LILLEY: When Poilievre quoted the government, Robertson cried foul
· Toronto Sun
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When all else fails, Liberals love to claim the Conservatives hate immigrants. They did that again this week, with a senior Carney minister reprimanding Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for accurately quoting the Carney government.
It was during Question Period in the House of Commons on Tuesday when Poilievre rose to ask the government why housing numbers are down and whether they had a solution.
“The Liberals have now admitted that the Prime Minister has broken his promise to double homebuilding and that construction will actually fall to near-record lows over the next three years, blaming immigration, as the Liberals do, for the housing shortage,” Poilievre said.
“How could the prime minister be so out of touch with Canadians who need homes?”
With that, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson saw his opening. Poilievre had mentioned immigration and the housing crunch in the same breath, and Robertson seized on the chance to accuse him of blaming immigrants for the housing shortage.
“First and foremost, I would reprimand the member opposite for constantly attacking immigrants,” Robertson told the House.
The idea that Poilievre is “constantly attacking immigrants” is a ridiculous claim, but it’s one that Liberals get to make freely, with no evidence and without ever being called out for it.
“Mr. Speaker, I think almost every member of the House comes from immigrant stock. Canada is a country of immigrants, and to blame immigrants for a housing crisis is absolutely unfair and unjust,” Robertson added.
Quoting their own report
The problem is that Poilievre was citing a government document when he asked the first question. For his second question, Robertson opened the door for Poilievre to quote the document directly.
“He wants to reprimand anybody who blames excessive immigration numbers for the housing shortage. Well, let me read directly from a document he tabled in the House of Commons. It is a document on the housing shortage. It says, “One of the drivers of the housing shortage has been the strong growth in housing demand driven by immigration,” Poilievre said.
“Will the minister stand up now and reprimand himself?”
At this point, Robertson appeared cornered and reached for the ridiculous.
“There is a difference between immigrants and immigration,” Robertson said.
“There is a big difference. The member opposite demonizes immigrants, which is specifically what he said. The member opposite said, ‘immigrants.’”
No, actually, Poilievre said immigration and cited, and then quoted, a government document.
A story that doesn’t add up
In the House of Commons, you can’t say that another MP has lied. It would be impolite for me to make that claim, but there’s a way around it: he lied to the House.
The Liberals can’t get their stories straight when it comes to immigration.
They now claim the immigration system they let spiral out of control is back under control. It isn’t.
They admitted over the last two years that the high levels of immigration in 2023 and 2024 contributed to the housing crisis. Now they say that’s an anti-immigrant sentiment. It’s not.
Over the past several years, the Bank of Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and Finance Canada have all said that high immigration levels contributed to the housing crunch. So, too, did Marc Miller when he was immigration minister, Chrystia Freeland when she was finance minister, and Justin Trudeau when he was prime minister.
Even Carney, when he was elected, spoke of returning immigration to sustainable levels.
The debate Canadians need
We should be able to discuss serious public policy issues, like housing and immigration, without claims that those raising the questions are anti-immigrant or racist.
Canadians can handle an honest debate about immigration and housing. What they don’t need is ministers pretending the government’s own words were never written. After Tuesday’s performance, Gregor Robertson might want to take Mark Carney’s advice and “look inside” himself.