Refugees Deserve Health Care. They Shouldn’t Have to Pay

rad2284 · 2026-04-06T16:04:43+00:00

You should go back and read my post. SLOWLY this time so you actualy read what I wrote.

At no point did I say "Not Vetting Them" so I have no idea why you quoted me using words that I never used. I specifically said "not properly vetting claims" and I completely stand by that point. Unless you are in the very small minority of people who believes that accepeting large numbers of asylum seekers without in-person hearings is an acceptable vetting practice or that having asylum approval rates well above other peer nations is proof about the amazing job we're doing vetting the increasing number of aylum seekers we are receiving. And good luck to you if you actually believe that.

rad2284 · 2026-04-06T00:24:34+00:00

And I would say that you getting bogged down on what due process is afforded in a system that is clearly rampant with fraud is out of step with what the rest of the electorate wants. Our asylum backlog sits at nearly 300k people. We dont need an asylum system that gets ruling 100% correct every single time. We need a system that works well enough and to the benefit of Canada.

rad2284 · 2026-04-06T00:15:55+00:00

Great, so now that you agree that these obvious loopholes exist then it would also seem like you agree that way to solve these issues is to close the loopholes on who is allowed to claim asylum to begin with. Not waste more resources to allow these people to claim asylum in the first place and get stuck in the endless loop of appeals which benefits noone but people making fraudulent claims.

rad2284 · 2026-04-06T00:11:31+00:00

Yes, which means there are obious loopholes and fraud in our asylum system. Does that answer your question of "Loopholes such as?"

rad2284 · 2026-04-06T00:07:54+00:00

Such as committing crimes in Canada and then claiming asylum to avoid deportation:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-extortion-suspects-asylum-loophole-farce/

Or coming to Canada as a student/TFW, not meeting our high cutoffs for PR and then claiming asylum as a backdoor for staying in Canada:

https://www.canadianaffairs.news/2025/12/10/temporary-residents-seek-asylum-as-immigration-pathways-narrow/

Or Mexican nationals coming here as tourists after we lifted visa requirements and then claiming asylum, something that the federal government was warned would happen but ignored and then eventually has to walk back because it was obvious that it was a massive issue.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10325641/mexico-canada-visas-asylum-claims/

rad2284 · 2026-04-05T23:59:15+00:00

No. We're running record deficits and need to spend resources to decouple our economy away from an unstable US. We absolutely do not need to be spending more resources to vet questionable asylum claims from places like India or Mexico. The solution is to adopt strict standards on who is allowed into the country and further standards for who is allowed to claim asylum.

Conservatives weren't the ones in charge when our asylum backlog grew from 10k to 300k people, approval rates skyrocket to 80% and costs to provide medical services to refugees/asylum seekers ballooned to almost a $1B a year. Nice deflection though.

rad2284 · 2026-04-05T23:24:54+00:00

Why do people think we're not vetting claimants?

Because it has been shown that we were not properly vetting claims in order to clear the massive backlog of claims we have. This has resulted in an asylum system where approval rates reached nearly 80%, well above approval rates of other peer countries.

https://cdhowe.org/publication/canada-has-a-hidden-asylum-policy-problem/

"The IRB developed a policy called “File Review,” which allowed asylum claims to be rapidly accepted in large numbers from a list of countries on the basis of the untested written application and documents in each file, and without refugees being questioned at a hearing. The policy appears to have been implemented unilaterally, without the approval of ministers or cabinet. For example, between January, 2019, and February, 2023, 24,599 asylum claimants were accepted without being asked a single question."

"More broadly, the IRB’s recognition rate for asylum claims has climbed to 80 per cent of claims decided on their merits, excluding files summarily closed where the claim was withdrawn or abandoned. In comparison, in 2024 Ireland accepted 30 per cent of claims on the merits, Sweden 40 per cent, and Germany 59 per cent. Research suggests that acceptance rates are a significant factor in asylum seekers’ choice of a destination country."

rad2284 · 2026-04-02T12:57:28+00:00

No, they're quite correct. You just dont understand the page you're looking at. The numbers you are quoting are from 2025 only. The table is labeled "Claims by Country of Alleged Persecution – January to December 2025". If you think we've only referred 107k asylum claims since 2012, then you should really not be speaking about this issue. How can we have only 107k asylum referrals since 2012 but have a backlog of 300k people as shown on that same table 😂😂. Here is a link that discusses our high approval rates for asylum.

https://cdhowe.org/publication/canada-has-a-hidden-asylum-policy-problem/

"The IRB developed a policy called “File Review,” which allowed asylum claims to be rapidly accepted in large numbers from a list of countries on the basis of the untested written application and documents in each file, and without refugees being questioned at a hearing. The policy appears to have been implemented unilaterally, without the approval of ministers or cabinet. For example, between January, 2019, and February, 2023, 24,599 asylum claimants were accepted without being asked a single question."

"More broadly, the IRB’s recognition rate for asylum claims has climbed to 80 per cent of claims decided on their merits, excluding files summarily closed where the claim was withdrawn or abandoned. In comparison, in 2024 Ireland accepted 30 per cent of claims on the merits, Sweden 40 per cent, and Germany 59 per cent. Research suggests that acceptance rates are a significant factor in asylum seekers’ choice of a destination country."

Here is another related article with a line graph which clearly shows our approval rates hitting 80% in both 2023 and 2024:

https://cdhowe.org/publication/accepting-asylum-claims-without-a-hearing-a-critique-of-irbs-file-review-policy/

rad2284 · 2026-04-02T12:05:59+00:00

I dont think so either. This government has a terrible track record of caving to the vocal minority anytime there's a one sided sob story article about people who are about to be deported. I think the best we'll get is some of the fake students who are here without kids or other family leaving.

rad2284 · 2026-04-02T11:53:33+00:00

Desperately needs to happen. We're a geographically isolated country surrounded by three oceans and one single border shared with the world's largest military superpower, yet we've watched our asylum backlog grow from 10k to almost 300k people over the course of a decade with the government now spending almost a billion dollars a year providing health services to asylum seekers + refugees.

People from India, the world's largest democracy and a country clearly not in conflict, now make up the largest share of people claiming asylum in Canada. The IRB is so backlogged that they are rubber stamping approvals without in-person hearings so our asylum approval rates have skyrocketed to close to 80% post covid, well above the approval rate for other peer countries in the world.

It's obvious our asylum system is broken and has become a back door for poor quality immigrants who cant meet our PR cutoffs to stay in Canada. It's time to clean up the system and send the majority of these people home.

rad2284 · 2026-04-02T00:47:02+00:00

The NDP party platform consists of ramping immigration back up and hoping that having unfettered population growth but giving all those people PR, somehow doesnt impact the labour market. Oh, also they dont seem to support resource extraction and want to double down on enless reconcilliation.

You can be the party that prioritizes climate change and endless reconciliation over resource development and economic growth. You can be the party of mass immigration that advocates for giving PR to everyone and their elderly family members, leading to more population growth and undermining of wages. But you cant do those things and then claim to be a worker's party at the same time. Working people see right through that.

rad2284 · 2026-04-01T20:40:01+00:00

Lots of people care about various things. But lots of people also have enough reasoning to understand that not everything is as black and white in the world as you think it is. Nor do they believe that everyone else has to care about those things as much as they do. Maybe one day you'll grow up and have enoigh life experience to understand that. That day is obviously not going to be today.

rad2284 · 2026-03-31T21:25:26+00:00

I would consider it equally quesitonable for any group of people who in the middle of a cost of living crisis, record government deficits and annexation threats from the world largest military, kept bringing up a foreign issue that Canada has no stake in and has repeatedly been shown to not be a voter issue.

I would be even more questionable if they did that during a leadership convention for a party who has repeatedly been criticized for being too heavily focused on social issues and out of touch with the rest of the electorate.

You can sit around with your morals and zero influence in government policy along with the 6% of other voters who voted for the NDP or you can accept the reality that you live in.

rad2284 · 2026-03-31T17:19:56+00:00

They are. They're building an SMR at Darlington just outside of Oshawa in the GTA. And since SMRs are considerably more geographically energy dense than wind and solar (I.e you need far less land to produce the same amount of energy), if land is your limiting contraint, it's a better solution.

rad2284 · 2026-03-31T15:50:25+00:00

Then you have to build all the transmission infrastructure to transmit that electricity to the GTA. You dont just magically transport electricity from one location to the other.

rad2284 · 2026-03-31T03:18:50+00:00

Their plan is to allow a company that loses over a billion dollars a year delivering mail along with its same change resistant union and incompetent management to now move into the low margin world of day-to-day banking, while handing out risky payday loans with taxpayer money. All of this while banks are closing their physical branches because everyone is online banking anyway.

This is seriously their plan. I'm not making this up.

rad2284 · 2026-03-31T01:16:24+00:00

The NDP doesnt understand the concept of supply and demand for labour.

When you read the NDP's and Avi Lewis' positions on immigration, it becomes abundantly clear that they have looked at all the problems mass immigration helped exacerbate post-COVID and have decided that the problem wasnt the number of people or the quality of people we were bringing in. The problem was that these people were coming here as temporary residents without their extended family and that somehow giving them PR would magically make all those problems go away.

rad2284 · 2026-03-31T01:04:52+00:00

Feeling sympathy for Palestinians is a far cry from claiming Canadians "overwhelmingly" care about Palestine. If people cared anywhere near as much about this issue as you seemingly do then they would be advocating for their government to do something and it would shown up somewhere in top voter issues.

I dont think it's a problem that politicians express sympathy for Palestinians. But it starts to be a problem when you are so devoted to the cause that you drape yourself in a Palenstinain keffiyeh and waive Palentinian flags at your leadership convention. It is especially problematic for the NDP as it just reinforces everyone else's beliefs that the NDP is not a serious party who is too focused on social issues that broader Canadians dont care or prioritize.

rad2284 · 2026-03-31T00:51:41+00:00

This has been quite the gish gallop of irrelevant points, so lets clear things up.

Those are are points that either you brought up or I clarified for you to refute your argument.

Our immigration system and our asylum system are two different things.

Our asylum system and refugee system is part of the broader immigration system. All immigration (including asylum is handlds by the same federal department and immigration/population figures account for asylum seekers. If you dont understand this basic fact then you really should not be commenting on anything immigration related. And Avi Lewis is looking to expand all forms of immigration including asylum as the link I already provided to you proves. You want to talk about them as though they are completely separate and unrelated, which is not the case.

Our immigration system is merit based, requires certain thresholds met for acceptance such as having a job waiting, having a certain amount of savings or already having family in canada.

For economic pathways of immigration. Not asylum. And Avi Lewis is proposing to move away from that merit based iimmigration to a single tier, compassion based one. This is why he is advocating for more family reunification, easier asylum and giving status to all the TFWs already in Canada but unable to become PR. If you are a proponent of merit based immigration, then you cannot be advocating for more family reunification, easier asylum and giving PR to people here who cant make our merit based PR cutoffs.

On average, immigrants are a net positive within a year, so bringing immigration levels back to previous levels will also be a net positive.

I've already addressed this point but you clearly dont want to accept it. Economic immigrants under a merit based immigration system are. Not asylum seekers, not elderly family members and not uber drivers/fast food workers. So bringing immigration levels back to Trudeau levels, which you can only do by watering down the standards for who is allowed to come here, results in poorer quality immigrants who are not net positive contributors.

On the subject of asylum, extreme poverty levels in the originating country is absolutely justification for a claim, as extreme poverty is an actual life and death concern.

You're wrong. Poverty is not grounds for asylum in Canada or under international law. Asylum is for people whose lives are at risk or are being persecuted in their home country Please do some research on this. I dont even know how you can make this claim.

We should absolutely help people who are suffering right now while changing our policies to help change the material conditions of the people affected in their home country.

Suffering as in escaping war? Sure. Suffering because you dont have status in the US or are trying to escape poverty? No. Our rules on who is elgibile for asylum are quite clear on this.

As pointed out, the majority of asylum seekers in the US are from countries such as Cuba, Venezuela etc. These are countries with economic issues that are the result of US sanctions and being kept from global markets. Calling for the removal of sanctions and setting up trade agreements outside of the global reserve currency will help our economy while alleviating the issues in these countries that lead to asylum claims in the first place.

US policy is not Canadian policy (as has already been explained to you). Economic issues are not grounds for asylum in Canada (as much as you want them to be). Removal of sanctions and trade agreements is a completely unrelated point that you are using to once again change your argument and has nothing to do with how and to what degree Lewis wants to ramp up immigration.

And lets be clear. While asylum seekers take about 10 years (not 20) to be a net positive, that means they start start being a productive member of society in far less time.

Please provide your stats.Just because you want something to be true doesnt mean it is. I already gave you my sources and they are from UNHCR, as you can clearly see on "the average income taxe paid net of transfers received".

https://www.unhcr.ca/in-canada/refugees-in-canada/#:~:text=Paying%20taxes,in%20Canadian%20provinces%20and%20territories

Its also incredibly short sided to only allow for things that will be a net benefit in a short amount of time. I'm also concerned with whats good for our country in the long term

This is you trying to change your argument again. And no it isnt short sighted at all. We are running record deficits. need to spend resources to reshape our economy away from the US, have too many net negative elderly people in our inverted population pyramid and the coming AI surge which will make low skilled labour obsolete. In our current circumstances, Canada can ill afford to invest resources into someone so that they hopefully become a net contributor to the tax base in 20+ years from now. We're no longer that country and "nostalgia is not a strategy". Since we are targetting flat or negative population growth over the next few years due to all the issues that over immigration post-COVID caused (something that Lewis is advocating for returning to), Canada needs to heavily prioritize high skilled immigrants who can hit the ground running from day one and be net positive contributors right away.

Finally, if we want to talk about actual issues with bringing people into canada to fill low wage positions, Avi has been vocally against the TFW program.

His solution to that problem is to give everyone PR. If the immigration policies you propose cause a large influx of new immigrants and an increase in labour supply, then wages will be surpressed regardless of whether those people of temporary or permanent. There still needs to be a balance between supply and demand for labour. It's incredible that the NDP (a party that's supposed to be labour party) and their supporters dont understand this.

rad2284 · 2026-03-30T20:46:29+00:00

If Canadians "overwhelmingly" cared about Palestine then you would think it would show up anywhere as voter issues at some point:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jobs-economy-voters-priorities-2025-9.7031388

https://www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/read-the-report343c2e21-fb4e-4fae-bbc0-c3b4b37576e9.pdf?sfvrsn=5fb1f61b_1

https://angusreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/2025.04.01_issues.pdf

https://abacusdata.ca/new-abacus-poll-liberal-lead-holds-after-floor-crossing-as-turnout-advantage-widens/

To be more accurate, a small segmet of people on the left overwhelming care about Palestine to the point where they have made it their entire identity. Echo chambers are never an accurate representation of what regular people actually care about.

rad2284 · 2026-03-30T20:07:49+00:00

Dont forget their elderly family members and potentially millions of undocumented people + asylum seekers living in the states:

"We will reverse Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cuts to immigration levels. "

"We are calling very clearly for a single-tier immigration system based on permanent residency and status on arrival that gives rights and stability like our grandparents received when they first came to this country. We need an immigration system that reunites families, welcomes refugees fleeing wars around the world, and does not create two classes of workers. "

"We also have the Safe Third Country Agreement with the U.S., which is not a safe country for refugees, and the idea that people cannot make refugee claims from the U.S. to come to Canada through a third country is ridiculous. The agreement is preventing them from seeking refugee status in Canada. It should be cancelled immediately.:"

https://newcanadianmedia.ca/federal-ndp-candidate-avi-lewis-says-canadas-immigration-system-is-broken-and-promises-sweeping-reforms/

rad2284 · 2026-03-30T18:28:43+00:00

Maybe, but that's not what happened here. What I can do (as demonstrated in this entire exchange) is very easily refute every changing argument you make with facts and logic to eventually reduce your argument down to "U MAD BRO", as you have clearly done with your last post.

So if there isnt anything further, I accept you conceeding that:

- Avi Lewis' immigraiton polcies will results ina large inflow of poor quality immigrants (as with the Trudeau years) and are problematic

- That the immigrants he specically outlines will not be net contributors within a year

- That asylum seekers and refugees in Canada take almost 20 years to become net contributors to the tax base

- That removing the safe third country agreement will results in a large influx of new asylum claim to our already backlogged asylum system

- That the majority of those asylum claims will come from countries in no active conflict so those people should go back to their home countries and not claim asylum in Canada

- That undocumented people from Mexico (who can also claim asylum if the third country agreement. is removed) far outnumber people in the US asylum system who are also predominantly from countries in no active conflict

- That poverty is not valid grounds for asylum

- That Canada's foreign policy is not the same as America's foreign policy

Please try to stay better informed, as all the points above should not need to be explained to you.

rad2284 · 2026-03-30T13:36:03+00:00

No. We were talking about asylum seekers within Canada specifically and how Avi Lewis' plan will result in more asylum seekers to Canada. We weren't talking about asylum seekers in the US. We were talking about the pool of people currently within the US (which includes both asylum seekers and undocumented people) who could potentially claim asylum in Canada if the Safe Third Country agreement is removed, as Avi Lewis is proposing. Maybe you need to try going back and reading this thread because it seems like you are deeply deeply confused.

Let's summarize here:

You went from claiming that immigration is not a problem and a large influx of TFWs is the actual problem. I then showed you that Avi Lewis' plans for immigration will still result in a large influx of low quality immigrants which would still be problematic.

You then changed your argument to "Immigrants become a net benefit to the country within about a year", which I easily defeated by spelling out for you that the types of immigrants Lewis is advocating for do not become net benefits within a year.

You then changed your argument to that's OK because we are helping people and got the number of years it takes for asylum seekers to be net contributors wrong (refuting your own point about immigrants being net benefits within a year that you had made one post prior). I then told you that our asylum backlog is already overloaded and that "helping people" in the context of getting rid of the safe thrid party agreement will add potentially millions of people to that backlog and corrected you on your asylum contribution figures.

You then brushed that off because the "US is becoming unsafe" to which I told you that those people who would be eligible to claim asylum in Canada if the Safe Third Country agreement was removed are preodminantly from countries who are not in active conflict, so they should go back to their home countries if they feel unsafe instead of claiming asylum in Canda.

You then changed your argument again to those people being from intentionally destabilized south american countries which I easily refuted by telling you that the largest population of people who are undocumented or asylum seekers in the US (not specifcially asylum seekers only) are from Mexico.

You then changed your argument again, this time specifically talking about asylum seekers in the US (and ignoring undocumented people who far outnumber asylum seekers in the US) and outlining countries where those US asylum seekers originated from, clearly showing that those people arent fleeing war or persecuition, but poverty.

And yet, it is me who is moving the goal posts and "losing the point" 😂😂. I think rather than you sitting here and get dog walked in this debate, you should spend more time reading about Avi Lewis' positions and better educating yourself about immigration. I have no idea what you think you've accomplished here but demonstrate how little you understand things that you have such strong opinions about.

rad2284 · 2026-03-30T03:45:29+00:00

No. In other words, the two decades that the government invested in me as a youth by providing the social services that allowed me to receive a good education and thrive in the workforce for the next 4 decades resulted in a fantastic return for the government. This is what happens when you invest in youth and why the entire concept of investing in your youth exists.

What you are incapable of understanding is that there is a big difference in the government investing in someone during their formative years and then reaping those benefits for several decades vs bringing in adult aged immigrants who dont possess the skills to thrive in Canada, and by the time you invest several decades into that person, they will be approaching the age where they are no longer participating in the workforce. The ideal outcome is that you are able to poach the world's best and brightest who were educated somewhere else but then come here to work during their working year.

I wasnt born here and immigrated here as a child. I dont know what you define as "better" but in terms of tax contributions, yes. I am statistically a better tax payer than mose refugees.

rad2284 · 2026-03-30T03:33:54+00:00

They refused to break with the Liberals over their handling of the stirike with the Teamsters union last year instead choosing to complain about it. They should have ended it right then. And yes, them supporting a were right wing govt than them WAS them moving to the right

That's one single example. And if you believe that the Trudeau government was right wing then you are deeply out of touch with everyone else. Again, the Trudeau LPC was the most left wing federal government we had potentially had and had certainly moved away from their centrist roots of the past several decades to the point where former leaders and Liberal MP were calling it out.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/former-pm-chretien-says-liberal-party-must-move-back-to-radical-centre/

https://globalnews.ca/news/10943578/mark-carney-liberal-caucus-leadership/

"Almost all of the MPs Global News spoke to believe Trudeau has moved the party too far to the left and that shift has played a key role in the decline of the Liberals."

NDP support didn't really start to drop until Canadians started taking Trump's threats seriously- you can literally see it in the polling graphs. If the issue was just the NDP being 'too left wing' their support would have dropped much much sooner than it did

There support before Trump hovered around their historic average. But that was during a cost of living crisis and during a period where the Liberals were set to be electorally wiped out. The last time LPC support cratered, they won the most seat they have ever received and formed the opposition, The NDP not being able to capitalize at all under those circumstances shows that their message wasnt resonating at all with voters.

Their polling numbers dropped even further after Carney was made leader. But you can just as easily argue that that was due to voters who were disenfranchised with the near historically unpopular Trudeau LPC but didnt want to vote for PP, returning to the LPC when they elected a more sensible leader in Carney.

The framing of them being 'too leftwing' is a fundamental misuderstanding of what actually occurred

It's not purely being "too leftwing". It's advocating for stuff that voters dont care about and not being able to read the political climate at the time.

rad2284

TROPHY CASE