, I think, reverse psychology for the boomers who don't want to work to welcome the migrants into the country to do the work that there's a shortage of.
00:59:42.660I think this is kind of trying to push out the idea to the public that, oh, maybe if you are old, you should get another job.
00:59:50.060If you, you know, you can't afford that, you can't afford to pay your bills at that point.
00:59:55.540Instead of them, instead of them thinking that they should, that their retirement fund or, you know, everything that they have saved up into them should be enough.
01:00:55.460Now, I'm trying to think, do we have anything else here for, um, wait, wasn't it in France where they just started riding over raising the retirement age?
01:02:41.540They're going to be exactly how they ended up probably in their own country, um, living in, uh, not so nice areas, um, and homeless, essentially.
01:02:54.900And they're going to have to resort to doing crime.
01:02:56.920So that's what we have to look forward to.
01:02:59.400Um, people committing crimes to be able to afford to, to sustain themselves.
01:03:07.340Well, in the nicest way possible, uh, we're going to look forward to, uh, being a bit more like Haiti.
01:03:15.540Cause that's one of the main three, uh, countries of origin of people that are coming through the Roxham road and, and into the Niagara hotels.
01:03:26.380So Haitians, people from Turkey and Columbia are the main groups.
01:03:31.200And 44% of all asylum claims have, uh, entered through Roxham road in the year 2022.
01:03:40.220So 44% of asylum seekers have all come through illegally.
01:03:45.360The first thing they did was commit a crime when they come through.
01:03:49.600But of course, with the help of the, the United nations and all the different NGOs that are participating.
01:03:55.380So I think a great, uh, thing to do also is find out which hotels actually signed off on taking this contract with the, with the Canadian government.
01:04:06.940Um, seeing which ones actually agreed to house migrants and also the NGOs that are, you know, facilitate making it happen.
01:04:15.440Um, um, I'd like to see that actually, that's something to look into is what, what NGOs are, are, you know, contracting with the Canadian government and which hotels, um, have made a, a contract with the Canadian government.
01:04:30.880I think Ramada is one of them or the Radisson.
01:04:57.660Put, put them on infographics and flyers and put their names, their companies beside what they are doing.
01:05:03.880Because for a lot of people, these dots are kind of disconnected in their minds.
01:05:08.560But if people could really see and it could be put in front of them, then yeah, it could be more likely to hold them, uh, accountable and then give other people the power to be able to hold them accountable.
01:06:22.460So I think maybe we should be doing that too with, uh, Colombian travelers that are coming through here, especially when they're staying in here for good.
01:06:32.460And then likewise with Turkey, they also have a high degree of caution.
01:06:36.400So I was looking up all these different countries and it basically seemed that whatever country has, uh, you know, this new great diversity that we're all experiencing, that they all, all have high degrees of caution.
01:06:53.960How come they never mentioned Somalia?
01:06:56.500Because didn't that, that, that one MP want to introduce Somalian curriculum into the Calgary, uh,