A Solution to the “Immigration Crisis” – Paul Jay

Walter Kiriaki

We had 1.2 million immigrants come into Canada last year. I’m going to put forward that we’re having growing pains. I know my own doctor is quitting his practice to look after his parents, which is admirable, but that means I have to now look for a GP. I think many Canadians, especially on the East Coast, are having this problem with doctors.

The immigrants coming in, I think there’s going to be a clash between people who are here and the immigrants coming here because of our ability not to have the infrastructure to house them or rentals for the young people.

I remember in the ’70s when the Vietnamese came in, they assimilated into the country, keeping their own values. The Sikhs came in the ’80s; quite a bit. But this time around, it’s a touchy subject: immigration. However, I think we have quite the growing pains, and I’m seeing a lot of… even amongst my own friends, some comments and stuff. Do you have any thoughts on how we should deal with this?

Paul Jay

Yeah, everyone knows the solutions.

Walter Kiriaki

What’s the solution, Paul?

Paul Jay

Well, number one, fast-track immigrants who already have medical degrees, vet them way faster and create clinics all over the place that are easy for people to get to. How many skilled doctors are driving taxi cabs or bicycling food all over the place?

Walter Kiriaki

Yeah, a lot of Uber.

Paul Jay

Number two, they should–

Walter Kiriaki

Dr. Ubers?

Paul Jay

Yeah.

Walter Kiriaki

Just before you go to number two, based on that, we have a system in place where only so many Canadian citizens can have spots at the universities for doctors.

Paul Jay

Do you know how many doctors they have in Cuba? Cuba’s medical system and the training of doctors is as good as the Canadian one. 

Walter Kiriaki

They have great doctors.

Paul Jay

They have thousands of doctors. The amount of training that was happening there.

Walter Kiriaki

We’re not necessarily letting Cubans into the country, though.

Paul Jay

I’m not saying that’s the solution. The solution is to train way more doctors. The Canadian Medical Association, for some reason, doesn’t want to do it.

Walter Kiriaki

There you go.

Paul Jay

I think there are a lot of forces at the provincial levels and maybe federal, depending on who’s in power and who really wants to privatize stuff. The more screwed up and underfunded the medical system is, they think the stronger will be the demand for private medical care. People outside Canada don’t know that Canadian GPs are private. It’s not like in some countries where everybody’s part of the public system; Canadian doctors are actually individual owners of their own medical practice unless they work at hospitals. They don’t want to tax wealthy people enough to fund the system well. I mean, it’s straightforward. We didn’t used to have this problem, and it wasn’t because there wasn’t immigration. There used to be enough money in the system, and now we have OR rooms empty because they don’t have enough nurses to staff the ORs. I mean, it’s insane.

Walter Kiriaki

The foreign students, though, for universities and stuff, they pay so much more money that they’re a cash grab for the universities.

Paul Jay

Yeah.

Walter Kiriaki

Right. Versus citizens who are here trying to become a doctor.

Paul Jay

Tell me why countries like, I believe Norway is one of them.

Walter Kiriaki

Right.

Paul Jay

They not only have free universities for their own citizens, but they also have free universities for anybody who applies to go there.

Walter Kiriaki

Trudeau is getting blamed for this, of course. Well, he’s the government. Looks like I don’t think the other parties have a solution that I’ve heard either.

Paul Jay

Well, the Conservatives have a solution. Fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, exacerbate the contradictions as much as possible, and use it to get elected the way Trump is.

Walter Kiriaki

Well, the stuff that Pierre [Poilievre] is saying, it doesn’t sound like he’s for that. He’s for having temporary foreign workers for the corporations that need them.

Paul Jay

Yeah, but this solution, obviously, is not less immigration, which a lot of Conservatives are promoting. In fact, we need more people now. We have a demographic vacuum here. Canada is de-populating. But there needs to be a methodology to it that supports the social safety net, and it requires real taxation of the wealthy. The main thing people have to understand about Canada— is our audience mostly Canadian or American here?

Walter Kiriaki

American, Mexican, and European.

Paul Jay

Anyway, people have to understand that the real power in Canada is a handful of big banks, and the banking power here is even more monopolized and centralized than in the United States, even though there it’s big. Here, we have four or five banks, and they dominate the economy and actually really dominate the politics, but they’re very good at keeping their profile down. But they’re there to defend Canadian corporate interests and elite interests, and they mean the same thing about lower taxes. If the way to get lower taxes and strengthen the banking corporate hand here is to force attention on immigration and blame immigrants, it’s an old game.

Walter Kiriaki

Yes, it is. It’s an old game. But we also have consolidation. The powers that be let people consolidate. Well, what happened to the Competition Act? We have Loblaws. They own all the suppliers. They might own a lot of the farmers as well. Then they’re saying their prices are raised because of the suppliers, yet they own the middle part, the stockades, and the suppliers. So they’re making a profit on both ends, the supply plus selling to the public.

Paul Jay

Well, there’s something that could be done in the U.S. and in Canada. Why don’t they use the idea of a war-profiteering tax?

Walter Kiriaki

Sure.

Paul Jay

Just find out what the profits were pre-pandemic and tax post-pandemic profits, which are seen to be higher. Certainly, the prices are higher and taxing them at 93-95% makes it not worthwhile.

Walter Kiriaki

You’re going back to the [Dwight] D. Eisenhower tax rate is what you’re doing, right? Which was phenomenally successful. Plus, they had free education.

Paul Jay

Another solution I even like, buy Metro or something, which is the other grocery chain. Just create a publicly owned grocery chain.

Walter Kiriaki

Well, that’s what a co-op is supposed to be, right?

Paul Jay

Or take some of the co-op systems and make it–

Walter Kiriaki

IGA, the Independent Grocers Association, is now Sobeys for the main part.

Paul Jay

Yeah. If you had a publicly owned grocery chain, you took out excessive profit and just made enough profit to invest, modernize, and pay better wages, you could force the price of food down. You could do that. It doesn’t have to be just in food.

Walter Kiriaki

Paul, are you like Tucker Carlson, where you buy your own groceries? 

Paul Jay

[Laugher]. I hear Tucker Carlson and I are in the same species, so I don’t like… yeah, along with my wife, I buy groceries, yeah.

Walter Kiriaki

All right. So the quality of groceries that are in the stores right now, we should be having last year’s apples, and I’m sure they’re from two years ago. California lettuce in the summertime in Alberta shouldn’t be a thing. We should have local farmers supplying to the grocery stores.

Paul Jay

Unless you go to an upper-end store and pay tons more.

Walter Kiriaki

Well, I think all our grocery stores are now upper-end, or at least they tell themselves that, right?

Paul Jay

Let’s just cut to the chase here.

Walter Kiriaki

Cut to the chase, Paul.

Paul Jay

The solution is public ownership and democratization. We have lots of good models in Canada of publicly owned things that really work. Like in Ontario, we have the LCBO. In B.C., I think you’ve got a pretty successful auto insurance plan.

Walter Kiriaki

Yes.

Paul Jay

Publicly owned stuff can work. It can keep prices down. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t extend the concept of public ownership into many sectors of the economy, although I’ll tell you the most important one, create a publicly owned bank that can compete with the big banks and start to use capital to invest in productive stuff, not speculation, reduce fees, stop going on stupid acquisitions in the United States, if we’re talking Canada.

Walter Kiriaki

CN Rails, I think they bought Burlington.

Paul Jay

We don’t talk about this very much. Even the NDP, when was the last time you heard them talk about public ownership?