Rabble Rants: Electoral Reform? / Housing and Immigration
Topic 1: Electoral Reform
Special Guest Matt Kerch , a political commentator from British Columbia, joins hosts Jessa McLean and Santiago Helou Quintero to dish on the potential benefits and prospects of electoral reform here in Canada.
Topic 2: Immigration and Housing
We help debunk the xenophobic rhetoric being amplified that blames immigration numbers for the housing crisis we're in. National media, Conservative leaders and Liberal Ministers have us all looking away from the actual culprits - investors and developers.
Episodes that feed into this discussion:
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Transcript
There is so much out there to get mad about. Social injustices, class warfare, continued
Speaker:colonization, the act of destruction of our planet by those focused on prophets and not
Speaker:people. We can find it overwhelming at times. The good news is there are equally as many,
Speaker:if not more, stories of people coming together and rising up against the forces at play. So
Speaker:the creators of Blueprints of Disruption have added a new weekly segment, Ravel Rants, where
Speaker:we will unpack the stories that have us most riled up, share calls to action, and most importantly,
Speaker:celebrate resistance. All right, welcome to another rant. We have a guest with us today
Speaker:from the West Coast. We thought we'd stop being typical Torontonians and thinking we're the
Speaker:center of the universe and let some more voices on the show. Welcome, Matt, you wanna introduce
Speaker:yourself to folks? Hi, Jessa. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me, Santiago. My name
Speaker:is Matt Kircher. I'm BC born and raised from the West Coast, political activist, political
Speaker:commentator. You know what? I'm really, really happy to be here and I'm really happy to speak
Speaker:a little bit about what we're speaking about today. And that's going to be electoral reform.
Speaker:So when we invite guests on from around Canada, we want them to bring something that they're
Speaker:particularly passionate about. Teach us something, perhaps. Maybe we can argue with them a little
Speaker:bit. And so, Matt, what makes you kind of focus on electoral form as a point of disruption?
Speaker:The reason I am really, really passionate about electoral reform is I'm really, really passionate
Speaker:about fairness in politics. Electoral reform takes politics from this almost untouchable
Speaker:realm and brings it into this realm where everyone's vote directly impacts the political realm.
Speaker:Right now under our current system, which many of your listeners will be familiar with, it's
Speaker:not a one vote, you win system. It's not a 50 plus one system. You can win a riding with
Speaker:25% of the vote in this country and get sent to Ottawa. I don't think that's the way we
Speaker:should be doing things. I don't think that represents the interest of voters in this country. And
Speaker:I don't think it leads to sustainable policy in this country either. Folks on Ontario know
Speaker:exactly what you're talking about. We live under a false majority where, you know, the popular
Speaker:vote isn't with who is ruling us. So more people actually voted against Doug Ford than for him,
Speaker:but he has, you know, essentially absolute power here. And it's the primary beef I think people
Speaker:have with electoral reform. Now, most of us are, oh wait, Matt, are you an NDP-er? Were
Speaker:you ever? Can I call you a reformed NDP-er? You could, you could, I would, I usually turn
Speaker:myself as a leftist in Canadian politics. Uh, I kind of float between the NDP and the Greens.
Speaker:Um, it's usually very candidate depending, leadership dependent. Uh, right now I would say I'm fairly
Speaker:politically homeless. I lean towards the Green Party, but don't get me wrong. I have problems
Speaker:with them as well. I got my start in, in electoral politics, I guess, with the Green Party, uh,
Speaker:through frustrations of the NDP and then. Through frustrations of the Green Party I left, I think
Speaker:if I was in BC, I would definitely, if I had to choose between the evils, it would be more
Speaker:Green than NDP. But I guess my issue when it comes to electoral reform, it's actually not
Speaker:so much to do, I mean it is to do with the ballots and the system we use, but I think my bigger
Speaker:issue happens way before we ever get to that stage, which is internal party structures.
Speaker:Which for me are very undemocratic. How exactly do we get the names that we even get a chance
Speaker:to vote for? What's going on before we ever get to put an X on a ballot? And to me, even
Speaker:if you change the system to be first, pass, or post-ranked ballot, proportional representation,
Speaker:block vote, whatever the system is, without reforming the party structures, it's still
Speaker:an incredibly undemocratic system. Yeah, like for you, Matt, does electoral reform encompass
Speaker:more than just how we tabulate the votes, how we determine the winner of the election every
Speaker:four years? Because I think most people's biggest beef with any election is the influence of
Speaker:money, or at least it's mine. Maybe I'm speaking just for myself here. I doubt it, though. Not
Speaker:just in the campaigns itself, but then whoever's in office, the influence they have through
Speaker:lobbying and whatnot. And I'm just wondering, you know, electoral reform, how all encompassing
Speaker:are these changes that we're looking at? Because right now I'm just like smash the system rebuilds.
Speaker:I feel like electoral reform is maneuvering pieces within the same system. And that's the
Speaker:other thing with electoral reform. There's so many visions. There's so many versions. And
Speaker:so what's your kind of vision of electoral form that you think can be applied here in Canada?
Speaker:Yeah, so to Santiago's point, it is bigger than just tabulating votes. And to your point as
Speaker:well, it would impact party democracy as well. I am a proponent, I'm going to get a little
Speaker:wonky here, but I'm a proponent of a specific system. It's called MMP, mixed member proportional.
Speaker:It's the one that you'll often hear the NDP when they decide to talk about electoral reform,
Speaker:it's the one they will tout. Part of the reason I am really, really into that system. is you
Speaker:can design it in a way so that the proportional part of your voting is an open list. So getting
Speaker:into that party democracy that the parties are picking these people for you to choose before
Speaker:we even get that choice. Oh, we know all about that. Exactly. You have an MMP system. Those
Speaker:parties have to put up, with an open list, sorry, those parties have to put up at least like
Speaker:five to 10 additional candidates and you get to pick. those candidates you get to so if
Speaker:you're voting for say I want to vote for the NDP I'm going to go I'm casting my main vote
Speaker:for the NDP in my in my riding in that portion of the ballot. The second portion of the ballot
Speaker:is a more is where the proportionality will be divvied up. But the second portion of the
Speaker:ballot that is where all the parties would have to list all their next candidates and you would
Speaker:get to rank those candidates and when the proportionality is divvied up when they're tabulating the votes
Speaker:those candidates there. the candidates with the most amount or the highest ranked candidates
Speaker:there. They're the first ones that get those proportionally allotted seats. So when we're
Speaker:talking about party democracy and it's saying like, Oh, well, this one person is running
Speaker:in this one riding. I don't really like that person. I don't really want to vote for them.
Speaker:That party's not going to get my vote. Now in this new system, in this MMP system, you would
Speaker:have an option for multiple people running for that party, which you would get to pick to
Speaker:represent you. It's almost like a blending of that party democracy into the general election.
Speaker:See, for me, you're using really bad examples because I'm still stuck with an NDP MP. For
Speaker:me, I've advocated for electoral reform many times. So I'm going to sound like maybe devils
Speaker:advocate a little bit because we've had so many discussions Santiago here on the show where
Speaker:we're trying to figure out how this is going to work, how this is going to work. And then
Speaker:we're like, oh, we have to change the system, right? Like that won't work in this current
Speaker:circumstance. It's great, but these folks won't go for it. Right. I think that's the situation
Speaker:we're now in Canadian politics where there's no party that exists that I would care what
Speaker:share that they had. I honestly am not hopeful of a better future. And so the hope that I
Speaker:do hold in electoral politics is the hope that lies for fringe parties like the ones we talk
Speaker:about creating in the absence of a decent one here. So because we know first past the post
Speaker:what we use here, it really favors the brokerage parties, right? The liberals, the conservatives,
Speaker:the big names that have already done the spending. knows they're the only two options, you know,
Speaker:you know, that's sarcasm, I suppose. But and then it really discourages small parties from
Speaker:coming up because that's going to take a lot of spending a lot of resources to get first
Speaker:past the post. So you don't have that outliers chance of even being the kind of the one voice
Speaker:in parliament. I don't know for Santiago, when I told you we were going to talk about electoral
Speaker:reform, you were kind of like, oh yeah, you know, I can rant about that. Do you think we're
Speaker:getting there? Getting to electoral reform? Yeah, like better yet, do you think a decent
Speaker:amount of electoral reform, you know, kind of the well-rounded one that hits on the issues
Speaker:you were talking about as well as when Matt's hitting home, would that hit on all the other
Speaker:issues that we've done? Would that give us the solutions we've been looking for? I think at
Speaker:best it's something that can make the work easier, but it's still not, you know, the answer to
Speaker:our larger issues. Right. I mean, first you ask, you know, like, are we getting to it?
Speaker:And The answers has nothing to do with what people actually want, right? Because I mean,
Speaker:ideally under a democratic system, what the public cares about would mean something, anything
Speaker:at all to the decisions that are actually made, but we like, I mean, we've seen countless studies
Speaker:that it actually doesn't matter at all what the public wants. It affects very little of
Speaker:the outcome of what actually gets done in. governments, right? So for there to be an electoral reform,
Speaker:it would have to be something that would benefit the rich, the powerful, the people making the
Speaker:decisions. And right now, they don't see any benefit to that whatsoever, because it gives
Speaker:them absolute power. So no, I don't think we're going to get electoral reform anytime soon.
Speaker:And the question is, under this system, how would we even force the hand of the government
Speaker:to do so? I mean, it would
Speaker:And people are right now are so frustrated and drowning from so many overlapping issues that
Speaker:they don't have the energy to train and fix the system. They need their immediate concerns
Speaker:met. So I think that if anything, you know, when back in 2015, this was something that
Speaker:people were talking a lot more about. I think Justin Trudeau got elected partially off of
Speaker:the idea. I know a lot of people who voted for him because he said that he would change. system
Speaker:to proportional representation. I think back then there were a lot more conversations. I
Speaker:think we're way further away from this being a central topic today than we were back then.
Speaker:But I'm going to go to you Matt, because BC was teased with it, right? You folks were actually
Speaker:given the choice. And Santiago's right. Most people do support the idea of electoral reform.
Speaker:And referendums always, there's so many issues surrounding them that you know you haven't
Speaker:really gotten the full picture from the results, which is the same with our elections, right?
Speaker:Let's be real. But you know, what was that like? Like, is that perhaps did you get a get close
Speaker:to electoral reform in BC? Oh, so we have been close to electoral reform. BC in the past.
Speaker:A referendum in BC has actually passed for electoral reform in BC. I believe off the top of my head
Speaker:it was back in 2005. It did receive a 50 plus 1 vote, but the way the Gordon Campbell liberals
Speaker:designed it was they needed 60% to pass the referendum and therefore the referendum failed
Speaker:and we didn't get electoral reform in BC. Since then, it's been tried again twice. You talk
Speaker:about that like it's a historical record. You didn't experience that though, right? I didn't
Speaker:experience that. No, or at least I was too young in my political life to really experience it.
Speaker:I kinda came up into politics in like the early 2010s and stuff like that. That's when I really
Speaker:started getting involved around my high school, later high school years and stuff like that.
Speaker:But no, so we did have that recent one back in 2017. It was not close, but I don't believe
Speaker:that is a... representation of the populace's desire for electoral reform. I think that desire
Speaker:still remains. You saw it in Ontario immediately after the re-election of Doug Ford. There was
Speaker:a lot of people that you saw the support for electoral reform jump in Ontario immediately
Speaker:after his election. So it does usually take some sort of catalyst like that to get it in
Speaker:the news, but once it is in the news people do care about. The problem with what happened
Speaker:in BC was the
Speaker:And this kind of gets to what you guys are saying, which is the people that we have in power right
Speaker:now are not that interested in electoral reform. The BCNDP was happy to use it as a rhetorical
Speaker:tool. The coal baron John Horgan was happy to use it as a rhetorical tool. And then when
Speaker:the campaign came around, there were no maps, no writing maps for people to envision what
Speaker:the electoral reform would look like. There were no ballot examples so people could see
Speaker:what their ballot would look like afterward. John Horgan's big selling point was PR is lit
Speaker:in an online or in a televised debate with John Wilkinson So like there wasn't ever really
Speaker:besides the BC Greens a unified front pushing for electoral reform It was almost like we
Speaker:were working against the BC liberals and the BC NDP while Rhetorically in favor of it. We're
Speaker:not providing the tools necessary to win that referendum I am a proponent of no referendum.
Speaker:I don't want a referendum I think we need to just get PR, we need to have a leader or some
Speaker:sort of, there needs to be someone who gets in a position of power. If it's something they
Speaker:care about, they have to just do it. They can't- You sound like a tyrant. They can't be screwing
Speaker:around the end. No, no, no. If you want to build in, no, seriously, if you want to build in
Speaker:a referendum like two years down the road or something like that, after, or two election
Speaker:cycles down the road where people have had a chance to work with the new system and understand
Speaker:it, that's fine. But to implement the system right away for the betterment of our democracy,
Speaker:if you're elected on a platform of running for electoral reform, do the electoral reform.
Speaker:Don't beat around the bush. Don't do these referendums. If you were elected on that in your platform,
Speaker:do it. I guess my question is, how would we how would the public know when such a case
Speaker:would come around, because I think people have believed in the past that they were voting
Speaker:for someone who was going to do something like that. you know, like such as Justin Trudeau.
Speaker:The reality is that for the public, it's very difficult to tell the genuine motivations of
Speaker:politicians. I mean, even here in Toronto, like with Olivia Chow is a good example of someone
Speaker:who there were a lot of expectations of progress that we're seeing already is not gonna happen,
Speaker:right? So for people who aren't day in, day out consuming politics like we are, How would
Speaker:they know when that came around? That's the same with every politician. They have a mandate
Speaker:that's not really a mandate, but you pick that winner. Matt has a point there. You pick the
Speaker:winner, they get kind of carte blanche. But to Matt, though, there are steps beyond a referendum.
Speaker:Because in Canadian politics, we know referendums are really just a way of pretending that you
Speaker:ask people and then doing what you really wanted to do anyway. And the manipulation of process
Speaker:that goes on around it is often so ridiculous. The Quebec referendum was one of them. And
Speaker:so we don't do them well. They are a tool for direct democracy, so I'm not going to slam
Speaker:them. But I mean, there are so many examples of folks even doing things that weren't in
Speaker:their mandates. And so, I mean, you really do, I think, need somebody to get up there and
Speaker:do something. But you have consultations because it's like what version. What does it include?
Speaker:What doesn't it include? And, you know, if you read the NDP policy book, they don't even have
Speaker:a vision of what it looks like at all. I'm going to read. It says, this is all they have. I
Speaker:did not cut any doubt. Their position on electoral reform is ensuring electoral reform is based
Speaker:on a transparent process with wide citizen involvement. That is the goal of almost any policy. You
Speaker:may not have a referendum where every citizen has a vote, but you do have panels and you
Speaker:have processes where legislation is passed and people get to go before committees and make
Speaker:amendments or suggest amendments and give input to policy. Our democracy, in quotation, still
Speaker:has points of input for people. I think that's one of the bigger issues in selling electoral
Speaker:reform is no one looks knows exactly what it looks like because one that varies from person
Speaker:to person's opinion and we've not really been exposed to a lot of it. Although did you know,
Speaker:maybe I did, I did not, that none of it uses consensus within their provincial house so
Speaker:they don't use traditional voting methods within their legislature. they use consensus building,
Speaker:right? Like they've got to use discussion and compromise and come to a solution that everybody
Speaker:goes along with. So there are so many forms of reform that can be applied within the Canadian
Speaker:system, but not one, right? And so like, how do you campaign on something, especially federally,
Speaker:and get this one vision out there? Because that's not. really been done. Even Fair Vote Canada
Speaker:doesn't really solidify their position on exactly what it looks like. And it's very, their campaigns
Speaker:are often very focused just on that vote and voter outcome. And they don't dress like the
Speaker:other issues that we know underline the problem with politics, right? That money process. But
Speaker:yeah, absolutely. So the way I would kind of address that, at least the overarching, like
Speaker:what do we... What do we present? What are we campaigning on? How do we get people to kind
Speaker:of click into this? And how do we decide on what exactly that reform is going to look like?
Speaker:While I don't support the referendum, that's kind of how the BC NDP tried to do it. They
Speaker:put up three systems in the referendum to vote on and then had people say, pick your favorite.
Speaker:But that's Greek to most people. Yeah, exactly. The amount of times, the amount of conversations
Speaker:I had just explaining. what the systems were, not even getting into how they were better
Speaker:or different, just what they were, what they would look like, was astounding. I think the
Speaker:better solution in this case is to like, say, if I'm a political, like I'm running a campaign,
Speaker:I'm running on a platform, I'm going to run on a promise of electoral reform to a proportional
Speaker:representation system, and I'm going to promise that system is going to be decided upon by
Speaker:a citizens assembly, randomly selected Canadian
Speaker:That's how they came up with the STV system here. That wouldn't be my preferred system.
Speaker:But at the end of the day, any PR system is better than what we have currently. So if it's
Speaker:going to get us a step closer to where we need to be, I'm going to take that step. I'm not
Speaker:going to argue about the details, the minor details on the edge cases of these different
Speaker:systems. If we get a PR system, that's better. Once you have that citizens assembly in that
Speaker:form of PR, you can then start to produce. educational materials for the general public, stuff like
Speaker:that. Like I said, the example ballots, the example writings, how your vote is going to
Speaker:transfer, that sort of stuff. And then when we're talking about outside of the voting system
Speaker:and getting the money out of politics and stuff like that, that one's tougher. It honestly
Speaker:is because our politics in this liberal democracy have been dominated by these big money interests.
Speaker:And because these big money interests have been allowed to gain so much traction. it is going
Speaker:to be hard to prevent that sort of money in there. I guess my best answer for that would
Speaker:be is that if we do have a electoral reform system, and this goes back to a little bit
Speaker:what we were talking about before as well, it's going to be easier for those fringe parties
Speaker:that we were talking about to earn their way into the political system, to make their way
Speaker:into the political system. And if we want to take money out of politics, we can use the
Speaker:internal democracy in these fringe parties to at least subtract the big money out from them.
Speaker:and the big influence out from them and use them as our vehicle into electoral politics.
Speaker:Of course, that's a lot of work. That's a lot of organizing. I would never stand up and say
Speaker:PR is the end all be all. I kind of like how Santiago phrased it. It's a tool. It makes
Speaker:things easier for us. Absolutely. I think like Santiago kind of brought me back into the fold
Speaker:a little bit with that comment that I was like, I'm willing to still advocate for it, but having
Speaker:to judge how much resources you put into something that we made the point that. How do you get
Speaker:it done if none of the current parties want to do it? That means everything else we talk
Speaker:about, massive push from the populace. So it's like chicken and the egg, where does that start
Speaker:until they experience it? And those fringe parties that might bring it around, they're not there
Speaker:yet. And even though they benefit from it, but it's those fringe parties and that benefit
Speaker:that tells me what I already know, that the NDP would never put any kind of resources into
Speaker:electoral reform. simply because it opens the door for the parties to compete with them.
Speaker:And they have decimated themselves so much that they are almost a fringe party themselves.
Speaker:And so it would be quite easy to usurp that position on the left by a genuine grassroots
Speaker:leftist party. And that scares the bejesus out of them, obviously, because they cash their
Speaker:paychecks on being that other people because they're the only option. Well, once you stop
Speaker:being that only option. they're not going to have any game plan whatsoever. I honestly kind
Speaker:of believe too that the Cassadeel that the NDP signed, the reason that electoral reform was
Speaker:not part of that Cassadeel is exactly what you are talking about. Because when you hook your
Speaker:ship to the Liberals, a sinking ship in and of itself, your left flank of that part of
Speaker:the NDP is going to start getting a little a little bit cautious, right? A little bit. I
Speaker:don't really want to be in this situation. And then when you go through and do that. without
Speaker:really getting anything else in the deal, and electoral reform is not there, well, I'm going
Speaker:to have some concerns. But I think I've kind of come around to that same position where
Speaker:you are, which is that the NDP are simply not interested in this policy because it is going
Speaker:to be detrimental to their power. And the NDP, just like the liberals, primarily is a party
Speaker:concerned with power over policy. Yeah, and I would say that that's the case by design
Speaker:of all of the parties. Oh yeah. One thing I have to mention too though, because electoral
Speaker:reform, we see how our democracy isn't working. So we look at this issue and we say, you know,
Speaker:like if we change this, we get money out of politics. We can have better representation.
Speaker:But there is also another issue. Money in media is money in politics. Yes. You know, as long
Speaker:as we have private media and we're not publicly funding journalism, Even if we changed electoral
Speaker:form, that would be another issue right there, because then manufacturing consent, you know,
Speaker:we know, we would only hear about certain candidates, the media would sway public opinion in certain
Speaker:directions, and that would still be money in politics one way. So there's a lot of battles
Speaker:to fight here if the goal is to, you know, like have an actual... democracy, right? I love
Speaker:how we always just come around to revolution. I was gonna say, isn't that just kind of the
Speaker:socialist cause of trying to make our democracy fairer? No, yeah, but that's the thing is that
Speaker:there's so many aspects to this, right? That like, if the goal is that, if the goal is,
Speaker:you know, living in a democracy, we have a lot of battles to fight and I just don't know how
Speaker:we're gonna... I guess I was more hopeful about some of those battles before, but now I don't
Speaker:know. I feel like in this current moment, it's looking very difficult. And also, just on the
Speaker:word of referendums, because I'm going to bring another personal experience. Colombia had a
Speaker:big controversial referendum a few years ago. The peace vote, whether or not to negotiate
Speaker:peace with the Farc. That referendum was lost. And that's an absurd concept. Because You know,
Speaker:the people overwhelmingly wanted peace, but the power of media and the power of, well,
Speaker:the power of Uri Uista and those in power was so strong that they got the public to vote.
Speaker:They convinced the public to vote no on something that they actively wanted, which is part of
Speaker:what scared, you know, like I'm a big fan of direct democracy, but that's also what I mean.
Speaker:Like there you had an avenue of like direct democracy and the powers of media. overwhelmed
Speaker:that for something so obvious that people were desperate, you know, so I don't know what I'm
Speaker:asking I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm just I guess I'm pessimistic today But
Speaker:well, maybe I can absolve your pessimism a little bit then because like you like what we're doing
Speaker:right here Right like your podcast blueprints of disruption things like breach media Those
Speaker:those independent outlets are the way we are going to fight that battle I think we're coming
Speaker:to a point at least in contemporary history now where people are starting to kind of question
Speaker:narratives coming out of the media. You see, like, it started after Iraq, and since then
Speaker:there has been more questioning of official narratives coming out from these major media
Speaker:organizations. Now, sometimes that's not a good thing. Sometimes that gets you something like
Speaker:Donald Trump in the US, but it is good that people do not hold the same amount of trust
Speaker:that they used to have in these areas, because let's be real. The media has never been feeding
Speaker:you the official line. Going back in history, the media has lied to the populace to suit
Speaker:a government narrative on multiple occasions. So to have this kind of erosion of trust might
Speaker:lead to a better media literacy, and it's also going to lead to growth in independent outlets
Speaker:like this one, and like the breach and stuff like that. I'm not grinning because you're
Speaker:bigging up our show, I'm grinning because you gave me the perfect segue to our next topic.
Speaker:when you're talking about questioning the narrative and the media selling a certain line and enraging
Speaker:us because I mean, we're on rebel rents because we're gonna talk about immigration and housing
Speaker:but not in the way that you have seen the typical media talk about it, obviously, we're not typical
Speaker:media. But holy shit, Santiago, I mean, we started talking about it a couple of weeks ago, you
Speaker:could kind of smell it brewing, not that there isn't xenophobia fucking all the time. See,
Speaker:now I'm getting upset. Okay. We see racism and fear of immigrants like pop its head up all
Speaker:the time when it comes to different issues, but I think we can all agree it's hit a different
Speaker:level right now. You know, trying to pull some notes as I do. And the CBC, our public broadcaster,
Speaker:is chock full of the stuff from international students to the housing. I mean, all kinds
Speaker:of different angles, but for the past few weeks, they have just been pumping out what you could
Speaker:call anti-immigrant rhetoric and that's the CBC. We don't have to talk about the National
Speaker:Post but if folks take a look, I mean it's disgusting what they're printing right now. I'll link
Speaker:you to something there but I mean it's basically saying all Canadians think immigration is destroying
Speaker:Canada and polls are unfortunately not looking good either and I know polls can be misleading.
Speaker:as well. Sometimes the questions can be leading or lack of options, choices. But, you know,
Speaker:you got 75 percent of Canadians right now that are essentially blaming immigrants for our
Speaker:housing crisis. What the fuck? I think what's infuriating about that is that I feel like
Speaker:when you use examples of what scapegoating in politics is, you often cite, you know, blaming
Speaker:immigrants for problems like that. That's like the example of this is what scapegoating is.
Speaker:And we're seeing it happen right now, where somehow, even though we all know that immigrants
Speaker:always get blamed, it's still working. And it's working not only with people on the right,
Speaker:but I'm seeing a lot of people who should be allies, who should be comrades saying this.
Speaker:And I cannot stress enough how fucking pissed off I am about that. First of all, I'm an immigrant.
Speaker:I am a citizen, but I am an immigrant. I was born in Colombia. I go to Humber College, which
Speaker:is one of the campuses, I go to North Campus of Humber College, where it's one of the campuses
Speaker:that has the most international students. I know a lot of international students. My best
Speaker:friend, who is a graduate of Humber College right now, his status is set to expire in September,
Speaker:and I'm desperately trying to figure out ways to keep him in the country. So, you know, these
Speaker:aren't numbers, these are real people, and they don't have any blame for what's going on. What
Speaker:we're not asking is, you know, when immigrants contribute more per capital to the economy
Speaker:than non-immigrants, when humans are a resource and not a cost of resources, the question is,
Speaker:because there is definitely a hint of truth to the argument, because that's what's making
Speaker:it effective, is the housing crisis somewhat tied to immigrants? Yes. But why? because when
Speaker:the waves of Italian and Portuguese immigrants were coming to Canada, they weren't contributing
Speaker:to a housing crisis. No, they built half these fucking cities. They built Toronto. A lot of
Speaker:immigrants still build the city. Yeah. So why is it, and nobody's talking about the why.
Speaker:Why is it that a rise in immigration is contributing to a housing crisis? Why is it that we have
Speaker:a scarcity? Why is it we can't seem to turn these immigrants into houses? Because immigrants
Speaker:can build houses too. For every leftist who thinks that this is an issue, you are a fucking
Speaker:fool. And I'm sorry, like usually I'm much kinder, but you are absolutely being fooled here. And
Speaker:you need to do a hell of a lot more research because there's a lot more behind this issue.
Speaker:Absolutely, because then people are just breaking it down to like a supply and demand issue.
Speaker:And I'll be frank, if you've read the Toronto Star article that was put out by Saeed Hassan,
Speaker:and another co-author, I will link it there, I apologize for forgetting the names, but they
Speaker:did a really good job of actually smashing some of the numbers that folks are using that are
Speaker:convincing leftists. So I wanna go through them a little bit for folks that maybe won't take
Speaker:the time to read it, and I get it. We'll get into like the xenophobia and how shit that
Speaker:is and how dependent we are on migrants of all sorts for our labor market. Like we exploit
Speaker:their labor, we exploit international students. We've talked about that before, Let's talk
Speaker:about immigrants and housing. So they're framing every number of people that are coming over
Speaker:as needing a home, as though they don't come over in households, as though they don't come
Speaker:over and live with family, as though some of those people are not on visas that have been
Speaker:transferred into permanent residence, right? The numbers are so misleading. And the folks
Speaker:in that Toronto Star
Speaker:what is the impact of the immigration numbers on housing itself, because although it seems
Speaker:like an influx and it's been painted like a flood, we often use natural disaster language
Speaker:around this for a reason, but it's actually a planned increase that once you kind of compensate
Speaker:for the changes that happened because of COVID restrictions, it still was like just 50,000
Speaker:people a year new to Canada. like actually coming and weren't already here and just changing
Speaker:status. And those aren't all houses and not all of them even needed housing. And so the
Speaker:numbers they're throwing at you were just almost pure bullshit, really. One of the stats that
Speaker:they gave, I thought was interesting. It was like between a third and a half of new permanent
Speaker:residents are not new arrivals needing new housing at all. So when I say some, it was like between
Speaker:a third and a half of folks, those numbers that they're using. already live here in housing.
Speaker:And we've talked about international students and migrant workers and the housing that they
Speaker:actually live in is like rooming houses or like barns or homes where, you know, eight to 10
Speaker:people are living, all sleeping on the floor together. And they aren't the threat in the
Speaker:rental market that they're being painted as. It's absolutely ridiculous. I get frustrated
Speaker:that this is painted as a problem with immigration. Like we have a housing crisis in this country.
Speaker:That's true. High immigration numbers do lead to less housing. There is some fact like Santiago
Speaker:said there. But the focus is fucked. Like the focus should not be on the immigration. We've
Speaker:been in a housing crisis for decades now. Why is the focus not on the housing crisis? Build
Speaker:more fucking houses. That's where the issue comes from. It's not, and like if you wanna
Speaker:be a leftist and talk about immigration and stuff like that, I think there are some areas
Speaker:we can have some criticism. Like you could go out and criticize the temporary foreign workers
Speaker:program. I think that program really, really endangers people coming to this country. And
Speaker:I think it would be better if we just rolled it into the main immigration program. Give
Speaker:people coming to this country who want to work also the same rights as every other citizen
Speaker:so they can't be singled out. Yeah, easily exploited, singled out by those companies. Yeah. First
Speaker:of all, the temporary foreign worker program, the United Nations literally called it a modern
Speaker:day form of slavery. Like it's... One of the most fucked up exploitive things I've ever
Speaker:heard. I was just on vacation in Colombia and I was telling people about it and they could
Speaker:not believe that such a thing exists in a country like Canada. Um, it, it sounds so absurd when
Speaker:you hear the specifics behind it, but yeah, no status for all is absolutely necessary.
Speaker:One of the reasons where we have a crisis here is because we're putting chains on immigrants,
Speaker:my chains. The minute they get here, say for example, you're an international student, you
Speaker:know, first of all, you're being lied to about what kind of opportunity there is here half
Speaker:the time, right? Many of them, you know, you hear stories of people with their family, sells
Speaker:their farms to be able to pay the absurd tuition prices that we charge international students
Speaker:to get the diplomas or degrees that end up not actually leading to job opportunities. Now
Speaker:the family literally bet the farm with the idea that they'll be able to make that money back.
Speaker:through living in Canada and send it back, but that's the farthest thing from reality. So
Speaker:then you're in this position where these international students are graduating in a horrible financial
Speaker:position, and then they're expected to somehow, I mean, they're fighting for their status,
Speaker:so they have to take whatever opportunity they can. Jobs for them mean they get to get their
Speaker:PR. So they're accepting all kinds of exploitative jobs to be able to stay in the country. So
Speaker:then you're putting... people in a position where are they making the decisions that are
Speaker:best for themselves? Because when people make the decisions that are the best for themselves,
Speaker:it benefits all of us. But when you're forcing people into these precarious situations, it
Speaker:fucks over the economy. So when you have a growing economy with more and more migrants who are
Speaker:in more and more exploitative positions, yeah, no fuck, we're all going to feel the problems
Speaker:with that because it's not good for any of us. Having a second class citizens in this country
Speaker:like that's It benefits a very, very small amount of people. If people are talking right now
Speaker:that migrants are a problem, but we're not talking about status for all, then you're not talking
Speaker:about the right thing. Yeah, because I want to be careful that, although everything everyone
Speaker:is saying is completely true, and we know that immigrants to this country have it a lot harder
Speaker:than folks with full status, and all of these issues are true, but I want to be careful that
Speaker:we don't. then focus on immigrants when we're discussing this and their precarious situation
Speaker:and what they need to live fuller lives here in Canada, because it still feels like an us
Speaker:versus not us versus them, but an us and them. And again, it moves away from the fact that
Speaker:the issue is housing and investors control housing. There's no mincing those words. It was just
Speaker:released that some cities new home builds being bought by investors. 90%. There's places in
Speaker:Newfoundland where the entire stock of housing, 42% of it is owned by investors. I'm going
Speaker:to link the article that gives you a lot of that data. It's horrific to see the increase
Speaker:that that's happened as well. And so just like everything in capitalism, just like every industry
Speaker:out there, it is a supply and demand, but it is not controlled by the bottom. It's controlled
Speaker:at the top. They decide, developers and investors decide how many houses are fucking built, even
Speaker:when we entice them. We can give them all the GSD rebates in the world. But if that's going
Speaker:to influence their bottom line in the end, if those rebates don't actually make the profits
Speaker:that they need, they're not going to make more houses than we need or enough houses. Who supplies
Speaker:enough for everybody when everyone can't afford it? No, you know, we see farmers throwing out
Speaker:potatoes to make sure that the crop stays at a certain price. I'm sorry. This also happens
Speaker:with housing. Yeah. And I want to address that real quick because, you know, people throw
Speaker:around terms like supply and demand. But whenever we're talking about essential goods and services,
Speaker:supply and demand does not function like it does in a non-essential market. You can charge
Speaker:whatever the fuck you want for an essential good because people need it to survive. If
Speaker:it's going to put an absolute strain on someone, they have to pay it. It doesn't matter because
Speaker:they need a roof over their head. Right. With that system, is it beneficial for these developers
Speaker:to build enough housing? No, of course not. Because they can keep charging as long as there's
Speaker:a scarcity of housing. They can keep inflating these prices way more than should ever occur
Speaker:if something was regulated by supply and demand. like we like to think that the world works
Speaker:that way. Developers have all the power anyways, right? We know that they own all of our municipal
Speaker:governments. No one puts more money into municipal politics than developers. So why on earth having
Speaker:all of that power, having the ability to change whatever they want in municipal politics, are
Speaker:they not changing the zoning bylaws to be able to build as much housing as is needed? Why
Speaker:are they creating this scarcity? We all know what the answer is there. It is profitable.
Speaker:for the rich and powerful for us to have a housing crisis. So we're not gonna solve the housing
Speaker:crisis by just hoping for the market to fix things. It is absurd. And I love how it's gone
Speaker:from like this acknowledgement that it was investors causing the problem. We call them foreign investors,
Speaker:right? We particularly singled out foreign investors as though they were the only people buying
Speaker:up new builds to make profit. And from my perspective, every capitalist, it doesn't matter what dirt.
Speaker:I don't care what passport you hold to me, it makes no difference at all. But we were there,
Speaker:I feel like we were there. And then that slipped to just, we left the foreign part in it and
Speaker:just started blaming every newcomer to Canada for the fact that we didn't have homes, even
Speaker:though we understood that this was happening. Because since 2020, investors have really slowed
Speaker:down on their investments in new homes. They are crea- they are exasperating. this crisis.
Speaker:So in 2020, we were already in a housing crisis, right? Like there's no denying that. And during
Speaker:that time, they started building fewer homes, investing in fewer builds. And so they are
Speaker:controlling this situation because we knew in 2020 exactly how many immigrants we would be
Speaker:taking in. Most of our refugee intake has a quota and a set that is known. It's not that
Speaker:drastic of a change. It's so... easy for everyone to just grab that popular rhetoric and spin
Speaker:it and scapegoat it. And it's not just the media, right? Like Pierre Pliéve. That's going to
Speaker:be a fun one for the next while. I mean, he's even said, like, I can't single him out because
Speaker:the immigration minister is nodding along saying he'd totally consider tying immigration quotas
Speaker:to the houses being built. And you bet your bottom dollar, they're not just going to increase
Speaker:the houses being built because with an understanding that we actually require. immigration. We have
Speaker:always required immigration in Canada to suit our thirst for growth, to balance out our labor.
Speaker:You know, most of it is exploited. Well, all labor is really exploited, but our policies
Speaker:have always been inherently very racist. And I think we've had a few Supreme Court rulings
Speaker:that have just made it clear that our immigration policies, it's becoming harder and harder to
Speaker:be openly racist. And so now we're just resorting to shifting away from that, yay, we're a multicultural
Speaker:Canada, celebrate that, to literally pointing at newcomers as to a problem that we've had
Speaker:forever. Right? We're a nation of immigrants, settlers, but immigrants continuously. And
Speaker:they're treated as some sort of fringe part of the population that's just suddenly coming.
Speaker:But I mean, they make up almost one in four of us now. Right? So they, I mean, Santiago,
Speaker:my dad, they are us. If you're talking about one... order of your population, you can't
Speaker:look to them as the problem. Just because some of their family members are coming over and
Speaker:you know, it's just that constant flow of immigration that we've always had. This is our makeup.
Speaker:So this is absolutely deciding that they aren't going to solve the housing problem and they
Speaker:are going to make sure that we have somebody to blame for it. And this is going to ramp
Speaker:up and it's going to really influence our next federal election. Like it is going to become
Speaker:a bigger and bigger issue. And historically Canada has like Even though we are a nation
Speaker:of immigrants, we have not historically been friendly to immigrants. BC in particular has
Speaker:some pretty horrid history when it comes to particularly Asian immigration to BC. We can
Speaker:go, I want to go back for a second and talk about the foreign homebuyers tax because you
Speaker:said that it should have just been a homebuyers tax. If you're buying a home over a certain
Speaker:price or something of that, put a tax on it. Or you have an extra home and you're just buying
Speaker:an extra home, put a tax on it. Why did it have to be a foreign homebuyers tax? Well, because
Speaker:in BC... when you say it's foreign, it's going to invoke these synophobic ideas that people
Speaker:have here. And it's an easy, it's easier to kind of, I think they did it to kind of push
Speaker:it past the developers in a way, in a sense, but it just, it leads into exactly what we
Speaker:are seeing now. Like it never goes away. It's gone from, they've managed to transform it
Speaker:from we don't have enough housing problem to there's too many people coming to this country
Speaker:problem. But There's such a disconnect there. Yeah, I mean, you know, I grew up in an Italian
Speaker:neighborhood and There's a story you hear from pretty much every Italian family, which was
Speaker:you know, we came here $5 in our pocket didn't have anything Landed, you know on a boat with
Speaker:no idea what we're doing and we built the life here and we built this city you hear Italians
Speaker:talk very proudly about that kind of reality where somebody can come here with nothing and
Speaker:find prosperity doesn't exist anymore and it doesn't exist by design because we are putting
Speaker:all of these requirements on people trying to come over that are holding, like I said, it's
Speaker:holding them back from day one right? Why are we not bringing in people to work construction?
Speaker:Why are we not, you know, why are we not bringing in people to work labor jobs, trades, you know,
Speaker:why are we trying like That is part of what is holding us back here. Why are we not a country
Speaker:where somebody can come here with $5 and expect a certain standard of living? Because all of
Speaker:those families, they ended up in quote unquote middle-class lifestyles, send all their kids
Speaker:to the university, and they're like your typical Canadian family. Why is that not the reality
Speaker:anymore? Because you see the situation right now with people coming over, and you hear about
Speaker:these rooming houses where... five people are sleeping in one bedroom because that's the
Speaker:only thing they can afford. And they're working whatever shit job they can get and it's barely
Speaker:enough to survive. That is not, that is a decision. Policy decision. I want to hit on that because
Speaker:I think a lot of folks are going to hear that and they've heard it, that generational thing,
Speaker:you know, back in my day, I didn't need to graduate, was able to buy a house. Like the housing market
Speaker:has significantly... changed since you're talking about when those particular set of immigrants
Speaker:that came over and had different economic situations. But it's hard to see that as it happens. And
Speaker:if you're not politically aware, a lot of people do put personal blame, personal failure. They
Speaker:attribute poverty to personal failings. And they don't see that, hey, the system has changed
Speaker:for those people. What unfortunately you hear, and I have heard from family members, where
Speaker:they look at those stories, they tell those same stories, and then look at new immigrants
Speaker:and say, why can't you do that? What is wrong with you that you can't do that? And because
Speaker:our immigrants now tend to be more racialized than they were before because we had terribly
Speaker:racist immigration policies that often prevented them. And so... Now, it reinforces that racism
Speaker:that they've also been taught for a very long time. It's reaffirming that horrible narrative
Speaker:that they already have going around in their head that folks from other places are less
Speaker:than, folks that aren't white are less than, that white supremacy still lives in the mind
Speaker:of white people. They've lived and breathed it for their whole lives. So, unfortunately,
Speaker:it's like that fight seems to be getting them to see that it is a systemic problem. That
Speaker:it's capitalism, right? Getting the commie flyers to them and stuff. It's like, no, it's not
Speaker:the immigrants. It's not their fault that they're in this situation. But international students
Speaker:alone? I mean, they literally keep the lights on in post-secondary institutions nowadays.
Speaker:They wouldn't be able to survive a week without international students. God no. No, yeah. Our
Speaker:universities are going to be really in trouble with the caps that they're putting on international
Speaker:students. They're going to cut them out. the number that can come over to study in Canada.
Speaker:And they're also, they've increased the amount of funds that you need to have in order to
Speaker:get here in the first place. So immigrants are always treated as like a good, a worker, but
Speaker:a good to be traded. And we figure out what kind of goods, what kind of workers we need,
Speaker:and we try to attract them and stuff like that. They're not treated as people. It's not a rights-based
Speaker:approach, but international students, they contribute 3.7 billion in tax revenue. And we're talking
Speaker:about them like they are a drain on the economy. And I don't know how many post-secondary institutions
Speaker:have talked of financial trouble or have filed for bankruptcy and are in declared financial
Speaker:trouble. I can't imagine what it's going to happen when they can't rely on folks paying
Speaker:10 times the tuition rate. It's a narrative that we definitely have to keep our eye on
Speaker:and try to squash because when you started sneaking into the left and you see The immigration minister
Speaker:MP Mark Miller saying he would consider the conservative idea of officially in policy tying
Speaker:housing to immigration. It's no longer a narrative. It's official. They are forever going to be
Speaker:correlated in people's brains. Where does that stop? Our state of our healthcare people also
Speaker:blame on the same people. And so will they tie our level of healthcare to how many immigrants
Speaker:can come over? And then, you know, we're denying people's freedom of movement, not to mention we're screwing up our labor market. Well, and at the end of the day, too, if they have their way here, like you said earlier,
Speaker:it's not going to result in like more houses being built or if they tied it to health care. It's not going to result in better health outcomes.
Speaker:These restrictions that we're putting on immigration are going to have negative impacts across the board for everyone. If we want to take a step step back for a second and take a socialist view for the from this perspective here, immigrants coming to this country.
Speaker:are a hell of a lot closer to the same position that you're in than the people that run this
Speaker:country. Immigrants coming over here to Canada are mostly working class people. They're people
Speaker:coming to just seek a better life, right? We should be accepting them into our movements,
Speaker:into our organizations, into the fold. We shouldn't be, why would we want to create this otherization
Speaker:or anything like that? It just boggles my mind sometimes to see people taking positions, like
Speaker:you say, some leftists out there, taking these positions. that are detrimental to their own
Speaker:movement. And they're so loud about it. Yeah, like saying, I care more about Canadians than
Speaker:I do immigrants. Yeah. And it comes back to our conversations about nationalism too. Because
Speaker:this idea of a Canadian and that you... Yeah, no. Because that tweet stood out to me, the
Speaker:whole, I care more about Canadians than about these other people. What the actual fuck? And
Speaker:they're not other people, right? Like they're not really other people. No. And this is also
Speaker:why in our movements, we like we talk about a lot. We need to be so careful about any type
Speaker:of nationalism. Nationalism is an evil universally. Like the only time I accept some level of nationalism
Speaker:was when Team Canada is playing soccer. But that's about it. Anything else is an even,
Speaker:you know. But but seriously, like. this idea of another people as if, I mean, first of all,
Speaker:and it has to be mentioned, I can't believe we haven't mentioned it so far. Like we're
Speaker:all settlers on indigenous land again, like this is the literal history of Canada. How
Speaker:many of us are actually indigenous, native to this land? Very, very few of us, right? So
Speaker:now at this moment in time, picking and choosing who is a Canadian, who's not, what's accessible
Speaker:to you, what's not. And we're the second largest country in the world. We have, and I know a
Speaker:lot of it's frozen tundra, but there is a hell of a lot of undeveloped place in Canada. We
Speaker:can build whole new cities if we wanted to. When was the last time we just built a new
Speaker:city? We should be building cities. Like we have the ability to be building cities. We're
Speaker:not developing Canada to the level that we should. We can build a sustainable society. Blaming
Speaker:immigrants is, I mean, it is the... most intellectually lazy possible argument and I'm so fucking mad
Speaker:at it. I can't stand and all I can see when people are talking about this I think of my
Speaker:best friend Say It Here right now who is who has been in this country for seven years who
Speaker:is fighting so hard to be able to stay here and we don't know if we're going to be able
Speaker:to keep him in the country in September. We don't know. So I'm taking it very fucking personally
Speaker:when people say this shit like it is not okay. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints
Speaker:of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our
Speaker:show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated
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