A feature interview with the Conservative Party's immigration critic, Michelle Rempel Garner
Ezra Levant catches up with the Conservative Party’s immigration critic to discuss Canada’s broken temporary worker and foreign student programs, the surge in asylum claims and the urgent need for reforms that prioritize Canadian jobs, housing and public safety.
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Tonight, on The Ezra Levant Show, a new Abacus Research poll landed with a thud for the political class: Conservatives and Liberals are deadlocked overall, their leaders viewed almost identically. But buried in the numbers is a canyon-sized gap on one issue that actually decides elections ... immigration. On that file, Pierre Poilievre commands nearly 60 per cent support, while Mark Carney limps along at under 20. The message is obvious: when Conservatives talk immigration, they win.
That reality framed a revealing conversation with Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner, who has become one of the sharpest voices calling out how broken Canada’s system has become. Canadians, she argues, haven’t turned against immigration itself. They’ve turned against chaos. Immigration works when numbers align with housing, healthcare, and jobs. What we have now is the opposite.
Take the temporary foreign worker program and its cousin, the international student stream. Both were expanded to absurd levels under the Liberals, flooding entry-level job markets while youth unemployment climbs. This isn’t compassionate policy; it’s wage suppression dressed up as virtue. Rempel Garner makes a point that should be uncontroversial: a government-managed glut of labour is not conservative economics: it’s state interference that benefits large employers and landlords while hollowing out opportunity for young Canadians.
🇨🇦 The world’s highest immigration rates. https://t.co/3k5j71xqe0
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) November 22, 2025
Worse, it exploits the very people it claims to help. Hundreds of thousands of foreign students were lured here by diploma mills, draining family savings, only to end up crammed into unsafe housing or working endless hours just to survive. College presidents cashed the cheques; communities paid the price.
Then there’s the looming disaster few in Ottawa want to discuss. Canada now has roughly three million temporary residents. Their visas expire. The government has no plan. As a result, bogus asylum claims are surging, not because of persecution, but because the system rewards delay with benefits Canadians themselves struggle to access. That’s not humanitarianism ... it’s dysfunction.
Rempel Garner has pushed for what should be baseline reforms: lower overall numbers, faster deportation of non-citizens convicted of serious crimes, an asylum system that isn’t a back door, and enforcement of laws already on the books. None of this targets immigrants who play by the rules. In fact, those newcomers overwhelmingly support it.
COMMENTS
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Daniel Taylor commented 2025-12-18 01:06:02 -0500After 11 years of Liberal Party rule, Canada is no longer a desirable immigration destination due to high cost of living, not enough housing, few jobs and even fewer high paying jobs, due to an economy that is not growing. -
Bernhard Jatzeck commented 2025-12-17 21:43:25 -0500I’ve been suspicious of her ever since I heard of her association with the WEF. She was one of the “future world leaders” that Schwab bragged about.
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Bruce Atchison commented 2025-12-17 21:17:26 -0500Michelle nailed it over and over. People are generally fed up with so many entry-level jobs going to foreigners. It’s something any person can notice. What people don’t notice is how wicked Carney and crew are. This is especially so with boomers who don’t access alternative media.
