OTTAWA — The Trudeau government’s recent reversals on immigration policy highlight how the system is broken, says outspoken psychologist Jordan Peterson, during an interview on Fox News.
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Speaking with host Brian Kilmeade over the weekend, Peterson took exception with Prime MInister Justin Trudeau blaming the problem on schools and corporations, arguing they took advantage of international students and temporary foreign workers — attributing the problem instead to the PM’s “fourteen-year-old mentality” and his cabinet.
“Everything that’s gone wrong on the immigration front in Canada is 100% attributable to Justin Trudeau and his pack of demented minions,” Peterson said.
“It’s gone so badly in Canada that he has no choice but to reverse course, and then to see him flailing around to find someone to blame is exactly as pathetic as you’d expect from someone like him.”
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During the scathing interview, Peterson said the PM’s change in tone is little more than an attempt to deal with his government’s failed immigration policy, which he said “demolished the Canadian immigration system and threw the borders wide open, upending decades of effective immigration policy in Canada.”
As Canada’s cost-of-living crisis continues to make life unaffordable for most Canadians, the Trudeau government’s immigration policies have garnered increasing criticism, prompting Ottawa to impose a massive reduction in immigration targets earlier this fall.
Those plans would cut Canada’s 2025 target of 500,000 new permanent residents to 395,000, decreasing to just 380,000 by 2026 — with hopes for a 0.2% decline in Canada’s population over the next two years.
At the time, Trudeau put the blame entirely on corporations and provincial governments, accusing companies of hiring foreign workers ahead of qualified Canadians post-pandemic, and provinces of allowing post-secondary institutions to overload communities with international students.
Concern over illegal immigrants and drugs flooding into the U.S. across the Canadian border recently prompted President-elect Donald Trump to threaten a 25% import tariff on Canadian goods if the problem didn’t get fixed. Trudeau and a small entourage quietly visited Trump and his transition team at the U.S. leader’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week to discuss the issue.
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