Western Standard - November 10, 2026


Rempel： 2026 Is Not 2015 on Immigration

Hannaford Warns Conservatives About Walking Away Harper, Trump and the Problem With Political Legacies

Episode Stats


Length

2 minutes

Words per minute

166.37

Word count

342

Sentence count

18


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I'd probably challenge you on one point you made that we've had mass migration for the last 10
00:00:04.340 years. I think we've had mass migration for a lot, lot longer spanning all the both major political
00:00:10.460 parties. But the last 10 years, particularly the last half of those were open borders,
00:00:15.860 mass migration, totally unrestricted mass migration. And you're missing one point too.
00:00:20.400 Okay. So I think that if you looked, so first of all, 2026 is not 2015. In 2015,
00:00:28.200 we had an economy that was growing. The per capita GDP of Canadians was largely kept pace
00:00:35.120 with Americans. That delta has spread. We see a stagnant economy federally today across the
00:00:43.520 country. And so when you were setting levels in 2015 or earlier was a much different exercise
00:00:50.140 in setting levels today, right? So I think a lot of people that compare apples to apples,
00:00:55.060 I don't think anybody could say that the economy or cost of living today is close to where it was in 2015.
00:01:03.240 Life was better in 2015 by those metrics.
00:01:06.380 So when you have an economy that is structurally weak,
00:01:09.620 we can buy a decade of liberal policy that is failing to create jobs,
00:01:15.160 it's shedding jobs that is failing to create houses,
00:01:19.100 and then you couple even the same immigration levels over that structure
00:01:24.600 never mind juicing them to the levels that the Liberals have, of course there's going to be
00:01:28.500 problems. So, you know, I just would push back on that and say Conservatives always strive to match
00:01:35.560 immigration levels with housing, health care and jobs, the capacity for newcomers to integrate
00:01:40.420 into Canada's social, not just economic fabric. We don't see that today because the Liberals have,
00:01:45.660 you know, institutionalized post-nationalism in even our justice system, right? You know,
00:01:51.080 You and I have talked about the bill that I put in place to stop the two-tier justice system that we see judges giving lenient sentences to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes so that they avoid deportation.
00:02:01.840 That wasn't happening in 2015.