Immigration, DEI & Economic Decline: Roman Baber's Warning for Canada

My guest today is a member of parliament for the Conservative Party of Canada. He was the only member of the party to win a seat in Toronto.

Speaker, an unprecedented wave of hate crimes is terrorizing Canada's Jewish community. Under this Liberal government, hate crimes are up 250% and antisemitic hate crimes are up over 400%. Somehow Canadians don't draw the connection between the people we elect and the harm that we witness every day before our very eyes. To our economy, to our security, to our streets, our social fabric, to our children. I was unwilling to continue to go along with the greatest public policy disaster in our nation's history. Freedom of speech is becoming a casualty of COVID a charter right that forms the basis of democracy, now under attack by professional associations, social media, cancel culture, political correctness, COVID bullies, and this government. Even though I was essentially excommunicated out of the conservative infrastructure, I was welcomed back by Pierre Poilievre. Trudeau left a $44 billion deficit, and Mr. Carney, the investment banker, turned it into an $88 billion deficit. Diversity must imply diversity of opinion, roughly DI— does not leave any room for disagreement. The rates of immigration have surpassed anything remotely reasonable.

Is Canada a fundamentally left-wing country?

All of this is largely fixable. We don't need one extreme or the other.

Okay, so Roman, uh, Thank you so much for joining me. I, you know, the 2025 election, the Conservatives basically got wiped out in Toronto. The Liberals won all the seats except for the riding that you won, which the riding that I happen to live in as well. And not only that, but you flipped the seat from a Liberal to Conservative. Just walk us through that election. Like what happened? Why do you think you won? Why do you think the Conservatives failed broadly in other places like Toronto?

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Um, well, thank you for having me and I'm honored to represent you. Um, I represent the riding of York Centre, which is the west side of North York. Previously represented it in the provincial parliament. I know every building, I know every corner, I know who lives where, I know every business. And I'm very fortunate that the voters of York Centre chose me again to represent them. We knocked the riding twice, so more than 90,000 doors.

My God.

We raised a good amount of money. And it's a testament to my volunteers and to my team of wonderful people who were very passionate about changing Canada.

I can testify my wife remembers getting a knock from you and I think you had a lady with you, whatever. Showing up on doors is obviously important, getting out to vote, all that stuff, but obviously it was a Liberal, so it was a Liberal seat before. So you changed minds or you just had a better ground game or both, right?

I think a little bit of both. Name recognition in the riding certainly helps. A good campaign definitely helps, but also a number of factors. A working population, middle-class population that struggles affording life in the city of Toronto that wanted a change. A large Jewish community who felt that the Liberals do not wish to protect their well-being in Canada. Large Filipino community who is kind and giving and works very, very hard, but Despite many of my Filipino constituents working two jobs, they still can't afford rent. And so I think that— and finally, I guess the fact that I've always tried to put my constituents before politics and I've developed personal rapport with thousands of York Centre voters probably helped.

I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Melissa Lantsman, who's the deputy leader of the Conservative Party. Which is, you know, you guys started off in January 2025— sorry, January— yeah, January 2025 with a pretty significant lead in the polls relative to the Liberals. Like, you guys were coasting for a pretty significant win in that election, the most recent election, but ultimately the Conservative Party came up short. Why do you think the Conservative Party lost, and what do you think they should be doing differently?

There's no question that we all wish for a different national result. Nevertheless, the Conservative Party made monumental gains in this election. Record vote since the mid-'80s with more than 41% of the vote, um, 145 seats including a seat in Toronto. Communities that previously never voted Conservative, be it new Canadians, working-class Canadians, labour, and young people, are now gravitating towards the Conservative message. I think without question the Liberals were able to capitalize. Mark Carney had a significant appeal.

Carney.

For many voters, without question. I frankly think that most of it was disingenuous, and the results speak for themselves. I'm very committed to Pierre, to our party, to our country. We have to stay in this fight, turn this around by forming a Conservative government.

And just for context, uh, I was pretty shocked when I saw this, you know, then we'll understand how Canadian politics work. You have a parliamentary system, so you don't have to win a majority of the vote, even close to, to really win a majority of the seats. I think the last time Conservatives won a majority, 53% of the seats. They had 39% of the popular vote. So you don't have to— it's 41, 42%, that's actually territory for a majority in Parliament. I think what happened here also, in addition to what you mentioned, is that the NDP completely collapsed. The NDP party, which is like the socialist party that typically splits the votes with the Liberals, right? And they— what, they won like 5 seats, 6 seats, whatever? Like something very nominal where they usually win a lot more. That I think played a huge role too, but what do you think about that? Do you think that played also a significant role?

Absolutely, where the NDP is at 7 seats and their vote has completely collapsed. We've gained about a third of the lost, of the NDP's lost vote, and the Liberals gained two-thirds. And so, well, gradually that was enough to make the difference. I am perplexed how some of my socialist colleagues, former colleagues or supporters of the, NDP party thought that electing an investment banker would further the NDP cause. But anything can happen in politics.

Yeah, it's almost shocking with socialists. They have principles until they don't, right? So I'll say that. Yeah, I know you probably don't want to say something like that, but socialists are basically terrible people and they should not be elected.

I wouldn't say that they're terrible people, but I would say that they're misguided.

Misguided, okay, that's nice.

I mean, it's very easy to have a pipe dream where you think that you can solve all the world's problems just by taking from one person and handing it to the other person.

Right.

Regretfully, socialists are doing great until they run out of other people's money.

Right.

And regretfully, the ideological challenge with socialism is that nobody wants to hand over their money voluntarily. And so you have to force it. Nobody wants division of property unless it's forced on you. And so inevitably, socialists need more and more and more. And at some point, it turns from voluntary to involuntary. And that's essentially communism when we say, well, we're now going to force this collectivism where we're going to forcefully take from one and give to the other.

So talking about the NDP, because it's clear that I think that play— we both believe that played a huge role. And it's something I ask myself, you know, people that are more right-leaning, right of center, or even left of center, is like, is Canada just a fundamentally left-wing country? If I'm putting myself in the shoes of a conservative politician, I'm thinking to myself, the only way I can win is if the major left-wing party split the vote. Like, what does that say about the country and the demographics and what the country believes?

I think you make a fair point. I think Canada is probably a center-left country. But it is probably moderate or centrist on economic issues and probably leaning to the left on social issues, which is why I think Mr. Carney had some considerable appeal for Canadians. But what we see now, almost a year later, is that his appeal turned out to be an illusion in that he suggested that he's going to restrain spending bring responsibility to government. Instead, he doubled the deficit. Imagine Trudeau left a $44 billion deficit and Mr. Carney, the investment banker, turned it into an $88 billion deficit.

That's per year, folks, per year.

Per year. Imagine our interest on our debt is $53 billion a year, more than we transfer to the provinces in healthcare, more than we spend on almost twice as more as we spend on defense. Mr. Carney promised to build energy. He said what I often say is that we should become an energy superpower. And now almost a year later, he has a memorandum of understanding with one province and no consensus for a pipeline or any energy project, major energy project that wasn't previously approved. So— Um, I hope that the Canadian electorate gets to appreciate that they voted for, in my view, a charlatan who did not only fail to deliver, but outright was dishonest with us. I watch him very carefully. I observe leaders. I've worked for and served many leaders. So, and as a student of history, student of politics, I take an interest in the prime minister. I think I take exception to folks that say one thing in English and another thing in French. I take exception to a prime minister that says one thing in Alberta and another thing in Quebec. I take issue with the fact that he was always a net-zero zealot and then claims that he wants to turn Canada into an energy superpower. I take exception to the fact that he promised to restrain spending and instead doubled our nation's deficit to an unsustainable amount. I take exception to the fact that he says one thing about immigration, but reality on the ground is completely different. I take exception to the fact that he says that we're on track towards one of the greatest, towards the fastest growing economy in the G7. Instead, we have the highest food inflation in the G7 and we're lagging the OECD in terms of GDP growth, in terms of any growth. And I'm frankly very saddened by what's happening to our country.

That paints a very bleak picture, very bleak picture about where the country's going. Kind of sad. I mean, one of the—

Yeah. Matan, this used to be, I still hope that it's one of the best countries in the world, but I've always been an optimist about Canada and will maintain my optimism. It's hard to go from a world-class country, world-class city, the city of Toronto, my first love, to it now being unrecognizable. I walk downtown and you see so many vacancies.

Again, storefronts.

Storefronts, yeah. Homelessness all over, homeless encampments all over, drug use open, illicit drug use on the TTC, protests that are threatening my community, our community. Poverty, record use of food banks, a million Torontonians are food insecure. This is unthinkable that this could be happening in our country. And yet the political class just gets away with it. Somehow Canadians don't— they don't draw the connection between the people we elect and the harm that we witness every day before our very eyes to our economy, to our security, to our streets, to our social fabric, to our children?

What I want to say is that I find politicians, most of them, to be cowards. Their main goal usually is to get elected and for whatever reason—

Or reelected.

Reelected, right? Whether it's because it's a nice salary, it's a nice job, gets you a little bit of prominence, a little bit of power. And one thing that really kind of, I use the word blackbilled me with the whole system, is when the COVID restriction era happened. That's when you became much more of a prominent political and public figure, is when you stood up to your own party, the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and Doug Ford, because you didn't agree with their restrictions and the mandates and all the things that they were doing. But you came, the one thing that was really surprising is that you came out pretty early. Like this was January 2020. '21, right? Like where you got officially kicked out of the caucus or whatever they call it. And it was, you were like what we call in Hebrew, like a dat yakid. You were like a guy alone in the woods there because even though, and I spoke to politicians at that time on the city, municipal to federal level, and you would bring evidence and facts and they just wouldn't, like their minds just, it was like they were brainwashed a little bit or they just didn't, want to go up against the grain. My question to you is like, what did you see that nobody else saw? How do you have that courage to kind of just like go against your own party? Where did that come from?

I was unwilling to accept the harm we were causing people, the harm we were causing families, the harm we were causing children by having them locked out of school, the harm we were causing patients by continuing to close healthcare, the harm we were causing small business who wasn't allowed to operate while big business was allowed to operate, the harm we were causing to people of faith who were told that they're not an essential service, whereas the pot shop is an essential service. I was unwilling to continue to go along with what I thought was the greatest public policy disaster, maybe in our nation's history, the results of which were reasonably foreseeable. And still are with us today. Every couple of years I run into this teacher at an airport. First time we met in, I think, early 2022. She said to me, "My grade 3s read at a grade 1 level." We knew very early on that thankfully COVID, which could be a very serious infection, especially to those closer to end of life or multiple comorbidities, Thankfully does not affect children. And yet Ontario had the longest school lockdown in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And Toronto had the longest lockdown in the world. We saw across the world how different nations in Asia, in Eastern Europe, Latin America handled this completely differently. And yet many in our political class did not have the courage after a lot of evidence after multiple lockdowns, to acknowledge that the collateral harm of lockdown doesn't just exist, but it's so prevalent.

Mm-hmm.

There were a number of episodes leading up to my termination from the Conservative caucus. And a mother called me from an ER. She told me that her teen daughter tried to kill herself.

Uh-huh.

I had a very dear friend, a wonderful supporter, a woman who didn't get good healthcare. This woman, um, she passed away from cancer and, um, she had a sibling and a father, two siblings and a father, and one of the siblings was not allowed into the funeral home because of the 10-person restriction with staff working inside the funeral home. He was unable to attend his sister's own funeral.

Mm-hmm.

So many people died not just of COVID or related comorbidities, but of loneliness. The epidemic of loneliness and mental health that was unleashed by our pandemic response probably reversed our mental health trends for a very long time. And I wasn't willing to go along with it. I was not— I did not seek office for glamor or for titles. I left a very lucrative law practice to better my country, to help and lead my community. But I felt that we're doing harm. And so all I wanted is to basically start a conversation and say, can we just have a conversation about what we're doing and if it makes sense? Does it make sense to continue to lock kids out of school? Does it continue to make sense to lock out healthcare? I'm glad that conversation has started. I regret that none of my colleagues followed, and I very much hope that history regards this fairly.

Mm-hmm.

And we see this, obviously we see this in, in the mental toll that continues to take on young people. In the accelerated rates of cancer, in long medical waitlists resulting in people waiting for years for a procedure, losing their lives, in the acceleration of cancer rates, in the doubling of overdoses. And I think it's, it's important that history regards this fairly because it's important for us to be able to have a conversation especially about one of the greatest events of our generation. If this is unprecedented, if this is the crisis that it is, and it was, then we ought to be able to have a frank conversation about it.

Mm-hmm.

And we should not be afraid of conversation because a good, healthy public debate, whether it's about public policy or whether it's a direction of an organization or a business, the more perspective, the better is the net result. So why not entertain diversity of opinion? And this is actually where I want to send a shout out to my boss, to Pierre Poilievre, who talks about the fact that we should be the freest country in the world. And even though I was essentially excommunicated out of the conservative infrastructure subsequent to Doug Ford removing me, I was welcomed back by Pierre Poilievre to run with him out of the riding I used to represent provincially. Because Pierre is not scared of different opinion or of his members communicating different opinion. And, um, that, that is very much to his credit.

Yeah. And, uh, you know, he came out in support of, uh, ending the lockdowns at a certain point, which, which was, uh, also at the time against the grain. So that's obviously greatly appreciated, but put him in pro— like helped him win the leadership at some point, right? And 2022, if I recall correctly.

He saw, much like myself, that there was a great need for change, not just economic change, but also at the time cultural change, where this liberal dogma that seemed to seize our country could be viewed differently, ought to be viewed differently. And I'm very thankful to him for embracing those that believe that our nation was founded on freedom and should be the freest nation on earth.

It's good to have people like you in politics because it shows that people with principle could still get elected. So that's really good. I mean, just on the COVID stuff, we'll wrap that up. I myself was always uncomfortable with lockdowns. You know, at some point I was comfortable with this idea of, okay, like a slowdown, you know, for how, you know, we need some time to improve hospital capacity. That's a narrative that I can get behind. But nothing was done at some points ago. The same narrative that they used in late 2021 was the exact same one they used in 2020. It's like, guys, if you need to build hospital capacity, you know, build it. You know, like, you don't need so much time. Like, you need to hire more nurses? Go bring them from all over the world. Pay them double, pay them 3 times more. Like, you can't shut down a country for years. Like, it's just, it's ridiculous. So I, I was first, first publicly against all the lockdowns, like, in April 2021. And it wasn't easy even for me, and I'm not a public figure at all. So I can't imagine how that was like for you. And I'm grateful because if people like you didn't stand up, it would have been hard for someone like me to say anything as well. You know, you need kind of the first person to go to cross the breach, to give other people the courage to say, to speak up as well. So, so thank you for that.

Thank you.

This type of thing of lack of courage happens in a lot of other topics as well. Right now, I mean, when I saw this, I was a bit crazy. Something like, I'm just gonna read my notes 'cause I don't wanna get the stats wrong. We're gonna put it up here also. Canada has the 5th highest absolute net immigration on the planet, in absolute basis, meaning the raw numbers, right? What else? That we also rank the top 3 usually in the developed world, and we rank the top usually on a per capita basis. So not only are we bringing in an absolute huge amount of immigrants net, we rank near the top almost every year when it comes on a, on a population basis, something like over 20% of Canada's population currently are either permanent residents, they're not— they're here legally, but not—

Yeah.

All the other stuff, legal non-citizens, meaning they're here legally, but they're not citizens. Now we're both immigrants, first-generation immigrants. We weren't born here. I think we— I'll let you speak for yourself, but I support immigration, one that's calibrated towards bringing the best and the brightest, supporting our economy, whatever, like people that are great quality people. That they can integrate and assimilate, and it makes sense relative to the size of population and infrastructure that we have and all that. But clearly, like, this— what we have now just seems like it's out of control. So I'll give you the floor, you know, what do you think about immigration personally? Where does the party stand on immigration? Um, how do you— is there a problem to begin? Is there even a problem? Like, are we— like, is it just people being— people like me being xenophobic? Oh, I don't like foreigners, even though I'm a foreigner myself. I'll give the floor to you.

30 years ago, Canada needed chemical engineers. My dad was a chemical engineer, and so my parents passed an English proficiency test, a medical exam, criminal background check, and we were admitted to Canada as landed immigrants. It wasn't always easy. I know what it's like to come from very humble means. But the system worked, and I've always had a job, and I've always had this incredible joy that all you had to do to succeed in Canada, just work hard and be nice to people. That's it. If you just did that, you'd be guaranteed a pretty good standard of living, safe street, good home, food you can afford. But regretfully, after 10 years of the Liberals, this Canadian promise is, um, it's no longer here. And in large part, that is due to liberal immigration policy. We all agree that this country was founded on immigration, but at some point, the rates of immigration have surpassed anything remotely reasonable, thereby not allowing our healthcare, our economy, and our housing to catch up.

Mm-hmm.

And so you had remarkable demand manufactured by access immigration. So this access immigration got ahead of housing, got ahead of healthcare, got ahead of our economic growth, and put unimaginable strain on our social systems and our healthcare system. Created manufactured demand for housing that, due to its scarcity, created an acceleration in prices, rendering it completely unaffordable for most Canadians and young Canadians. That was followed by Liberal immigration policies that failed to vet those that come to Canada. Our security is compromised. We are a conduit for fentanyl and drug dealers that cross our borders. We regretfully are no longer the best country in the world we used to be. And I think that is largely due to liberal immigration policies.

So what do you think is an ideal, like, immigration system? Is it just going back to what it was 20, 30 years ago? Or does it need to be something more fundamentally changed?

We have to certainly cap our numbers in terms of making sure that they don't come near our capacity to grow our healthcare system, our housing system, and our job market. We have to end this insanity with the temporary foreign workers. I don't want to hear that you can't hire a manager for Canadian Tire at $60,000 a year and you've got to look elsewhere. I refuse to believe that young people don't want a job at Tim Hortons while they're studying full-time. We've got to end the insanity around the student visas. So many students who are sold a false hope— they'll come to Canada, work, have a path to stay here permanently— that didn't happen. And instead, we need to go back to something more sensible. And in my view, it needs to be driven largely by demand. Canada has a demand for welders. Okay, well, you're a welder, get in front of the line. For tradespeople, construction people, if you bring those kind of skills, then Canada will be open for you. But At some point, we have to recognize that scarcity of our systems and make sure that Canadians take full advantage of them.

Mm-hmm. Do you, what do you think about this idea, like the Trump Gold Card, where you can just pay for citizenship, which basically filters for people that are wealthy and want to just, you know, come here because they have money? What do you think about something like that? Because we used to have those like investor programs, whatever. I think we still, some provinces still do have that.

The question for me is whether an immigrant can contribute to our country or not. We did not come here on a golden visa or any of the sort. At the beginning, my dad sold ice cream off those yellow Dixie bicycles. My mom was an unemployed teacher. But we ended up working very hard and have contributed considerably. To our taxpayer base and to the Canadian economy is something that I guess we're very fortunate by. And I want— maybe this is a greater question, not just about immigration— I want the kind of kids that I used to be to have the kind of opportunity I had. Come here with nothing at age 15, get a world-class education, get employed, get involved in a small business, grow a law firm, be elected by the very same people that welcomed you to Canada. It's a wonderful journey. And I think we owe it, we owe it to the next generations, we owe it to our children to bring back with Canada the Canada we know and love.

I wanna bring up this one story that was pretty crazy when I saw it. It's hard to believe almost. The Conservatives voted for a motion where they said, "Hey, if you're convicted of a crime here, you're gonna be barred from applying for refugee status." When I saw that, I'm like, wait, that's not already a law? It's not part of the immigration rules already? And the liberals didn't vote for that. So can you just walk us through that story? How, why that's not the case already? And what is even like the, if we're gonna steelman the other side of the argument, like how does it make sense not to pass this kind of law?

Not much makes sense to me these days in parliament, but it's actually considerably worse.

Oh no.

Yeah, it's not only that we don't deport those who don't have Canadian immigration status and are often convicted of serious crimes. Quite often, judges impose more lenient sentences on convicted offenders so as not to hurt their immigration chances or the immigration chances of others in their family. I would think that abiding by criminal law would be the most important prerequisite for Canadian citizenship. Liberals don't seem to think so.

I struggle to understand what are they saying. It just walks through like, what is the argument? Like they're making arguments, I assume. I don't know. But are they just saying like, no, no.

The only arguments the liberals ever make is to demonize the conservatives. Nothing else. I think what they do is this is a traditional liberal playbook where they expand their voter base with laxed, outright irresponsible immigration systems. At the same time, not offering the kind of world-class opportunities that Canada used to have. So I'll— I think I probably should leave it at that. But I'd say all of this is largely fixable. We don't need one extreme or the other. We can come to consensus. Mm-hmm. About a reasonable number that doesn't exceed our ability to grow our healthcare and housing and economy.

Mm-hmm.

We can agree on the fact that those that are convicted of crimes should not be rewarded vis-à-vis their immigration status, but should suffer the consequences of their actions by losing the privilege of gaining one of the greatest citizenships in the world. We're having difficulties communicating with one another. We're having difficulties communicating with the public, I remain determined and convinced that most of this is fixable.

That's very optimistic, which I guess you have to have if you're in your line of business. I did want to touch on a topic that came up also recently. There was a man that was 25 or 26. He was partially or fully blind, type 1 diabetes, whatever, depressed. And he was recently granted by a doctor to be essentially murder, what they call MAiD, medical assistance in dying, which is a very Orwellian term. And it's been expanded a few years ago to include things like, potentially things like depression, from what I understand. Do you have a, does you or the Conservative Party have a position on MAiD in general? And have you seen the story?

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a case called Carter that the right to life includes the right to terminate or to obtain assistance in terminating one's own life, provided one suffers terminal illness that is incurable and that is associated with significant suffering. We're a nation of law and should have crafted the MAID legislation around that Supreme Court ruling. What the liberals did instead was they opened up MAiD to what has now become an unthinkable catastrophe. 5% of Canadians that depart from us depart due to MAiD. And we now see this being offered not to deal with incurable terminal illness, that results in suffering, but everyday life where veterans that are seeking help are offered MAiD. We've heard of a situation where there was discussion about that at a food bank. I do not understand how is it okay for anyone to suggest to another human being that they should kill themselves. Yeah. That's what— that's essentially what we're doing. So while I'm in favor of upholding the framework articulated by the top court, I am adamantly— and thankfully my conservative colleagues are adamantly against— expansion of MAiD for pure mental health illness, and certainly to minors. How could we be expanding the right to make such choice to a minor when a minor cannot make a choice at an election or to buy a beer, but they can choose to take their own life? I am deeply saddened by that. I wanna highlight that one of my conservative colleagues, Garnet Genius, recently brought a private member's bill that suggests that no one but a regulated health professional should be able to offer MAiD. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in Veterans Affairs. We owe our men and women in uniform a great debt of gratitude. And that means that we need to ensure that those that served our country are served by our country instead of offering them a way out by ending their life.

Mm-hmm. It's quite depressing. So hopefully, I don't have hopes that it'll be passed in Parliament, but it's good that the leader of Conservative Party is talking about it.

It's good that we have those conversations and we should not be afraid to have those conversations.

Yeah.

It's not just about right versus wrong. It's about human dignity. And those that suffer should have more than that choice.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I'm really curious to see how this story, I'll put up on the screen obviously, where it's like the mother of the person who did this, she claims that the person who, this person went to see that eventually gave the MAID treatment, whatever they call it, coached this individual, this 25, 26-year-old man, coached him in a way that sped up the process of how to make his health either worse or seem worse in order to speed up the process. And the mother claims, alleges that he was just suffering from seasonal depression. So the fact that it's possible for someone, obviously he's not, he's obviously struggling in life, struggling with depression, but that's an option that could be gamed. It's actually kind of scary. And you said 5% of all —all deaths in Canada is made. I saw the number, 16,500 in 2024. It's not trivial. 16,500 people. That's not— it's a great— to me, that's— it's hard to be proud of a country that does that. I just, I don't know. I don't know what to say. Even if you have some small percentage of those, of the cases that are bad cases, none of them should exist. There shouldn't be any cases that are ones where someone would just— that's depressed, that should be encouraged to do that thing. I do want to talk about one other topic briefly, something that's a bit close to my heart a little bit. Not close to my heart, but something that it's been bubbling for the last 10 years, diversity, equity, and inclusion. For the last several years—

There's nothing inclusive about it.

That's right. It means the opposite. It's one of those Orwellian terms. It means the exact opposite of what it actually Yes, yes. And it's impacted everything from the way the government thinks about where it deploys its capital, where it invests, how it hires, how corporates hire, how the schools operate, what they teach. You know, the whole cultural fabric is now centered around this idea of diversity, equity, inclusion. But I want to open the floor to you from your perspective, what it means, what's wrong with it, if there's anything wrong within the perspective of the Conservative Party. With regards to it?

I think first and foremost, diversity must imply diversity of opinion, diversity of thought. Regretfully, DEI does not leave any room for disagreement about its own dogmas, about its own diktats. In terms of inclusion, I've felt that Canadians are some of the most kind, charitable, welcoming people on earth. I do not remember race relations in the '90s being where they are today, in that what DEI in fact does is it litigates those issues continuously, brings them back to the forefront to create division between people.

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Jackson passed the other day. Again, I go back to the '90s. Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson. Some of the greatest times in, in recent history. People got along. Toronto and Canada were so very welcoming. To accuse Canadians of racism at large is defamatory and disrespectful and dishonest. And so the need, this constant need by advocates to reinsert race into the conversation, it's not just unnecessary, it's unhealthy. And finally, I'll talk about meritocracy. When you try to reorder the rules, when you try to reorder and punish productivity as opposed to reward productivity, you end up with a worse result in that you have less productivity. We should insist on those that are able to deliver a better service, being able to deliver a better service. I am very saddened to hear that members of the Jewish community, those with obviously Jewish last names, have difficulty to be admitted to a medical school in Canada these days because of overrepresentation of the Jewish community in the medical community. Mm-hmm. Same with law school.

I didn't know about that.

It is unthinkable. So you're telling me that a kid can go out of their way, get really good grades, nail the MCAT, and then be denied because of their faith or their race? So in fact, what DEI does is it creates reverse discrimination against those that are clearly qualified and are deserving. And the net result is discontent. It is damaging our social fabric, and it's resulting in talented people leaving. And that's just bad public policy.

Right. There is a significant brain drain in Canada, right? That's— it's very sad. I didn't know about the, the fact that Jewish students are being discriminated—

Excluded from med school.

Not even Jewish students, people with Jew-sounding last names, it sounds like, which is even I guess even a little bit worse. It's like, you're gonna look, if you're Jewish, you sound Jewish.

I have constituents that are afraid to put up a mezuzah on their door. I represent one of the largest Jewish populations in the country. Folks are afraid to wear a kippah. Folks are worried about their kids going to school. A Jewish school in my riding has been shot at 3 times, luckily, and it was empty.

The girls' school, right?

The girls' school, yeah. We never thought that was possible in our country. And Jewish Canadians are now facing a reality that's regretfully shared by many of us around the world, where they no longer feel safe in this country, in our country that we love so much. This is both a failure of our immigration system, but also of law enforcement, and political leadership. Mark Carney has caucus members, has members of parliament saying one thing in synagogues, saying a completely different thing in mosques. Mark Carney decided to recognize the State of Palestine as a reward to Hamas barbarism on the evening of Rosh Hashanah.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm very proud of my conservative colleagues, even though electorally, standing with the Jewish people, the State of Israel on the right side of history, it's not politically popular. They do so nonetheless, to their political detriment. That's what I think separates us from the liberals, is that we will stand on principle. Even if it is not the best thing politically, because we're not here to get elected. We're here to do right by the people that elect us.

If any other politician said that, I'd be like, yeah, sure, buddy. But I actually believe when you say it.

Yeah.

You've actually given up a lot to stand up for your principles before. So again, it's a very rare quality. And I had Melissa Lanzmann here and I also spoke with her before. Before she was elected. And she's a very principled person. She's just like— I don't get that from most politicians. It's like, do whatever you need to get elected, and you guys don't seem to be that way. So I do appreciate that.

I think it's a testament to how much we love this country. And that is in response to the remarkable success that we've been able to enjoy here, both immigrants from the former Soviet Union come here with nothing and are welcomed and embraced by Canadians, admitted to school, to work, to Parliament. It's worth fighting for.

Mm-hmm. I often joke that Saudi Arabia is going to be safer for Jews than Canada in 20 years. I still say it, but I'm just not joking anymore. But it's a very good message to leave off on. Roman, do you have any final things you want to say to Canadians?

We got to keep up the hope. We can't let this go. We can fix almost everything that ails us if we just— Stop litigating all these social issues, stop dividing against each other and tweak our economy. Leave people with more money in their pockets. Develop our natural resources. We are the wealthiest— one of the wealthiest nations on Earth in terms of our God-given natural resources. Mm-hmm. We should all be living like a Saudi prince. So let's get out of our way and allow people to work and encourage them to invest and to succeed instead of demonizing success and punishing productivity with unbearable taxation. Let's Fix our immigration system so it is sensible. Let's tackle the crime and chaos on our streets by locking up the criminals. Let's be nice to each other again. Something's been off, probably since COVID where we were first divided by our governments, taught to point and to hate certain people. That hasn't gone away. And that's not who we are as Canadians. And I have faith that hopefully we'll just wake up from this very challenging reality that Canadians are living right now. The fact that more than a quarter of Canadians cannot afford food is a shameful reality. That all levels of government should own and that should encourage Canadians to choose change, to reject these failed Liberal policies of the last 10 years, and to elect a competent, responsible government that wants to help you and your family, keep more money in your pocket, that wants to sell Canadian oil and gas to foreign markets, that wants to treat people with dignity and fix her immigration system. I think all of that is within reach. Let's keep the hope. Let's keep working.

It's a great message. Thank you, Roman. This has been a fascinating conversation. We can leave more information about you if people want to reach out. And the party, Conservative Party, we'll leave more information down below if you want to check it out.

Thank you. Thank you, Matan.