Poilievre calls Fraser a “human wrecking ball” while vowing to end birth tourism

Poilievre took aim at Liberal Justice Minister Sean Fraser, calling him a “human wrecking ball” for what he described as the collapse of Canada’s immigration and housing systems.

Source: CPAC

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took aim at Liberal Justice Minister Sean Fraser on Thursday, calling him a “human wrecking ball” for what he described as the collapse of Canada’s immigration and housing systems under Liberal leadership.

Speaking at a press conference in Ottawa, in response to a question about how far a future Conservative government would go in reforming birthright citizenship, Poilievre said Fraser’s record as immigration minister “destroyed the best immigration system in the world.”

“He single-handedly destroyed the consensus we had on immigration. He destroyed our housing market, our health care, and our job market,” Poilievre said. “This one guy, Mark Carney, has promoted him now to be the Minister of Justice. So for him to lecture anybody on any matters of immigration is the height of Liberal hypocrisy and shows nothing has changed after 10 years of the Trudeau government to the Carney one.”

Fraser was the immigration minister under former Prime Minister Trudeau’s government from October 2021 until July 2023, in a period where he admitted over 2.1 million migrants, 1.1 million permanent and 1 million temporary, according to the government’s own data.

Canada’s birthright citizenship rules currently grant automatic citizenship to anyone born on Canadian soil, regardless of parental status.

Poilievre argued that the policy should be revised to prevent visitors and temporary residents with no permanent ties to Canada from using childbirth as a pathway to citizenship.

“What [Conservative MP Michelle] Rempel is saying,” Poilievre explained, “is that for everyone who is an immigrant to Canada as a permanent resident or a citizen, of course, they can pass on citizenship to their kids. But if you’re coming here as a visitor and neither parent has an attachment to Canada as a permanent resident or citizen, they can’t pass citizenship down the line. I think that is a perfectly common-sense approach.”

Poilievre blamed Fraser for previously expanding temporary resident programs that he said have overwhelmed the country’s housing and health-care systems.

“Because of Mark Carney’s former immigration minister, Sean Fraser, we have roughly what is it, three million temporary residents here in Canada,” Poilievre said. “And the risk is that some might think that the only way to stay is by having a kid here. And at the end of the day, our system is already overrun.”

He said a Conservative government would “get rid of the Liberal insanity in our immigration system and return to the best system in the world.”

The Liberal government has defended maintaining Canada’s birthright citizenship policy.

“I believe that we should maintain birthright citizenship in Canada, and I don’t know if I can be any more direct than that,” Fraser said to reporters on Wednesday.