Carney Liberals will get destroyed by TFW issue!
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Summary
In this episode, Wyatt talks about the temporary foreign worker program and why it's a bad idea. He also talks about why it would be a good idea to have a permanent work authorization program for temporary foreign workers in Canada.
Transcript
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Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. Prime Minister Mark Carney is quickly turning into the wily coyote
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of Canadian politics. He has the innate ability to step into a situation where there's not even
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that much risk present and still finding a way of blowing himself up. And that is exactly what
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he's doing on the issue of temporary foreign workers. He's already been pushed off the ball
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on his EV mandate, putting a one-year pause on it because of all the pressure pure poly and the
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conservatives were putting on him. And right after losing that battle, he is now going to try and
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defend the temporary foreign worker program, which is even more unpopular than the EV mandate. And now
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people say, well, it's not really a mandate because you don't have to buy an EV. But if you're going to
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force manufacturers to start producing 20% EVs as a percentage of their output, yes, that is a
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mandate because they are going to try and have to find a way of selling those cars to somebody,
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or they're just going to sit on lots and rot. But anyways, I want to get into it with you guys here
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with the numbers as well as how the liberals are trying to basically deflect from this issue because
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somehow they are both defending the temporary foreign worker program at the same time they're
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running away from it, which is a great position to be in on an issue. That you're going to defend
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something that you're not actually even willing to defend, meaning that you're only taking the
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downside and getting no upside. But before we get into it, I just want to remind you guys that if
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you like the show, make sure to leave a like on this video, subscribe to the channel if you are not
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yet a subscriber, and leave a comment on what you think about this issue. But I want to first start
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off with this polling result from Abacus Data. I'm not going to do the whiteboard for this because
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I just want to show you this one stat. But they asked Canadians about their position on the temporary
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foreign worker program. This is the preamble to if people said that they support scrapping it or they
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oppose scrapping it. I'm just going to read it to you so you can kind of get a flavor for how they were
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pitching this to Canadian voters. It says, recently, Conservative leader Pierre Polyev proposed
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eliminating Canada's temporary foreign worker program, which allows employers to hire foreign
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workers for jobs they cannot fill with Canadian workers. Although that's not really what happens,
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so even the question is a little off here. It then says, supporters of ending the program,
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including Mastropolyev, argue it would create more job opportunities and higher wages for Canadians
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and Canadian youth. Opponents, including the federal government and business groups, argue
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that eliminating the program would create labor shortages in sectors like agriculture, food
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processing, and hospitality that rely on temporary foreign workers. Now, even that is a pretty nice way
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of putting it. I like Abacus Data. They do really good national numbers. Although on this recent poll,
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it was a little bit more liberal-leaning in the sense that when you actually ask people who they
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voted for last election, it was like 49% said they voted liberal and only like 36% said they voted
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conservative. So it was kind of a lopsided poll. Yeah, you can add weighting in order to make up for
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that, but even then it still makes a little bit less high quality. But even in that context, we have
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right here 44% of people supporting ending the program, 18% saying neither, and 30% opposing eliminating it.
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So 44% support eliminating it, 30% oppose it. Now, with the neutrals and the people who say they don't
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know, generally speaking, the thing that is already winning between those who are decided
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is going to keep winning. This is like when you take those who are decided, it's like a 65-35 issue.
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The conservatives are easily winning if they run on this issue, if the liberals make their platform that
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they support the temporary foreign worker program. And remember also, not a penny has been spent by
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the Conservative Party or any other organization to my knowledge on marketing against the TFW program.
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Already, a majority of decided voters are in favor of scrapping it. So it should be even easier
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marketing to those who are neutral or undecided right now, or who may be even opposed scrapping
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the program. If you give them information and you counter the sort of narrative that was in the
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question saying that we would have labor shortages if we didn't use it, you can start winning 70-30,
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80-20 on this issue. And now I need to show you a clip of Mark Carney. And it demonstrates how common
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sense of a position this is. Because this is Mark Carney in the year 2013, back when Stephen Harper was
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Prime Minister, talking about why the temporary foreign worker program would be a bad thing.
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That one doesn't want an over-reliance, certainly on temporary foreign workers for lower-skilled jobs,
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which prevent the wage adjustment mechanism from both improving, well, making sure that Canadians
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are paid higher wages, but also that the firms improve their productivity as is necessary. So we don't
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want to mask it. And as the government's review and as the intent of the review to ensure that
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this is used for transition, for those higher-skilled gaps that...
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So back then, Mark Carney, when he was working underneath, or I think he maybe had left at this
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point, but in the Harper era, he was rational enough to understand that you can't just use this
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to fill in starter jobs that young Canadians would usually be working. If you're going to run a program
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like this, it needs to be for people helping harvest, you know, crops. It needs to be for people
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who are working in resort towns where the jobs are only there for about three months. And no Canadian's
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really going to take that job. Like some will, you know, some younger people will become a ski
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instructor for a season and then go do something else. There are people who do that. And I don't mind if
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you fill in the gap with some foreign workers, because a lot of people, when they have a mortgage to pay
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and, you know, they want to be able to have consistent employment, they're not going to seek
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out temporary positions unless they're super young and they're doing it as something between
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semesters at school. So that's fine. But the overall system has leaned so heavily into low-skill
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service job areas that it obviously has very much outgrown its usefulness. We should be eliminating
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this program. And then we should pass some different version of it that only covers resort
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towns as well as agriculture. You have a high school program and then you have the agriculture
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and resort town programs. So that there can't be mission creep where then they start becoming a way
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so that McDonald's and A&W and whatnot can fill in jobs with underpaid workers, because these people
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are subsidized employees. It's not like they're out-competing a Canadian for money that they can
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both, like, ask for. You know, it's not like they just wanted to take less. A Canadian can literally
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not out-compete a temporary foreign worker, because a temporary foreign worker is paid below minimum
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wage because about $3.50 an hour is subsidized. So to the business, they're only having to pay these
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people $11.50. And despite business groups saying, well, it actually costs quite a bit to bring these
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people in because you sometimes have to compensate them for travel and housing. Well, goodness, if you
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don't have to pay them $3.50 out of, like, their salary and you just have to give them small subsidies
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right here for some travel and housing expenses, obviously you're going to hire them. They are more
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than going to make up for that cost in several months of having to pay them less than you would
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another worker. But now I just want to move on to something else, and that is people just pivoting to
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attacking Polyev instead of actually describe or, like, being able to argue why he's wrong.
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When they just start attacking Polyev or when they start going after the conservatives rather than
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defending the TFW program, you know that they are in the wrong. The liberals are in the wrong.
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Thank you. I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, if I track sort of the conservatives over the
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summer and their press conferences, they have definitely leaned harder into the issue of
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immigration. I would say capped off by today's announcement to get rid of the TFW program
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completely. Do you agree that that's been the case? And if so, what do you think is motivating
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that? What is the strategy behind it? Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment,
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Fashi, and I think there's kind of two things at play here. One, we don't know when there's election
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is going to be, and there are a lot of people who feel shut out from this current economy who have
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concerns about immigration and impressions of the system, regardless of what the facts are,
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well, the facts are that the system's being abused. Do we need to get a chart in for this man who's
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apparently qualified to sit on a television show and give his take on on politics? Is he just going
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to say, well, regardless of what the facts are? Well, the facts are the system's being abused.
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So it actually kind of does matter because it's not real. It's not politics at this point of
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Polyev is trying to like portray this as a bad thing. It's a bad thing. And that's why it's
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politically effective for Polyev and the conservatives to be jumping on this, because
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in even the medium term, he's probably going to be able to turn this into a massive winning issue
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in the next election. Immigration is already an issue where based on the last Abacus data poll,
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the conservatives have like a 50 point lead over the liberals in who people trust to handle that
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particular issue. The only thing the liberals had going for them was like Trump. And the recent
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Abacus data poll showed that Trump has become the number two issue and it's dropped into third place.
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We know that the previous government lost control of the immigration system.
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This government is now trying to put Humpty down.
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Oh my goodness. You can't say the previous government lost control of it. It's the same
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government. They have only changed the prime minister.
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Humpty back together again. And conservatives need something to keep their supporters engaged,
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as well as those who voted conservative for the first time to get that 41 percent mark that
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Pierre delivered in the last election, but wasn't enough to keep them engaged in the conservative
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fold. So I think part of what you're seeing here is trying to talk to people on issues that allow
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them to connect with them while the government's doing what the government's doing. Part of this
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is a bit of a South Park meme of like they took our jobs and trying to wrap ourselves in the flag
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Is it that, but it's literally true. I always hate this whole thing where you can just kind of
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do the, Oh, they took our jobs and like act like that somehow a dunk on those who are legitimately
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unemployed because businesses just pretend like they can't find other workers. Like, Oh, well,
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we need these people. We need to eliminate both the temporary foreign worker program. And there's
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other programs that have also been taking jobs out of the market and giving it to subsidized workers.
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I'll show you right here. I'm going to cut away from this and, but we will be getting back to
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another person who spoke on that CTV news panel, but you look right here. I'm going to be bringing
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this up. Mark Nixon posted this, but although a lot of people have been posting it, but I appreciate
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him having to have put it up. This is the current amount of active permits in the country every year.
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And it's not just temporary foreign workers. Temporary foreign workers are actually a smaller portion of the
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group than international mobility program, which is also being abused for low skill workers. We
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currently have like a million and a half people in the country on the international mobility program.
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And within that program, you can bring your family into the country as well. We have around 3 million
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people in the country who are not permanent residents, who are not citizens. They are temporary foreign
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workers. They are students, or they are here on the international mobility program where they can
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bring in even more family members. That is a problem. It strains our healthcare system. It increases
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unemployment in this country because yes, the job market can grow, but if you just invite everyone
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into the job market all at once, you're going to have a lot of people left out. And those people are
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most likely going to be the ones who can't just shift their money back home where it has a much higher
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value. They have to keep it here where it doesn't have as high of a value. So they need to ask for
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more money and they're probably not going to be willing to do a lot of jobs for the bare minimum.
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And even then, a lot of temporary foreign workers aren't even being paid the bare minimum. They're being
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paid underneath the bare minimum. But anyways, my goodness, let us jump back to that CTV news
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panel though. We had somebody else attacking Polyev and the conservatives acting like they're exploiting this
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issue rather than they're jumping on an issue that most people are on their side on.
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Yeah, I do understand the point, Sharon, about sort of like the young, and we saw it in the demographic
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shifts in the last election, right? The younger generations and the frustrations that they feel
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and, you know, those numbers from stats can't about unemployment back that up. I just also think that
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there are potential vulnerabilities in casting immigration as even close to any kind of a silver
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It 100% is. And you know, listening to that interview and watching that interview that
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that you did with MP Rempel, quite frankly, was infuriating. Like, I'm going to be quite frank and
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honest, we are the conservative party and Pierre Polyev and MP Rempel are treading a very dangerous
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line of what I'm going to call a dog whistle of racism.
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Oh, wow. It's a dog whistle of racism. How so? How so, Sharon?
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Because if you want to have a conversation about the fact that we have an issue with
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immigration, we do. Not because they're immigrants and they're coming in and taking away. It's because
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our society and our system hasn't kept up. We don't have enough housing.
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No, no, no. Even this isn't even a housing issue anymore. There is a fixed amount of jobs
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at any given time in the economy. Those jobs can go up, but it's not like a bunch of people hit the
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ground and then there's another 10,000 jobs to accommodate 10,000 more people.
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That's not how it works. So when you let in people, especially with artificial incentives,
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like having social security programs and welfare programs that people are able to access. I know
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that temporary foreign workers aren't on welfare, but when there's a lot of incentives around your
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employer bringing you in and saying that they'll put you up, find you housing and doing all this stuff
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and that you are guaranteed a job when you come into the country. A lot of these people end up using
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food banks and other general assistance programs that the government has. That's not just people
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are choosing to show up here because they want an opportunity. The opportunity is guaranteed.
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Whereas in Canada, you are not guaranteed an opportunity. That is the problem. I'm fine with
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people coming to Canada if they have to pay their own way and find their own job. They're not guaranteed
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a job that's subsidized that nobody would ever offer to a Canadian because you don't get a Canadian
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as subsidized rate. Don't have enough resource put in place to help everybody. So let's have
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that conversation. But to say it's foreign workers that are taking away jobs from- They're quite literally
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taking away jobs. What do you think? They're taking away jobs that didn't exist before? Jobs exist.
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And the kids who are going to university, like young men, have a 22% unemployment rate because of it.
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I don't think all these people got too snobby to work retail jobs, to work fast food jobs. I worked one for
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five years, specifically a retail job. And I worked it at basically minimum wage because I'm willing to
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take that. And now people can't even find minimum wage jobs. Canadians, and the solution is youth to
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me is simplistic. It's nonsense. And honestly, it's like, let's talk about taxi drivers, for example,
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in major cities. There is a reason why taxi drivers look like my skin tone, because unfortunately, there are
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people who come to this country who are willing to do jobs that we're not going to get other people to do.
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So if you think that students are going to do that, I think it's completely a sledgehammer
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policy they're trying to put into place. There's a demographic, there is regional considerations,
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and students are not going to solve it. And quite frankly, like I found it offensive because what
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they're doing is they're tapping into the people, and I'm not saying all conservatives,
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but Pierre Poliev has tapped into a base of conservative voters who have made extremely racist comments
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against immigrant immigrants. We saw that when... Okay, were you going to find one guy who said
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something wrong? Of course, there's going to be people out there who say wrong things. Bad people.
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Yeah, don't say racist things. You're going to, you are going to characterize people who have
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problems with a program that Mark Carney has had a problem with, that a lot of people who don't say,
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who refuse to be rational now, used to be rational about back in the day. If you have a problem about this,
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you may be one of those racists who Pierre Poliev is dog whistling to. It's just so dumb.
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And I just want to, I just want to move on to just the problem in BC in just a second here. But
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this is why Poliev should keep pursuing this. If this is the best the left can do on TV is to basically
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say, oh, this is like the South Park, they took our jobs kind of thing. And this is very racist,
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and it's a dog whistle. Average people are going to see through that in two seconds.
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The fact that they can't actually protect the TFW program, argue in favor of it on its own merits
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is telling. Are there some jobs where you can maybe fill them in with TFWs? Absolutely. I'm not
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sure if we need 3 million permits for temporary foreign workers, people on the International Mobility
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Program, and students who in fact can work 24 hours a week. Yeah, that is a problem. And she's not
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defending it because she can't defend it. But here's something I need to bring up for you guys,
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because this was wild to me. So John Rustad and the BC Conservatives, as of two days ago,
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said that they're against the temporary foreign worker program. But that's not actually what they
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said right away. This is how sad the BC Conservative Party and their communications department is at this
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point. At least the people who lead the communications department or whoever gets into John's ear first
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every morning. Cosmin Desirja, if I'm pronouncing his last name correctly, from Juneau News,
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had posted this about four days ago when originally the BC Conservatives spoke out of the TFW issue
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in favor of it. Cosmin here said, what cursed timeline is this where the BC Conservative leader
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wants to keep the temporary foreign workers taking Canadian jobs, but the Socialist MDP Premier wants
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them gone. That was the crazy thing. Even David Eby took the right position on this issue. He says,
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sheesh, read the room, BC Conservatives. And this is specifically what John Rustad had said. By the way,
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if you guys are interested in actually supporting a real Conservative Party, you can always join the 1BC
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party in British Columbia. I'm the advisor for comms and policy in the legislature for them. You can
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always go to the links in the description below for 1BC if you want to check it out. I actually,
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I'm at a town hall for the party in Abbotsford on the 13th. So you can go to the website and check out
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the events page if you want to sign up to show up for that one. I think it's like in the middle of
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the day too. So I'm not taking up your evening if you don't want to hang out with me that much on a
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Saturday. But this is the quote from John Rustad. It says, BC Conservative leader, John Rustad,
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however, warned that scrapping the temporary foreign worker program would crush the province's
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tourism and agriculture industries. The province, he said, should take the matter in its own hands.
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Quote, the immigration system was broken by Ottawa and we need a made in BC approach so that we can take
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over immigration. EB's comments also drew back and then goes on. But he just opposed getting rid of
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it because, well, maybe there's some industries who might want a temporary foreign worker still.
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And that's fine. But the idea that he was like warning about it just because EB was saying that
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we should get rid of the temporary foreign worker program demonstrates how broken that party is from
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the inside. Even when the NDP take the right position just to oppose them, they will take the opposite
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position. And then the BC Conservatives needed Pierre Polyev to bail them out because then John
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reversed himself and says, oh, of course we should be scrapping it. And then Polyev had to quote tweet
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and be like, hey, it's good to see John on the right side of this issue, even though Polyev did not need
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to do that for Danielle Smith or other Conservatives around the country because it was a no brainer thing
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to be in favor of. And they didn't need their credibility boosted by Polyev on that issue.
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Well, you know, our party actually took the right issue and we actually went a bit further than
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others saying that we should maybe, you know, restrict a lot more forms of immigration, basically
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like completely eliminating it for a few years outside of those with actual skills they can
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provide to the economy. This was the video that we put out at 1BC. You guys can check out here.
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Destroyed Canada. Here are the five ways that happened and how 1BC is going to fix it.
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One, wages and jobs. More foreign workers means more job competition against Canadians.
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That means fewer jobs available and smaller paychecks. Two, healthcare. Emergency rooms are
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And it's great video. I don't want to play it too much because of the music might get like flagged
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by YouTube as copyright, even though we were allowed to use it. If you guys want to check the rest of that
00:21:21.180
out, I will also be linking that in the description below. But oh my goodness. Again, the BC conservatives
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constantly scuff issues all over the place because they are scared of taking the right issue or they
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won't do it until like Polyev does it. So in BC, they're completely sluggish. They're flat-footed
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all of the time because they're like, what if we say this? What if someone criticizes us? Which is why
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they're not even really against SOGI these days, like the sexual orientation and gender identity
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programming in schools? I know SOGI is not taught everywhere and the crazy books aren't in every
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library. Some people use that as a counter saying, oh, it's an overblown issue. But yeah,
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everyone knows it's not literally in every classroom being taught 24-7. But the fact that
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the programming is there enabling people who want to teach it to teach it is a problem. And the
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conservatives piece of private legislation, the private members bill that they're putting forward
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in order to like counter SOGI, all it does is forms a committee to evaluate whether books should be in
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libraries or not. That's not even like 10 percent of the issue. And they're wasting a private members
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bill to like say maybe we should have a committee that discusses that maybe if an appropriate book
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should be there or not. It's the same thing with like that with the land stuff on DRIPA and UNDRIP and
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all the Aboriginal title stuff. One, notice how so many of their MLA still don't even speak out on
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out against it like Peter Milibar and Alia Warbus still haven't said anything about the Richmond
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situation. Goodness. And now we have the new one on Haida Gwaii where judges ruling that yes,
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Indigenous people or the Aboriginal band title does in fact overrule private property too. And you're
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going to probably see them take a few days and then they're going to put out a mealy mouth like
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statement about how this isn't good and we should appeal it and we should you know blah blah blah.
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But it's never going to go to them saying we need a constitutional change or that we need to repeal
00:23:15.580
DRIPA entirely and we need to completely ignore UNDRIP. They'll say they're against DRIPA and
00:23:20.540
literally in the next breath John Rustad will say but you know I want to follow UNDRIP as a policy
00:23:24.860
guide. It's like why? It's basically DRIPA. Is DRIPA bad or not? You can't say I'm against DRIPA but I
00:23:29.980
want to follow DRIPA. That's stupid. But now this is just turning into a rant at the end of the video.
00:23:35.580
But regardless, thank you guys for watching. I think the Liberals are going to have a very tough
00:23:40.940
time the next election if they are going to try and run on their EV mandate on defending the temporary
00:23:47.020
foreign worker program and along a lot of the other stuff that's part of their current agenda. Yes,
00:23:51.980
they walked back the EV mandate but they only walked it back for a year. So they've already signaled
00:23:57.420
they know it's unpopular and the Conservatives can keep running on it. That's how stupid they are.
00:24:02.060
They're not even making a big enough change where Canadians could say, okay, he was defending the
00:24:06.860
program before but he saw the light so he's not going to do it anymore. He's still doing it. He's
00:24:10.940
just not going to do it next year. But anyways, so with that being said, thank you guys for watching.