Conservative MPs launch fundraiser for LGBTQ+ refugees

2026/06/26 Leave a comment

A reminder of the Conservative Party’s inclusiveness and that overall concerns regarding large numbers of refugees and government management of immigration also have a softer side. Happened during my time when representation by Egale and others resulted in revision of Discover Canada to be more inclusive of LGBTQ:

Two Conservative MPs say leading a fundraising cruise for LGBTQ+ refugees is a tangible way for the party to advance the rights of gender and sexual minorities.

“We’re all God’s creatures and we’re all loved, and we all deserve to be loved and we all deserve to feel safe and secure,” Scott Aitchison told The Canadian Press.

“I believe that it’s important for all of us to — not to preach that, but to demonstrate that.”

Aitchison is MP for Parry Sound—Muskoka, a riding popular with Torontonians who own cottages.

Last Friday, he announced a July 15 fundraising boat cruise for Rainbow Railroad, an organization that helps resettle persecuted LGBTQ+ people from around the world in Canada and other countries.

In a social media video, he and Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman, who is lesbian, urged members of the public to buy $150 tickets.

The video drew a mix of praise, grumblings about the affordability crisis and criticism of the party’s relationship with the LGBTQ+ community.

Source: Conservative MPs launch fundraiser for LGBTQ+ refugees

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Conservatives call for end to ‘one-click citizenship,’ return to in-person ceremonies

2025/12/04 Leave a comment

The last public data, from the Minister’s transition briefing book, indicated 45 percent of ceremonies were in person. A significant increase from earlier years but agree, as readers will know, the default should be an in-person ceremony, as citizenship ceremonies are not just about convenience but mark and celebrate becoming a citizen with others joining the “Canadian family:”

The Conservatives are asking the Liberal government to end “one-click citizenship” and return all citizenship ceremonies to in-person events. 

“Last year over half of the people who became Canadian citizens did so by clicking a box online. That’s crazy,” Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner said Wednesday. 

“There is no way to justify this practice,” she said. “With support for immigration at an all-time low, returning to inclusive, nation-building ceremonies is a no brainer.”

Describing the in-person citizenship ceremony as the “essential unifying bedrock of Canada’s civic life,” Rempel Garner said the move would restore the ceremony’s “community significance.” 

New Canadians began taking their citizenship oaths through virtual ceremonies in April 2020 in order to adhere to social-distancing guidelines. 

In July 2022 the federal government resumed holding in-person ceremonies but kept the virtual option to help get more people through the system.

The federal government said the option took off in popularity; less than 10 per cent of new Canadians availed themselves of in-person ceremonies in the last six months of 2022.

Cutting down wait times

Virtual ceremonies are not exactly “one-click” affairs. According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), they require a number of steps. 

IRCC provides a videoconference link where the person seeking citizenship meets with an official to have their identity verified and watch them cut their permanent resident card up with scissors.

Once that’s done, the person joins a virtual ceremony where they take the oath of citizenship, sign a document affirming they took the oath and send it to IRCC.

In 2023, the federal government floated the idea of having people self-affirm their citizenship oath. But when that idea went out for public consultation, 61 per cent of respondents were against it, and only 36 per cent supportive. 

Conservative MP Tom Kmiec endorsed a petition calling for IRCC to revert to in-person citizenship ceremonies as the default.

The parliamentary secretary to the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, Paul Chiang, responded to the petition saying virtual ceremonies have helped IRCC cut down wait times for citizenship ceremonies.  

Source: Conservatives call for end to ‘one-click citizenship,’ return to in-person ceremonies

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Conservatives blast removal of religious exemption in hate-speech laws as ‘assault’ on freedom of speech

2025/12/03 Leave a comment

Arguably not needed given existing laws but recent occupations, obstructions, demonstrations supporting Palestinians have veered into explicit antisemitism and harassment of Jewish communities. The exemption should not be akin to a “get out of jail” card:

Opposition Conservatives say a deal between the governing Liberals and the Bloc Québécois to remove a religious exemption from Canada’s hate-speech laws, in exchange for passing a bill targeting hate and terror symbols, is an “assault” on freedom of speech and religion….

The Conservatives on Monday slammed the removal of that exemption as an attack on freedom of religion and of free speech, with the party quickly putting together a petition, which was circulated by its Members of Parliament.

“Liberal-Bloc amendments to C-9 will criminalize sections of the Bible, Quran, Torah, and other sacred texts,” Poilievre wrote on social media. “Conservatives will oppose this latest Liberal assault on freedom of expression and religion.”

Conservative Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner called on all other parties to oppose the amendment.

“I think it’s an unabashed attack on religious freedom,” Rempel Garner said.

Ontario MP Marilyn Glaudu, who serves as the Conservative critic for civil liberties, in a video on X, said the proposed change amounted to an “attack on people of faith.”

Fortin, the Bloc MP, agreed that the change will curb freedom of expression. However, he argued there must be limits on speech that propagates hate.

“I think this freedom of expression needs to be limited. You’re free to do what you want until you start harming others,” he said.

The bill itself seeks to create new offences around the intimidation and obstruction of sites used by an identifiable group, such as a religious or cultural centre, as well as make it a crime to promote hate by displaying hate symbols like a swastika, or those linked to listed terrorist entities.

The proposed amendments come amid widespread criticism about the Liberals’ bill, with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council calling for it to be withdrawn, along with dozens of advocacy groups. Critics warn that the new offences create the risk of police cracking down on lawful protests, and could lead to a targeting of Muslim and other racialized groups.

When it comes to the proposed removal of religious defences from hate speech laws, Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, director of the CCLA’s fundamental freedoms program, said it raises concerns.

She pointed to how that defence is only available to criminal law dealing specifically with the wilful promotion of hatred and no other offence, even speech-related ones, such as public incitement to hatred, or uttering threats.

“The speech that needs to be criminalized in Canada is already criminalized, and there is no religious exemption applying to that,” she said.

She said the association has for years held concerns around the provision, targeting “the wilful promotion of hatred,” given how broadly it can be applied.

“The concept of hatred is subjective,” she told National Post in an interview on Monday, “so we are always worried about risks of abuse and censorship of unpopular or offensive opinions through this provision. So we fear that removing this religious exemption might gradually erode the protections and increase the scope of this provision.”

Steven Zhou, spokesman for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said in a statement on Monday that it was “gravely concerned and surprised” about the reported deal to remove the exemption for religious beliefs, saying that doing so “opens the door to a deeply troubling censorship regime.”

Khaled Al-Qazzaz, executive director of the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, said in a statement that it rejects the removal of the religious exemptions, saying it considers doing so “an attack on all places of worship and religious schools.”

Derek Ross, executive director and counsel for the Christian Legal Fellowship, a national association for lawyers and law students who identify as Christian, said removing the exemption for religious opinions could lead individuals to self-censor and create an overall “chilling” effect.

The law must balance competing interests, he said, but pointed to how it must protect those who are fearful of becoming “vilified or detested” because they express viewpoints held by a minority.

Khaled Al-Qazzaz, executive director of the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council, said in a statement that it rejects the removal of the religious exemptions, saying it considers doing so “an attack on all places of worship and religious schools.”

Derek Ross, executive director and counsel for the Christian Legal Fellowship, a national association for lawyers and law students who identify as Christian, said removing the exemption for religious opinions could lead individuals to self-censor and create an overall “chilling” effect.

The law must balance competing interests, he said, but pointed to how it must protect those who are fearful of becoming “vilified or detested” because they express viewpoints held by a minority.

“It is a significant change to the law, and one that was not previously the subject of a great deal of discussion or debate by Parliament,” Ross said on Monday. “We hope that further consideration is given before such a move is made.”

As part of the deal with the Bloc, the Liberals are also expected to back off plans to eliminate the need for a provincial attorney general’s sign-off to pursue a hate-propaganda prosecution. The move will likely be supported by both the Bloc and Conservatives.

Fortin, Bussières McNicoll and Al-Qazzaz all said they agreed with maintaining the additional check and balance before charges are laid, which could have a cooling effect on freedom of expression.

Quebec’s Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who has called on the federal government for years to remove the religious exemption defence, celebrated the deal between Liberals and Bloc on social media.

Source: Conservatives blast removal of religious exemption in hate-speech laws as ‘assault’ on freedom of speech

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Deportations to be reported to Parliament each month under Conservative changes to border bill 

2025/11/28 Leave a comment

Hard to argue against more data but the Government and NDP rejected a similar amendment in the case of C-3 (citizenship). But yes, quarterly and annual reports are more informative in terms of trends but given that all IRCC immigration-related data sets are released monthly on open data, same should apply here and on open data, not reports to parliament:

Ottawa would have to report to Parliament every month on the number of foreign nationals who have been deported, including those with criminal convictions, under changes to the government’s border bill pushed through by the Conservatives. 

A slew of amendments to Bill C-12, including boosts to immigrationenforcement, passed in a marathon meeting of the Commons public safety meeting on Tuesday evening, where MPs scrutinized the bill until midnight. 

The committee voted for detailed monthly reports to Parliament on the number of deportations, including on where people came from and their age and gender, despite objections from a senior border official who argued that quarterly or annual reports would paint a clearer picture.

The amendment, proposed by the Conservatives, follows a report earlier this year that hundreds of convicted criminals facing deportation have gone missing. …

Source: Deportations to be reported to Parliament each month under Conservative changes to border bill

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Conservative MPs denounce ‘Liberal racism’ and DEI during Jamil Jivani event

2025/11/21 Leave a comment

Good example of some conservative perspectives on DEI, mirroring some of excesses of liberal perspectives:

….Jivani’s Tuesday event was primarily a broadside at progressive ideologies writ large, but it also referenced federal programs and initiatives. The Prime Minister’s Office was not immediately available for comment on the event, though Jivani said all Liberal MPs were invited to attend his forum, however none took part. 

Jivani — who spoke about his upbringing as the son of an Irish-Scottish mother and a Kenyan father — said people like him “should not be treated as charity cases” and should not be subjected to “lowered” standards to access opportunities.

“I also stand here in opposition to Liberal racism because I completely reject the twisted narrative of Canadian history that liberal elites use to justify the open discrimination against Canadians of European descent and their children. Your heritage in this country should never be used as a weapon against you,” the Bowmanville—Oshawa North MP said, eliciting applause. 

“It’s also my belief that together, we can end Liberal racism by speaking very truthfully and bluntly about what it is, and highlighting the ways that it manipulates our society and divides people against one another.”

In service of that goal, Jivani ceded the stage to three Conservative MPs to share their views on the subject: Calgary’s Shuvaloy Majumdar and two rising stars within Tory caucus, Newmarket-Aurora’s Sandra Cobena and Richmond Hill South’s Vincent Neil Ho….

Source: Conservative MPs denounce ‘Liberal racism’ and DEI during Jamil Jivani event

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Coletto: Is the Temporary Foreign Worker Program Canada’s Next Big Political Wedge?

2025/09/09 Leave a comment

Well, the Conservatives certainly intend it to be, even if their approach is overly simplistic:

…What does this mean politically?

  1. A potent wedge issue: The TFWP is shaping up as a powerful wedge for Conservatives: it stirs young economic anxiety and the populist thread of “Canadian jobs for Canadians.” It’s a clarion call that resonates with those feeling sidelined or squeezed.
  2. A potentially perilous balancing act for Liberals: With their own supporters deeply split, Carney’s Liberals must navigate between addressing economic vulnerabilities and maintaining labour market stability. Any move risks alienating one half of their fractured base.
  3. A broader narrative of precarity: Beyond the TFWP, Canadians are demanding security on jobs, housing, crime, and employment. Immigration is now at the centre of that conversation, reflecting a country where precarity shapes nearly every political debate.

At its core, the TFWP debate isn’t a technical economic tweak, it may become a battle for the narrative of Canada’s economic future. Those who support for scrapping it demand immediate protection; those who defend it warn of cascading supply shocks. 

Source: Is the Temporary Foreign Worker Program Canada’s Next Big Political Wedge?

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Geoff Russ: Immigration is how Poilievre will get back on top

2025/08/30 Leave a comment

Reasonable foreshadowing of likely Conservative attack lines, some more valid than others:

Expect the Conservatives to come out swinging on immigration like never before when the House of Commons reconvenes next month.

Donald Trump gave the Liberals a lifeline to eke out another term in government in the spring, but the Liberals’ failure to get immigration under control is negatively impacting Canadians across the country.

In a statement released on August 25, the Conservatives pointed out that the government set an annual cap of 82,000 temporary foreign workers (TFW), but 105,000 had already been issued.

As for applicants to the International Mobility Program, they wrote 302,000 had been admitted by the first six months of the year in June, despite a promised cap of 285,000 permits.

“Moreover, their so-called caps on permanent residents were already among the highest in our history, yet they’re on track to exceed their own reckless targets, welcoming the equivalent of twice the population of Guelph and four times the population of Abbotsford,” read the statement, credited to Poilievre and Shadow Immigration Critic Michelle Rempel Garner.

This month, Poilievre released a series of graphics on social media highlighting the disparity between the Carney government’s promised targets, and how they are on-track to be exceeded.

This is a taste of what to expect for the fall session of Parliament, and Canadians will be receptive.

Sixty-two per cent of respondents in a Leger poll conducted in July believe there are too many newcomers arriving in Canada, and just 42 percent think they can be trusted. The poll also found that there was little disagreement between immigrant and native-born citizens in this regard.

Last year, Abacus Data found that 53 per cent of those surveyed had a negative view of immigration, and 72 per cent thought that the government’s immigration targets were “too ambitious”.

Abacus published the results of another survey earlier this month, finding that 25 per cent of Canadians now consider immigration to be the top issue facing Canada, and the Conservatives lead the Liberals 56 per cent to 15 per cent when respondents were asked which party was best equipped to handle the issue.

During the last federal election, young Canadians swung heavily towards the Conservatives, 44 percent to 31.2 per cent among 18 to 34 year olds, and with good reason.

Youth unemployment is the highest it has been since the late 1990s, with almost 15 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 24 unable to find work before returning to school in the fall.

Employers have been greatly incentivized by the TFW program to hire foreigners instead of hiring and training their fellow Canadians.

The reliance on surplus foreign labour is dragging down productivity, while suppressing wages and per-capita GDP. There is no long-term upside to flooding the country with low-skill labour that pushes Canadians out of the job market, and the short-term effects have been socially and economically undesirable.

Investigations by the Toronto Star in 2024 found that government officials in Ottawa told their staff to skip fraud checks on TFW applications. Predictable wrongdoing ensued, such as no confirmation with employers to confirm that posted jobs actually existed, while migrant workers paid up to $70,000 for fake jobs.

As of now, it is estimated that there are somewhere between 600,000 and over 1 million undocumented people within Canada, and federal and provincial agencies seem incapable of remedying the issue.

Expelling people from the country is not a pleasant task when so many people have been duped by villainous immigration consultants who sold them fake dreams. The job must still be done.

You cannot have trust in a government that fails to meet its own immigration caps and enforce deportations.

It is unfair to Canadians, and unfair to newcomers who went through the proper channels.

One of the most infuriating aspects of it all is that Canada should not have an immigration crisis. Our geography gives us the privilege of being generous, and up until 2015 we were more selective about newcomers.

Stephen Harper’s government ran a very tight ship on immigration, and this should be the expectation of every Canadian government, not an exception.

This all started going downhill when Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, and the numbers started climbing sharply. For example, his government lowered the benchmark for Express Entry from 866 out of 1200 points, to just 75.

Nearly five million people have entered the country since 2014, and few can say this country is fairer, more prosperous or more hopeful for it. Those who want Canada to continue as a welcoming country for new arrivals would do well to push for reform.

We are bordered by three oceans and an undefended border with the world’s most powerful economy. Our admission of newcomers is something we can control, and there is no reason why Canada should not have one of the most well-run, careful immigration systems in the world.

The idea that Canadians have been almost unanimously in favour of immigration since the Second World War is a pervasive myth. It has always been controversial among the public, but rarely has it been debated with ferocity in the House of Commons.

Canadians want a debate on current immigration levels to happen, and they will get their wish this fall.

Mark Carney will need creative excuses for why his government blew past its own caps, did not release immigration data for months, and presented no plan to end the economy’s dependence on cheap foreign labour.

For the Conservatives, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to finally turn immigration into an issue our politicians can openly and honestly debate.

The Liberals got us into this avoidable mess, and they must be held accountable for it.

Source: Geoff Russ: Immigration is how Poilievre will get back on top

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Morton: Why Hiring Professors With Conservative Views Could Backfire on Conservatives

2025/07/11 Leave a comment

Interesting argument. But greater ideological diversity and openness would be welcome:

…Conservatives have criticized identity-based affirmative action because, they suggest, it imposes an expectation on students of color that they will represent what is presumed to be, say, the Black or Latino view on any given issue, which discourages freethinking. Admitting students for viewpoint diversity would turn the holding of conservative ideas into a quasi-identity, subject to some of the same concerns. Students admitted to help restore ideological balance would likely feel a responsibility to defend certain views, regardless of the force of opposing arguments they might encounter.

For professors hired for their political beliefs, the pressure to maintain those views would be even greater. If you had a tenure-track position, your salary, health insurance and career prospects would all depend on the inflexibility of your ideology. The smart thing to do in that situation would be to interact with other scholars who share your point of view and to read publications that reinforce what you already believe. Or you might simply engage with opposing ideas in bad faith, refusing even to consider their merits. This would create the sort of ideological echo chamber that proponents of viewpoint diversity have suggested, often with some justification, leads to closed-mindedness among left-leaning professors…

Jennifer M. Morton, professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania

Source: Why Hiring Professors With Conservative Views Could Backfire on Conservatives

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Poilievre tentatively courts Canada’s rising dissatisfaction with immigration

2025/03/27 Leave a comment

Not too much new in terms of the general points. More use of Century Initiative as punching ball, particularly given Mark Wiseman, one of the main persons behind CI2100, being appointed an advisor to PM Carney.

My earlier assessment of what to expect under a Conservative government largely still holds with the exception that the changes by former immigration minister Miller have paved the way for further restrictions:

After years of avoiding any clear position on the subject of immigration levels, the Conservatives have opened the 2025 campaign with a hard pledge to “slow immigration down” to sustainable levels.

“I want people to come here (in) numbers that can actually be housed, employed, and cared for,” Poilievre told a reporter on Monday, adding that he would directly tie immigration levels to homebuilding.

“So we’re always going to be adding homes faster than we add people,” he said.

Poilievre also lashed out again at the Century Initiative, a pro-immigration non-profit which advocates for Canada to have a population of 100 million by 2100.

The Conservative leader framed the group as advocating a “radical, crazy idea” to “bring in people from poor countries in large numbers, to take away Canadian jobs, drive wages down and profits up.”

It’s not the first time that Poilievre has criticized Liberal handling of immigration. A common refrain of Poilievre in the House of Commons was that the Liberals had “lost control of immigration.”

Last summer, he told a press conference that “we have to have a smaller population growth.” In a podcast interview with psychologist Jordan Peterson, Poilievre said “we’re not interested in the world’s ethno-cultural conflicts.”

At a Holocaust commemoration ceremony in January, Poilievre said Canada needs to start deporting immigrants involved in hate crimes.

“We must deport from our country any temporary resident that is here on a permit or a visa that is carrying out violence or hate crimes on our soil,” he said.

But this usually stopped short of any specific promises on immigration levels, visa quotas or screening procedures.

In fact, Poilievre’s ambiguity on immigration issues has been slammed by both the Liberals and by his critics on the conservative fringes.

At a media roundtable in Brampton, Ont., earlier this year, then immigration minister Marc Miller defended his government’s sudden turn towards reduced immigration levels, including non-renewal for the visas of more than two million temporary migrants in the country who might have expected permanent residency.

Source: FIRST READING: Poilievre tentatively courts Canada’s rising dissatisfaction with immigration

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Conservative government’s immigration formula could result in lower immigration, Tory MP says

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Some insights into their thinking, including comments wanting “real, reasonable objective metrics” related to housing, healthcare and jobs and “I don’t want my government determining which values it supports and which it doesn’t.” But of course, the previous conservative government didn’t move the needle either on foreign credential recognition:

The Conservative party’s plan to tie immigration numbers to available jobs and homes could result in a lower immigration target, an MP says.

Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec said a Conservative government wouldn’t set an arbitrary number, but rather one that takes into account what the country can sustainably accommodate. This could end up lowering immigration, he said.

“Whatever it comes out to, that will be the number,” Kmiec said on The Andrew Lawton Show. “If it’s lower, it’s lower. If it’s higher, it’s higher.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre previously said in an interview that immigration had to be tied to key economic numbers reflecting the labour and housing markets.

Kmiec said that under a Conservative government, those calculations wouldn’t just involve permanent immigration but also temporary resident immigration.

“The problem isn’t the permanent residency ones, those PR numbers are often quoted by individuals. In Canada, about 45% to 55% of those, depending on the year, are people who are actually physically in Canada already,” said Kmiec.

“They are just changing their status from studying, from working here on a temporary work permit and they’re becoming permanent residents of Canada, hopefully, on the pathway to becoming citizens and joining the Canadian family.”

Kmiec said it’s “ridiculous” that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has only recently concluded that Canada’s immigration levels have far outpaced what the country can absorb.

“I guess he doesn’t read any of the briefing notes or documents that come up his way,” Kmiec said.

The Calgary MP pointed out how it was Trudeau himself who appointed the various immigration ministers responsible for the country’s explosive population growth. 

“When he reshuffled his own cabinet, you had this bizarre situation where the previous immigration minister could not let go of his department. He was saying that ‘things are a mess,’ that’s a direct quote and the new minister said ‘things are out of control.’ They’ve been fighting it out in public between the senior immigration minister and the junior immigration minister,” said Kmiec.

“Now the prime minister has weighed in and accused his government of basically failing on the job and that they’re not competent obviously, except he’s the one who appointed everybody. He’s been in charge for almost nine years now and they broke the immigration system. It’s nice of him to recognize that he broke it,” he added. 

When asked if the immigration calculation should be restricted to just economic indicators, instead of factoring in things like Canadian values as well, Kmiec said he was wary of introducing new things that “are not fixed.”

“I don’t want my government determining which values it supports and which it doesn’t and the reason I don’t like it is that for the last nine years, that’s been the Liberal government of Canada,” said Kmiec. 

“I believe things like healthcare, housing jobs, all Canadians can get behind that and be like, ‘yeah, those are real, reasonable objective metrics.’ There’s no subjectivity to them, you either have those services or you don’t.”

According to Kmiec, the immigration debate should be about whether the inputs are correct or not, instead of the number itself, saying, “if you want more immigration, build more housing.” 

It’s a question of changing policies to get more houses built and for cheaper. The same logic should apply to Canada’s healthcare system. 

Kmiec feels policies that don’t allow skilled workers like doctors and nurses who come to work in Canada are the reason for our strained healthcare system. 

“We have over 20,000 internationally trained doctors who cannot practice their profession,” he said. “Same thing for nurses. The country of origin lost a nurse and we didn’t gain a nurse.”

Source: Conservative government’s immigration formula could result in lower immigration, Tory MP says

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