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Trudeau admits he was WRONG on mass immigration

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A former Liberal MP has taken aim at Justin Trudeau's comments about immigration.The former Prime Minister was in Finland talking about the need for newcomers to integrate and to have similar values as their new country.

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whose ancestry is not Finnish, for example, is able to come here and grow up and go to school and learn the language and appreciate hockey the same way and love winter and have the same level of openness and respect that people have for diversity in these countries and the values we have, then they should be able to feel like they are Finnish, like they are fully part of this world.Increasingly, in a very different world, defining what a country is through shared values and not through shared ancestry is the most important thing.And let me tell you, Canada is not some magical place.You know, we get it wrong sometimes and we have to adjust.

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Well, he got things wrong when it came to immigration and has admitted as much.Now, meantime, former Liberal MP Kevin Vuong posted this on X. When we raised exactly these points of the need for integration of immigrants and shared Canadian values at Parliament, Justin Trudeau implied we were racist.Trudeau dramatically ramped up immigration levels, which led to a housing crisis, overstretched health care services, increased crime and unemployment.A massive immigration backlog continues to this day.After Trudeau left, this story in Blacklock's reportimmigrant cases jam courts.

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The federal court says it will see a record 30 ,000 immigration cases this year, five times the average.Prime Minister Carney says he's not worried about being left out of so many cabinet decisions because of conflicts of interest.

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There's a growing list of deliberations and government decisions that you're excluded from because of your various conflict of interest screens.Are you concerned that you have to outsource major decisions of your own government, including potentially one on this project?

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I'm not sure.I'm not sure the last bit of your question follows.So I'm just going to say no.Well, I'm going to say no to the whole thing.But more specifically, your logic doesn't hold.We have a very strong team in cabinet who make decisions and that process is followed and I have every confidence in their ability to make those decisions and you know I think to be clear what happens with conflicts is that it's quite often the avoidance perception of conflict as opposed to actual because of course my assets are in a blind trust I actually don't know whether or not I have an actual conflict.

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Carney has millions of dollars worth of investments in a blind trust.He has rejected a parliamentary ethics recommendation to sell off those investments.Joe Biden's notorious crack -smoking son wants his country to make systemic changes that protect America's relationship with Canada.Hunter Biden spoke with CTV News.He lamented the state of U .S.

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-Canada relations and wants the next leader of his country to heal the relationship.

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Trump has done more long -term damage to the status of our relationship.then, and not only the relationship with Canada, but the relationship with all of our allies, then people fully realize.And so at the end of the day, I hope that we elect someone that can heal and mend that relationship, but I think it's gonna take time and I can understand why it was gonna take time.When my dad was president of the United States, one of the things that he always say was leaders would come up to him and say, thank you, but how long is this gonna last?And I think that next time we have to make systemic changes in our system that are gonna prove that this can't happen again.

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Hunter Biden was found guilty of cocaine possession, illegal guns and tax offenses, but he was granted a pardon.by his father.

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And thank you so much to Unsmoke for sponsoring this episode.Our

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Our guest today is former Member of Parliament Kevin Vuong.His parents were both people from Vietnam.He knows a little bit about being a new Canadian.Welcome to the show, Kevin.Thanks for having me, Mark.All right.

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So you heard Justin Trudeau's comments about immigration, and it prompted you to react to those comments.He was talking about the need for integration and how people should value Canadian values.and fit in, and you seem to be suggesting from your comments that he had a very different point of view earlier on.

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Yeah, listen, I think, I am actually glad to hear a former Canadian Prime Minister celebrate Canadian values and recognize that our country is something that people want to be a part of.But it's a very different tune that now the retired Prime Minister is singing when then when we were both serving in the 44th Parliament, because when those of us who dare to raise the exact same points that he's now saying in retirement, he would imply that we were racist.You know, there are times I remember in the house where they they they wouldn't overtly say we are racist or bigots.But what he would say is something along the lines of, you know, saying that we were putting out dog whistles and say everything but calling us racist, but implying it throughout.But for me, especially as a son of refugees, son of immigrants who came to this country, there's never been anything racist about expecting newcomers to embrace the values that have that make Canada worth coming to or being a part of, right?My parents understood that as refugees, Mark.

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They didn't come here to recreate what they fled.You know, they werepersecuted by communists.They lost everything to communism.They were part of South Vietnam that unfortunately was a flawed but aspiring democracy, but they lost the war.And so when they came here to Canada, they came to become Canadian.

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And saying that doesn't make me a bigot or a racist.And advocating for integration And also doesn't either, right?Integration isn't exclusion, which during the 44th Parliament, I heard a lot coming out of the Prime Minister, the then Prime Minister Trudeau and his party.Because integration, I think for me, is something that my parents were actually very intentional about.And it's part of the promise that I think we make to everyone who comes to Canada.That, you know, there are things that we stand for, and you can be a part of it and you can belong as a Canadian.

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8:37

But there's things that you have to subscribe to, right?Where if if you want to be a part of Canada, you need to subscribe to rule of law.You need to subscribe to, you know, our freedoms, which doesn't mean enjoying them.It also means defending them.You know, it was a big part of what my parents taught me to be grateful to Canada for giving my family everything.It's why I volunteered to join the Naval Reserve and why I was proud to wear the maple leaf on my uniform.

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Yeah, I mean, all of those things were, I think, generally accepted.At least they were for many years.And then Trudeau became prime minister and we saw a dramatic uptick in just the sheer volume of people coming into the country.Millions of people, which he let in.This precipitated an economic crisis in the form of housing.You in your own district saw an explosion in homelessness, you know, the cities, that sort of thing.

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We saw dramaticoverstretched health care services.Many other services were overstretched.We saw increased crime, unemployment, inflation.A lot went wrong because they let in so many people that we didn't have space for at the time.We just could not absorb the sheer volume of people.

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I mean, look at the gridlock on our highways.And it created a sense of, unfortunately, a resentment on the part of some.You know, they blame the immigrants rather than government policies.So a lot has gone wrong in the last 11 years in terms of immigration.In your position, how do you see that degradation in what Canada used to be?You know, we used to have a pretty good immigration.

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For decades, we had a good immigration system.It all went south.What do you suppose went wrong?

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Um, yeah, I think you're right to point out there.There used to be a consensus on immigration.I think Canadians saw immigration as a net benefit.What made it a net benefit was because we were screening for the best.We were vetting who was coming in.And over the last 11 years, I think it's now become very clear that the standards were loosened.

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We weren't screening for the things that had kept Canadians safe, right?Making sure that people who were being admitted didn't have ties to terror, didn't have ties to criminal elements, that people who were coming here, like my parents, for example, claiming asylum because of alleged persecution, actually were legitimate claimants.You know, my parents waited two years in a refugee camp to wait their turn to come into Canada.That seems like a very novel concept because especially, you know, in my riding and at one point we were ground zero for kind of homeless asylum seekers.And I got to meet a lot of people who came here claiming asylum and to helpthe process to help their processing.

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I heard their stories and my staff kind of pitched in with the immigration refugee board and documentation all that.And you could tell from my own experience, Mark, directly, I could tell who was a legitimate claimant and who wasn't.You know, I there was, for example, someone who came from Uganda.She she it took me a while to to coax out of her why she was here.And she quietly said to me, oh, it's it's because I'm a lesbian.And that makes sense because they have some of the world's most serious anti -gay laws, including punishable by death.

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Then I would meet someone else.This individual happens to be from Nigeria.And I'd be like, why are you here?And he's like, oh, I'm bisexual.You know, and he would smile at me.And it's like saying claiming that they were bisexual was like a cheat code that had been shared with different people who wanted to come to Canada.

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And honestly, I can't blame anyone for wanting to come here who wouldn't want to come here.But if you're an economic migrant, there are legitimate streams that we have established that are going to vet you based on the skill sets and value that you will bring to this country.And if it doesn't fit, I'm sorry, like, you know, there's not a fit.But for the longest time, the liberal government under Justin Trudeau would turn a blind eye to people who were clearly making false claims.And so I think now to hear our former Prime Minister, while he's gallivanting around the world, you know, celebrate the things that, you know, talk up Canadian values when for so long during his own administration, he was focused not on celebrating the good of which there is many of Canada and Canadians, but on acknowledging and seemingly focusing almost on the flaws and the bad parts of Canada.No country's perfect, Mark, but I

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would suggest we have more to celebrate and be proud of than we don't.And so for him to do a complete 180 now, seemingly as if he had always been like this, is gaslighting Canadians.And frankly, I find it offensive.

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Yeah, I mean, where was that when he was prime minister, you know, when he was calling Canada a systemically racist country?when he was suggesting that it was a genocidal country, you know, when he was posing with a teddy bear over by the alleged mass grave site, you know, it just seems like everything's different now.You know, like now that he's out, it's OK to praise Canada, whereas when he was Canadian prime minister, he took every opportunity to heap abuse on this country unless it was politically expedient to wrap himself in the flag on any given day.I mean, we have people who really seem to hate the country.You know, I hate where we came from.It's European roots, you know, he attacked, he's attacked that.

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And so that's what we had for for 10 years.And that's what immigration policies almost seem to be a way to repudiate where we came from.And so now that he's gone, should we care, I guess, what he thinks at this point?

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Listen, I very much welcomed no longer seeing his name in the news cycle.Unfortunately, it started popping up again in my algorithm.I wish I had no say over that because he's dating someone who's in pop culture.You know, I would very much love to never have to talk about our former prime minister again.My hope is time and history will judge his administration to be what I think was a very flawed time.of our country's history.

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And in fact, probably had not only set us back 10 -11 years, but the damage that they've actually brought to the country is something that I think is going to take decades to repair.It's actually, you know, part of the reason why, and some folks will know, when I was asked to run for parliament, it was actually the Liberals who initially had asked me to run.And was I a true liberal?

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No.

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But I did believe naively, I guess now I know, that I would bring perspectives and experience I thought was missing, you know, as an entrepreneur, as a tech entrepreneur before I was elected, I was proud to serve in what was then Her Majesty's Royal Canadian Navy as a reserve officer for, I think, eight, nine years at the time.Those are all things that I thought were missing.For me, my own experience, I was proud to be part of an institution like the Royal Canadian Navy that was over a century old, that grounded who I was in my identity.And that was something that I was proud of.And I thought that pride was missing.I wanted to be a voice advocating for that.

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Ultimately, it wasn't meant to be.And I sat as an independent, and that gave me the chance to be able to, I think, raise these issues, whether it was immigration, whether it was being proud to be Canadian, and other things that I think the Liberals clearly didn't want to hear.And my hope is, as the former Prime Minister Trudeau has changed his tune, that our current liberal government under Mark Carney will do the same.

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17:02

We've seen some changes south of the border as well.I mean, in cities like New York City, for instance, and other areas of the country where there is this flirtation with communists.I mean, your family was persecuted by communists, literally persecuted, and yourfolks were both people forced out of Vietnam.I'm sure it would have ended up either dead or in camps if they had stayed where they were.And what goes through your mind when you see naive people, frankly, whether it's in Canada or the United States, thinking that somehow communism is the answer or, quote unquote, socialism?

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I'm not even Sure, they exactly know what the difference is, but they think that, you know, seizing wealth from people who have it and taking some for themselves, which usually happens and then spreading a little bit around that somehow that's the answer to economic problems.What goes through your mind when you see that?

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So I think it's lunacy.At best, they, to me, must be historically illiterate, Mark.My parents, like you said, they lost everything to communism.I mean, my mother, my mom and dad didn't know one another.They met in the refugee camp, but my mom, she was training to be a doctor.She lost her career and came here and retrained, learned English and became the first female line worker on the assembly line in her factory in Mississauga, actually.

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But, you know, she had an entirely different trajectory in life.My father's side, you know, they were business owners, they're entrepreneurs.Of course, that's not something communists will suffer.And so they lost everything.My grandfather on my mom's side, he was actually a goalkeeper since FIFA was on for the South Vietnamese national soccer team.And we know how communists treat anything that may be perceived as a threat to their rule.

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Sports icons, academics, whatever and so on.Although I'm sure my grandfather thought he was an icon, but he was thrown in jail for that.by nature of the fact that he was on a sports team.My late uncle, also my mom's side, he was a ranger in the South Vietnamese Rangers.He was the captain.And he fought communism.

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He was a prisoner of war.If it wasn't for the US and the Democratic forces, he probably would have died in a prison camp.They freed him before the end of the war.Ultimately, everyone had to escape.But I think that the people who today celebrate communism, all these sort of things, need to open a book.They need to read a little bit of history.

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And I am proud to continue my family's legacy of not only fighting communism, communism, but to continue to stand up and defend democracy however I can, wherever I can.

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And what's your political future if you have one?I mean, obviously, things didn't go exactly as you had hoped originally.And now you're not in politics.But sometimes, you know, when you get your bit by the political bug, it was hard to shake entirely.Do you see yourself as having a future in politics in Canada?

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Yeah, Mark, you're right.I think for those of us who see public service as a calling, it's hard to step away.What helped me to step away and why I didn't run again in April of 2025 is because I became a dad.My daughter was born, I was a first time dad, and I wanted to be there for her.And actually, my son, we now know the gender, is due in October.this this fall.

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And so I want to be the best dad that I can be and be the best husband.And frankly, I don't know that I can be the best MP that I would want to be.And I think that people would deserve and be those things.But I'm still politically adjacent.I'm still involved.A lot of people were very MPs and counselors very kindly had been

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actually texting me to run in the upcoming municipal election.I'm involved.And because I'm not about to stand by and let four more years of communism continue to grip City Hall here in Toronto, and I'm going to do everything that I can to ensure that Olivia Chow is defeated.But we're also supporting other candidates across the city because we also need to take back city council.We need to bring common sense also back to our school boards.And those are things that I'm able to do in some ways, Mark, with a lot more flexibility.

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and I think impact than if I was still in a particular office because I would be focused on doing the best that I can.for my constituency, as opposed to necessarily being able to spread myself as I have.There's also different ways to serve.I've done a uniform.I'm working with others to build out an AI orchestration technology company.Creating jobs, bringing back entrepreneurism to Canada is another way to contribute.

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And so those are some of the ways that I'm keeping myself busy, but I I know myself well enough that when my kids no longer want me around, which I'm told daughters, it happens sooner than one once, I'll probably be looking to to enter or return to serving again.

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All right.Evan Vuong, thank you so much for coming on the show.We appreciate it.Thanks for having me.If you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great independent journalism by becoming a premier member of Juno News.Please go to Junonews .

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com backslash straight up.You can find the link below and help us do what we do.Thank you so much for tuning in.We'll see you next time.

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