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If you’re thinking about immigrating to Canada, I’m not confident you should watch my interview with NDP Immigration critic Jinny Sims. Our show is wall-to-wall pissed off people, viewers who write in to ask about our immigration system.

Sims’ interview has the record of receiving the highest number of questions on a single topic, the residency questionnaire. This is a questionnaire that permanent residents receive regarding their application for Canadian citizenship. To be fair, in the past becoming a Canadian citizen wasn’t very tough. Basically you had to spend three of the next four years in Canada. But now residents who receive the questionnaire need to prove that they have resided in Canada and are not, as the proponents of the questionnaire allege, simply using our citizenship to get a passport to make traveling aboard easier. Continue Reading

Last week, we asked you, “Who is to blame for problems with the Temporary Foreign Workers program?” Here are the results.

Overwhelmingly, people selected Government as the problem for failing to enforce regulations. 15% picked corporations and only 2% thought Canadians were at fault for not working those jobs in the first place.  The 2% is the most interesting. Yes, this issue made headlines recently because of the RBC IT workers but if we were having this conversation a year ago, it would be about farm workers.  Would the poll results have been different in that context?

Regardless, the government is listening and Jason Kenney announced changes to the program. Amoung others, Kenney is increasing the price of a work permit for foreign workers and he’s getting rid of the rule that allowed companies to pay foreign workers 15% less than Canadians.   If you voted for the Government in this poll, comment below and let us know if you’re happy with their response.

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The thing that interested me most when preparing for my interview with Sean Casey was his interest in transgendered rights. He is, after all, an MP from Prince Edward Island and that isn’t the kind of issue that leaps to your mind when you think of the land of potatoes and Anne of Green Gables. But when NDP MP Randall Garrison introduced his bill, Casey (who sat on the committee that debated it) was a vocal defender.

Bill C-279: The Gender Identity Bill, sought to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act by improving the protections given to transgendered people.  Casey has been especially critical of the bill’s detractors, particularly those who refer to it as the Bathroom Bill and implied that trans people are pedophiles.  As Casey stated in parliament, “It is an entirely offensive and erroneous implication to suggest that transgendered people would be lurking late at night in bathrooms should this bill pass.  These purveyors of fear and intolerance are often the same people who claim same-sex marriage would lead to the downfall of marriage or that same-sex marriage would lead to rampant polygamy. It was pure nonsense then and it is pure nonsense today.” Continue Reading

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B.C. MP Fin Donnelly elaborates on a strategy for Canada’s metropolitan areas that would get people and goods moving and fight climate change.

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You know the expression ‘there’s no such thing as a stupid question’? Well I disagree. When preparing for my interview with NDP MP Fin Donnelly, I’m pretty sure asking him, “Did your interest in banning shark fining come from your name?” would be really stupid. Or how about, “Did you swim 35 kilometres across the Georgia Straight to raise awareness about shark fining because of your name?” Equally stupid. And if you don’t know what shark fining is – don’t worry, you’re not stupid – we talked about it. Basically finning is when people catch sharks, remove their fins including the tale, and throw the often live, finless body back into the ocean to slowly die. The fins are made into a tasteless soup eaten predominately by Chinese people. Learning this made me want to ask Fin (as a rule I avoid calling politicians by their first name, but thought I’d break it here for effect) a few question that I thought were pretty smart.

I live in Toronto, just blocks from Chinatown. A few weeks ago, I noticed a group of young white activists posting signs around the neighborhood telling people to stop eating shark fin soup.  Fin’s riding of New Westminster-Coquitlam and Port Moody near Vancouver contains a larger number of Chinese-Canadians. So I wanted to know if he was concerned about being a white guy opposed to this Chinese delicacy. But according to Fin, “Chinese-Canadians are leading the way” when it comes to banning shark fining. When he surveyed his constituents – asking the question in both Mandarin and Cantonese - over 75 percent supported banning fins from being imported into Canada. Fin also noted, “The government of China has taken shark fin soup off of their public banquet menu. So even the government of China recognizes this is something they do not want to contribute to.”

With all this support, Fin was hopeful that his private members bill C-380 would pass in its second reading this March. The bill aimed to ban the import of shark fin to Canada and would also enshrine in legislation Canada’s ban on shark fining. But it was defeated. It seems that it is the Canadian government and not Chinese Canadians who are keeping the shark fin business alive in this country. Guess my question about whether he was concerned about upsetting Chinese Canadians was pretty stupid too. For more of my interview with Fin Donnelly watch the live stream on Thursday, May 2^nd 2PM ET.

The results of last week’s poll are in. We asked you, “How do you feel about the newest Trudeau ad from the Conservative Party?”

After 1040 votes, these are the results. It’s surprising that more people didn’t pick ‘Meh’ considering the stereotype of Canadian apathetic toward politics. Almost all the votes piled up on either side and in the end 62% said you thought the ads were awful and hurt our democracy. Tough words.

It will be interesting to see if this sentiment lasts beyond the life of this particular instance. Maybe the 2015 election will introduce Canada’s first ever Compliment Ad. Continue Reading

Last week we put up a new poll question, a question that hasn’t been askable for several years. Now that all of Canada’s major parties of permanent leaders, we asked ‘Who would you choose to be Prime Minister?”

While Liberal leader Justin Trudeau ultimately won the poll, voting fluctuated quite a bit over the week. When the poll started, Trudeau was ahead but after a two days, Harper, Mulcair, and Trudeau were all tied. Then Harper was leading by ten points and and May went up to 6%. In the 24 hours before the vote closed, these numbers solidified.

These fluctuations are a good lesson. National support for these leaders is abundant and enthusiastic yet fluid. If an election were held today, it wouldn’t be sure win for any of them. Whenever the next election is held, it’s going to be one heck of a battle.

Last week, we asked you how you felt about Justin Trudeau becoming the Liberal leader (we changed the verb tense when he did). After a week of voting the results are in.

Only 10% of voters choose the iffy options, the ones that implied approval (popularity is good for the party) or disapproval (riding coattails) without coming down hard either way.

The rest of  you were pretty confident about how they felt. 47% still won’t vote for the party but 40% think he’s just what Canada needs. That 40% is certainly enough to win the government if the support holds.

How does the All Star vote work? Watch Kevin O’Keefe explain:

Our annual All Star Voting Block kicks off April 2 and runs until April 9.  We have invited back three of the most popular MPs of the season to engage in one final race to decide who your top MP of the year is.  In deciding the All Star Round we wanted representatives from each of the three main federal parties.  After calculating the number of votes each garnered with the number of questions each received, your three All Stars of the season are: Continue Reading