“I will not answer yes or no. I want the committee's report first.”
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.
“The minister says she wants equitable distribution. But after months in charge, she still has no concrete proposals. I think she should stop delaying and act now.”
“I'm going to call a 71% reduction a success and hope that sounds good enough.”
“You failed. Admit your old boss was bad at her job.”
“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 want to say I'm an immigrant and I care about immigrants. But crime and fraud and criminals getting into our country got worse with you in charge. So are you reckless, or just clueless?”
“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.”
“You didn't answer the question. 17 people were arrested for extortion. How many came here under your immigration policies? When will you deport them?”
“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.”
“You didn't answer my question about how these criminals got into Canada. I think they came in through visa programs you approved. I want you to admit that.”
“I won't answer you directly. I just want to say that some people are checking these applications.”
“I want to blame the minister for letting in criminals. I think the government is not careful enough at the border. I'm repeating this to make the government look bad.”
“I want to say we are being careful enough at the border. I'm listing partners and reviews to make us sound careful.”
“I want to blame the minister for problems. Did you two ever talk about security?”
“We did some stuff to fix the problem. We are trying to make it look like we're doing our job.”
“You didn't answer the question. There are a lot of international cartels in Canada. Did any of their members get here through your programs?”