“That's not true. Look at all I've done! I'm the minister and I've made things better.”
What they said. What they meant.
Plain-language translations from the House of Commons.
Recent debates
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A bill to make many changes to Canada's immigration and border control laws. During debate, Conservatives asked questions about specific cases and raised concerns about fraud, while the Liberal minister responded but often discussed unrelated topics like Canada Summer Jobs and praised a Liberal colleague.
“I'm going to name some programs and provinces instead of admitting the problem.”
“I don't like that question. Let me talk about something else that makes me look good.”
“I'm filling time with kind words about Quebec and saying nothing anyone could pin down later.”
“I already said we reduced the number of asylum seekers. We're working on it.”
“I want to dodge your point and look co-operative without actually changing anything.”
“We insist we're already fixing it. Don't look too closely.”
“Quebec already gets lots of money for this. We're working on it.”
“I already told you the committee is studying it. I'm stalling until they report back.”
“I talked to people at the UN this month. We're still working on it.”
“I will not answer yes or no. I want the committee's report first.”
“I'm going to call a 71% reduction a success and hope that sounds good enough.”
“I'm repeating myself. I said we talked to the provinces.”
“I want to look good by talking about protecting Canada's immigration system. I'm going to throw out a bunch of technical jargon to make it sound like I know what I'm talking about. I'll also namedrop some government agencies to make it seem like we're all working together on this. And of course, I'll mention that we're spending a lot of money on this, because that always makes people feel good.”
“I'm filling time with kind words and saying nothing anyone could pin down later.”
“I'm filling time with kind words about the minister. Then I boast that we met some immigration targets. After I say nice things about immigrants. I finally get to the point: we are spending more money on processing asylum claims. I say this is good because it helps some people. Then I say we changed some rules to protect the system. I finish by asking the minister to talk about the immigration targets we already met.”
“Thank you, my friend, for your nice words about me. I like when we say how good we are doing on Francophone immigration. It is very important for Canada and for Quebec. I want more Francophone people to come to Canada. Our government is working hard on this.”
“I also want to say I'm an immigrant and I care about immigrants. We're all immigrants here unless you're First Nations. Immigrants and hard working people contribute a lot to Canada.”
“I want to avoid your question about who let those criminals into the country. I'll just say all criminals go to jail. I don't want to deport anyone.”
“I won't answer you directly. I just want to say that some people are checking these applications.”