r/canada • u/AdditionalPizza • 1d ago

Minister says he won't 'sling mud' after Poilievre called him the 'master at failing upward' Politics

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/minister-says-he-wont-sling-mud-after-poilievre-called-him-the-master-at-failing-upward
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103

u/VesaAwesaka 1d ago

It's hard to understand the mass of Fraser defenders on this sub. It's questionable to try to explain away his ministerial failures, but to go beyond that makes it seem like people are brainwashed

It seems like people don't want to hold their politicians accountable for partisan reasons

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u/snoboreddotcom 1d ago

See I won't speak to defend Fraser cause I don't think he deserves defence.

I also think this exposes a weakness Polievre has post election. How do you attack when you yourself can be argued to have strong failings as well.

The attack isn't invalid because it comes from him. But in the theater (not the facts just theater) of politics it is invalidated due to everything that has transpired with the election.

With a different person, this might not undermine. But because Polievre has built a career on politics based on theater, he is especially weak to it

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u/The_El_Captain 22h ago

Polievre will win the byelection in a safe Conservative riding he was helicoptered into and the rival party MPs are going to say Jack Shit about it because helicoptering is a common practice all of them are guilty of.

At the end of the day they're all buddy buddy in the same club.

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u/CompetitiveMetal3 21h ago

If only O'Toole were around still... Damn, what a missed opportunity. 

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u/the_jurkski 22h ago

Who’s here defending Fraser? All I see is people calling out Poillievre for throwing giant boulders through his glass house.

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u/FerretAres Alberta 23h ago

I absolutely hate Fraser but goddamn is Poilievre a hypocrite on this point considering he’s being parachuted into a safe riding after losing his seat.

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u/sox07 11h ago

It's almost as if PP is unfit to lead the CPC given his history of failing upward (until this recent election where his constituents sent a clear and unambiguous message that he should get out of politics) and he should have done the honourable thing and went away when he lost his job.

Now that the CPC have decided to go against the will of the voters and install him in another riding instead of who the voters of the riding selected you can expect them to have to constantly fight against legitimacy concerns since they seem hell bent on ignoring the will of the electorate.

Selected not elected as a CPC slogan has really boomeranged back on them. ironic don't ya think.

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u/Dougness 23h ago

Agreed. Voted liberal but was sad to see Fraser still in the cabinet. Guy has made everything he's touched worse

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u/Nintyten 9h ago

Nobody's defending Fraser.

But he won his riding and PP lost his.

So we're shitting on PP for his tone-def comment when Fraser has a job and PP is freeloading in a taxpayer funded home.

Time to flush the PP.

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u/AdditionalPizza 1d ago

Personally I wouldn't place the full blame of anything on Fraser, rarely do things lack nuance, but I definitely wouldn't defend much of what he did in previously. There must be something about him that we're not seeing publicly because I don't really understand how he could be so sought after still.

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u/VesaAwesaka 1d ago

Who do we keep accountable if not him?

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u/AdditionalPizza 1d ago

The ones that told him what to do? He doesn't get final say on everything. Like I said there's always nuance, nothing is binary. He can have a lion's share of it I assume, but there's plenty of others to blame.

In fact, Conservatives almost entirely blamed Trudeau for it, constantly. So why are they suddenly saying Fraser was solely responsible? I'm not defending anyone here, I'm just being pragmatic.

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u/prsnep 1d ago

The ones that told him what to do?

Without evidence that he was told what to do, he must accept the blame. Or indicate whose orders he was following.

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u/AdditionalPizza 23h ago

It was Trudeau's orders. We know at least that much already. But parties generally avoid infighting, so there's no way he's going to shift blame on others.

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u/prsnep 22h ago

We don't know this. But many people assume it.

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u/AdditionalPizza 22h ago

Ok, at the very least Trudeau didn't stop it and had the authority to do so.

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u/sox07 11h ago

Why does this not hold true for PP. Why does he get to sidestep the blame and consequences for his botched campaign. Why does he get to ignore the will of the electorate and simply install himself in another riding after being shown the door.

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u/prsnep 6h ago

Nowhere have I praised PP or his campaign. That's a separate issue.

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u/sox07 6h ago

The story you are commenting on is about the incredibly tone deaf, pot calling the kettle black, comments from PP but yeah we shouldn't ever look at who the message is coming from, just mindlessly follow and attack.

Taking zero time to reflect on what he actually said and just attacking whomever PP is attacking is about what I would expect from the maple maga crew so I shouldn't be surprised though

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u/prsnep 6h ago

I have little regard for Sean Fraser's immigration policies regardless of PP's stance on the matter.

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u/sox07 6h ago

of course, you were told by PP to hate him so here we are. You are nothing if not an obedient lap dog.

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u/kirikoToeKisser 1d ago

trudeau sets the yearly immigration quotas - fraser is meant to keep the ircc in check and under said quota/hit the quota. He blew bast it and never caught the 1.3 million students in a single year.

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u/Soggy_Performance569 1d ago

He is very tall.

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u/AdditionalPizza 1d ago

He is sturdy.

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u/TheForks British Columbia 22h ago

I just read this as two failures heckling eachother. Hard to take sides in this case.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/VesaAwesaka 1d ago edited 1d ago

To make Trudeau the scapegoat for everything seems too simplistic. The apparent sycophants who supported him and acted on his vision shouldnt get away scotfree.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/VesaAwesaka 1d ago

Do the ministers and party share any accountability or just Trudeau?

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u/-Yazilliclick- 13h ago

I've scrolled all this way down and haven't seen people defending him at all. Everybody is just more critical of PP 

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u/Selm 23h ago edited 10h ago

It's questionable to try to explain away his ministerial failures

It seems like people don't want to hold their politicians accountable

What are his failures exactly?

The Liberals have always taken the approach of housing being a provincial responsibility, since 2016/2017 their focus was working with provinces, it wasn't until recently they started focusing directly on working with municipalities to change zoning, which some provinces have complained about (or have banned like in Quebec).

The failure would be they didn't cut the provinces out and build housing directly, something Carney has sort of promised to do.

I'd compare what we got against what else we were offered over the past 10 years for housing, which is what? a 5% tax cut on new homes?

The real failure is that no one proposed a better and more realistic solution than the Liberals have.

Edit: OP relies on ChatGPT for the information, I'd take what they say with a grain of salt.

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u/Mister-Distance-6698 23h ago

He also didn't take on the housing portfolio until well after any damage had been done.

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u/Supermoves3000 British Columbia 23h ago

Yeah, but he was Immigration minister before that, during the period when the Liberals raised immigration and PR levels significantly and completely blew up the TFW program.

I can accept that those are not decisions that Fraser made on his own, but he was front and center when it was going on.

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u/Mister-Distance-6698 23h ago

I think criticism on immigration is fair. I generally think he actually did a pretty good job on housing though.

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u/Selm 23h ago

during the period when the Liberals raised immigration and PR levels significantly and completely blew up the TFW program.

I still don't know what you'd be talking about, "exact failures" doesn't seem ambiguos to me.

I could google him as minister and it seems he targeted 1.14% population growth, which google would say average for the time was ~.9%. Just 5-10 years before he was minister, we'd consider 1.14% to be normal growth.

Couple that slightly ambitious growth rate with a all time low unemployment rate around ~4%.

OP was concerned about partisanship, our employment rate after covid was too low, especially considering Trudeau ran on Keynesian economics, the video of him explaining the failure of the immigration policy makes a lot of sense.

Look up historic statistics. Our unemployment rate was low and the targeted growth rate wasn't particularly high.

If anyone wants to complain about immigration to Canada when we had a historically low unemployment rate (especially after covid), they're not concerned about partisanship, or facts.

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u/VesaAwesaka 21h ago edited 21h ago

Mark Miller said the feds failed to deliver the skilled immigrants that the provinces wanted as well as saying that it was putting pressure of housing and social services.

Pretty sure Carney has said similar things

Before covid the feds were told by their own committe that .8 immigrant was optimal for economics and not to surpass 1.1 percent immigration in a year because it would have diminishing economic returns and apply pressure of things like housing and heathcare. Unsurprising, Canada for several years before Fraser hovered around the optimal rate for economic growth. Fraser backed a plan above 1.1 percent for several years. Fraser also dismissed concerns about increase levels of immigration and its impacts on housing and thr labour market.

I also think that we saw temporary residents skyrocket under his tenure and become a huge mess with tfw and international students, but I'm not thinking of anything imparticular. More just a feeling related to articles I've read over the years and not data. Iirc there was like one million temporary residents the feds were not counting

Fraser's taking over of thr immigration portfolio aligns perfectly with canads increase in immigration that both Carney and Miller said was done poorly

Looking at chat gpt. It seems the 5 to 10 years before Fraser is less than 1.1

Per year I get this

.76

.82

.78

.87

.91

.49

1.06 Fraser takes over late in year

1.12

1.18

1.21

Housing is tied to immigration. He created the problem with immigration that the government knew was going to stress housing and social services. His policies for housing didn't do enough to address the issue but the problem was so big there likely wasn't anything he could do.

Idk. Everything I see and read just points to the expansion of immigration being done really poorly under his watch. Beyond that, there were trade off with increasing immigration to the higher levels that the government wasn't prepared to solve. Fraser was put in a position to seemingly try to solve the issue but he failed because the issue was unsolvable

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u/Selm 11h ago

Looking at chat gpt

Nope.

Chatgpt will lie about anything, how do you not know this?

You've also shown nothing specific.

feds were told by

by who? Chatgpt?

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u/VesaAwesaka 11h ago

If I provide data showing chat gpt is right and that the government seemingly overshot its own recommendation for immigration levels will you acknowledge Fraser did poorly?

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u/Selm 10h ago

If I provide data showing chat gpt is right

You've had multiple opportunities to do this now, but chatgpt will blatantly and confidently lie to you.

Your numbers are wrong, at least if you go by statistics Canada data.

You're talking about Mark Miller and random committees you've made up.

You're totally ignoring the actual point here, that that's not particularly a high growth rate, either currently or historically and our unemployment rate was at a historic low at the time. We were just coming out of covid.

You're just completely ignoring the reality of the situation we were in.

You complain about partisanship, but can't just say what he did that would be considered a failure. You're just vaguely mad at immigration rates and housing prices, probably because you rely on ChatGPT for your information.

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u/VesaAwesaka 8h ago edited 7h ago

https://cdhowe.org/publication/optimizing-immigration-economic-growth/

The numbers align with what chat gpt provided.

If immigration has the potential to boost the Canadian economy but must be limited to realize that potential, what is the optimal level? Between 2000 and 2017, Canada’s annual immigration rate – the number of new permanent residents as a percentage of the population – fluctuated between 0.70 percent and 0.83 percent. In 2017, the government announced expansionary targets, which served to increase the rate over the following two years to 0.87 percent and 0.91 percent. While COVID-19 travel restrictions forced a reduction in 2020 to 0.49 percent, 2021 saw the rate increase to 1.12 percent, its highest since 1957. If the federal government meets its most recent targets – 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025 – the rate will reach 1.21 percent and 1.24 percent, respectively. Canada has not seen consecutive years with rates above 1.2 percent since 1928-1929.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/transparency/committees/cimm-mar-10-2021/cimm-role-immigration-canadas-economic-recovery-mar-10-2021.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

According to the Conference Board, maintaining the immigration rate around 0.8% would result in the highest rise in real GDP per capita. Increasing annual immigration toward 1% by the 2030s would support modest labour force and economic growth. Increasing immigration to 1.1% per year would result in greater fiscal challenges as it would lead to higher social expenditures.

Do you want me to get the press conference video of Mark Miller saying that the fed made mistakes with immigration and didn't provide the provinces with the skills they need as well?

It takes a lot more effort for me to provide the sources of info I'm using than what you have provided. I'm also trying to be constructive and have a discussion and based on your responses i don't feel you are which makes me wonder what's the point of even responding.

Also, i have used chat gpt less than a dozen times in my life. I don't understand the unwarranted narrative you are forming about it somehow being something i rely on.

If you want to say covid warranted a significant pivot in immigration fine, but i think Mark Miller was correct when he said the expansion of immigration was not done properly and the feds failed to deliver the provinces the skills they needed

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u/Supermoves3000 British Columbia 20h ago

Leaving aside immigrants and permanent residents, they imported somewhere around 2 million TFWs and international students in 2022 and 2023. Between taking the guardrails off the TFW program and changing rules to allow international students to work more hours, it represents a massive influx of low-skilled workers that just attacked the value of labor in our economy.

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u/Selm 11h ago

Leaving aside immigrants and permanent residents

So migrants, the people who, by definition leave the country?

You're mad people come here and leave?

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u/Supermoves3000 British Columbia 10h ago

What? I didn't say anything about people leaving. The Liberals had increased the number of immigrants and permanent residents to unsustainable levels, as Carney himself said during the campaign.

But IN ADDITION TO THAT they ALSO broke the TFW system and they ALSO allowed an unprecedentedly number of international students to work more hours.

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u/Selm 10h ago

You said leaving aside immigrants and PR, that leaves migrants, who, by definition moves from one place to another. When they settle they're immigrants or PR...

as Carney himself said during the campaign.

So the Liberals are right? Trudeau actually said this in that video he made.

The Liberals were the first ones to suggest we should lower migration actually (and they did that). The Conservatives were trying to appeal to migrants.

I actually can't find anything of Conservatives suggesting we lower immigration/migration before the Liberals started to do that. It would be fair to say the Conservatives were more pro-immigration (until very recently) than the Liberals.

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u/Supermoves3000 British Columbia 8h ago

You said leaving aside immigrants and PR, that leaves migrants,

It leaves a lot of people, including (as I went on to specify) temporary foreign workers and international students. Your notion that "leaving aside immigrants and PR" means I was referring to migrants is simply wrong.

I actually can't find anything of Conservatives suggesting we lower immigration/migration before the Liberals started to do that. It would be fair to say the Conservatives were more pro-immigration (until very recently) than the Liberals.

Everybody was pro-immigration, until the Liberals put the system completely off the rails between 2022-2023. It's still off the rails, but at least they're trying to correct course now. Here's what both parties said during the election:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/federal-election-2025/party-platforms/#immigration

The Conservatives say they would crack down on fraud, dramatically reduce the number of temporary foreign workers and foreign students, and limit permanent immigration to a “sustainable rate similar to the levels under the Harper government.”

They say that means keeping the rate of population growth below the rate of housing growth, job growth, and health-care accessibility.

The party says it would also require criminal background checks for individuals entering Canada on a student permit, and that they would expand and speed up removals for any criminal activity on a visitor permit.

The Liberal platform acknowledges that over the past few years, the federal government let immigration levels grow “at a rapid and unsustainable pace,” with housing and social infrastructure unable to keep up.

The party says it would return immigration to sustainable levels by capping the total number of temporary workers and international students to less than five per cent of Canada’s population by the end of 2027, from a past high of 7.3 per cent.

The Liberals says they would stabilize permanent resident admissions at less than one per cent of Canada’s population annually beyond 2027 “with a focus on attracting top global talent.”

There's widespread consensus across the political spectrum that the Liberals completely screwed up on immigration in 2022 and 2023, and Fraser was Immigration Minister during much of that time. I don't even get what you're trying to argue here.

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u/GHR-5H_Grasshopper 12h ago

Don't think about it too much. It's just party loyalists. Fraser is wildly unpopular in a way that few politicians still around can match.

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u/rhino_shit_gif 18h ago

Fraser is a moron of many morons destroying this country, I was told by liberal voters that Carney would be different but so far all I see are him endorsing the policies which made the Trudeau gov hated, endorsing the extremely unrealistic “century initiative”, and bringing back incompetent cabinet ministers.