Canadian Salad
A No-Nonsense Podcast On Culture And Immigration
Canadian Salad
Vance’s Anti-Salad Meltdown
When United States Vice President JD Vance slammed Canada’s “salad bowl immigration" as "insanity,” the internet exploded — and so did we.
In this episode, Andrea and Hostion break down the politics, history, hypocrisy, and humour behind Vance’s comments. From failed monocultural empires to the real story of immigration in Canada, they explore why diversity isn’t a threat — it’s the natural human condition.
Honest, sharp, funny, researched, and full of heart, this episode reminds us that Canada has always been a salad bowl, and always will be.
A must-listen for Canadians, immigrants, policy nerds, and anyone who loves a spicy cultural conversation.
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Theme music by Nver Avetyan from Pixabay.
A Janklin Production.
I like salmon.
SPEAKER_01:Do you like salad? Welcome to Canadian Salad, a fun, factual, and friendly podcast about culture and integration in Canada.
SPEAKER_02:I'm one of your hosts, I'm Ho Chen Hum from China, currently living in unceded territory of Muskriams. Want to mention one to a nations?
SPEAKER_01:And I'm Andrea McCoy, an immigrant from the United States, broadcasting you from the unceded traditional territory of the McCungan people, the Songle's in final First Nations. And you're listening to Canadian Salem.
SPEAKER_02:I love chicken.
SPEAKER_01:Chips are good. What's your favorite flavor of chips, Potion?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I quite like the chicken wing flavor. I haven't.
SPEAKER_01:Chicken wing, chicken wing, really? Okay. Wait, um, I'll try that. I love masala potato chips.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, masala. Masala is good. Masala's always good with anything.
SPEAKER_01:It's very spicy. It's very yes.
SPEAKER_02:Well, but today's not bum food, I heard.
SPEAKER_01:No. It's well, kind of, kind of ocean, because a Canadian salad got like national, no international attention by the vice president of the United States.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I don't know where that fame. I didn't know where that famous.
SPEAKER_01:I we are evidently. Um unfortunately, it wasn't a compliment or it wasn't like a praise or you know, a promotion of Canadian salad or of the salad bowl identity theory that um Canada has been known for. It was actually very negative. So we're gonna unpack that today.
SPEAKER_02:Please do. I would love to unpack things. Yeah. You know, like after a long trip, we're gonna unpack.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, we do have to unpack. We have to dish out clap back, but also provide solutions in a humanizing way because this person is not a humanizing person. We're gonna respond to Mr. JD Vance's um, he went Twitter crazy, or sorry, I don't even know. X or crazy? Like what do you say anymore? Like someone posts on X. It's uh tweet.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I X. No, it's still tweet. That people still say tweet. It's just weird. Yeah, it's still say tweet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's just weird. So, but he decided to go and slam CBC in Canada because he's gone ultimately far right. And he said, quote, no nation has leaned more into diversity is our strength. We don't need a melting pot. We have a solid bowl immigration insanity than Canada, end quote. And he took some digs at CBC. Um, but uh this particular the salad bowl immigration sanity is what we're going to unpack. What did you initially thought when I sent you that quote or that news article that he had said those things?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I first rolled my eyes, obviously. That's the first thing I did. And then roll my eyes, ugh, I saw this name, and then my brain started to hurt when I saw this name. And then saw the quote. Oh, and I was like, I am very surprised that he understands what celebrities means. This person knows something. Yeah, he knows something, he knows some phrases. I was a little bit gagged at um his knowledge of that term. Um I also very gagged that he he knows that Canada exists because I thought he doesn't know anything about Canada, uh, anything else of the United States.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, they do want to, you know, take control over it, the 51st state. I think he was just, I think he did know maybe a little bit, but barely.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I'm saying. I thought they would just you know refer to us as the 51st uh states.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, that's true. Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So I was surprised again. Yeah, surprised that he knows his things, these words, like big words for it, for his brain, I think. And the last thing I think of is, of course, um to the opposite, is how ignorant, obviously, that he is. Because it meant this kind of sellable immigration is what makes Canada a great nation that it is, and it's what Canada is known and famous for, and is that's why Canada, that's why many people from the States said when Trump is elected, they were gonna move to Canada. Even his own people like us.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And I think a lot of it thanks to the salable immigration policy that we have.
SPEAKER_01:For sure. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What about you? What do you think about when you first saw that?
SPEAKER_01:So many things. First, this is coming from someone who works for a convicted felon. So that was first, like, you know, my first thought. The second was this is also coming from someone who has implemented and supported atrocious and cruel policies right now happening in the states towards immigrants. The fact that people are being arrested at the courts because people are doing the legal thing, but they're they're being met with arrest. Um, that the the fact that people, I think 15 people have died in ICE detention centers. Um, over 250 Canadians have been detained in ICE detention centers since Trump's regime. So this comes from a person who is already platforming cruelty. And so for him to have the audacity to say those things, I was very angry, but also thought, ooh, podcast idea. Here we are. Um, but yes, it it just I think it definitely made me boil for a bit, and um, but also made me really like sit with okay, how do we unpack this in a way that's constructive but also humanizing? Because one thing that you and I will not do is we won't dehumanize Mr. Vance. As evil and cruel as he is, we will not stoop to their level of dehumanization towards other people. And so how do we look at we might make jokes though? Oh, yes, of course. Um, but yeah, how do we look at um of course we're gonna look at a bit of the hypocrisy, um, but then actually looking at okay, melting pot, JD Vance. Okay, let's look at what that actually world that looks like. Okay, if no sellable, let's look at what that looks like. And we're gonna look at like just how unconsciously we're embracing diversity every day. And looking at immigrants from a from switching it from a deficit to an asset perspective. Instead of looking at immigrants as who those who take, it's those who give. And so we'll that's kind of the outline for today and what we're gonna. So that's how I wanted to approach this. So um, yeah, so maybe we'll just jump right into the hypocrisy. Um for those of you, yeah, who don't know JD Vance, he is the um newly elected vice president of the United States of America. Uh yes. Um yes. Um, so uh for so the first thing is um in 2020, when he was campaigning for Trump, um he was um on platforms and in public spheres and settings, he was saying that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs. This was something that he repeated, Trump repeated, multiple people within the MAGA party repeated. Um but then when in an interview, when he was confronted with there's been no documentation, there's nothing that we can find, um, when he was pressed about these claims, he said, quote, if I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do, end quote. Basically acknowledging, like, doesn't matter if it's not true. I need to create stories in order to make this rhetoric and the these stories to have some kind of attention because our goal and our end game is to basically eliminate and get rid of people who are immigrants, specifically who are black or brown immigrants. Um, so he makes up stories, so he's not a trustworthy person at all. Second, he is married to an uh an Indian woman, Usha Vance. She is the daughter of Hindu Telugu immigrant parents. They immigrated to California in the 1980s. Um she was born in California, but she was um very much raised by her um immigrant parents. Um she was a registered Democrat before her husband was endorsed by Trump. Um and she um she worked for some legal agencies that would be deemed quote unquote woke based on the uh advocacy that they were doing. The third yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah. He's got two, I think he's got two kids, biracial kids.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, like divorce him, woman. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, love at first sight. If you read, they they had a very they they met at, I believe, Yale or uh, I think it was Yale, and both of them said it was just an instant connection, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_02:But after all the things that he said on in public platforms, I will leave. It's such a disrespect to to no to myself.
SPEAKER_01:I I agree. I agree, but I think it there is that lateral violence where oh, the immigrants today are nothing like my parents. Right? There is this kind of idea or this glorification of, well, the immigrants we were letting in 30 years ago are not like the immigrants today. So like we've been the same playbook. Like we were saying that about Irish people. Oh, Irish immigrants, they're terrible, they're drunks, oh, the Scottish, they're terrible, they're drunks, oh, you know, uh the Chinese, like pick a group of people, and at some point in time, that narrative has been like, ooh, well, they're nothing like, you know, the the immigrants from England. They're nothing like the immigrants from here, or the immigrants from this time, or this time.
SPEAKER_02:But she's an Indian woman with a lot of Indian hate here, like even she also feeling the heat.
SPEAKER_01:I know. And I mean, it is that a bit of racism in me. Shameful plug for episode, I think it was season one, and we unpack the racism that especially people of color have built up. Yeah, internalized racism. Yeah. Um, the third thing about the hypocrisy of Mr. J.D. Vance is that he was actively against Trump before he was endorsed. So during the 2016, so Trump's first um presidential election, Vance wrote that he goes, quote, back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a-hole like Nixon, who wouldn't be that bad, um, or that he's America's Hitler, end quote. So this was J.D. Vance not not like nine years ago. Not even 50, you know what I mean? Um and then in another 2016 interview about his book, so Vance wrote a book about growing up in rural white America and how it was really hard for white people to like climb up, you know, systemic issues because like wealth capitalism likes to keep poor people poor. Um, and so he told a reporter that although his background would have made him a natural Trump supporter, he said, quote, the reason ultimately that I am not is because I think that Trump is the most raw expression of a massive finger pointed at other people. End quote. He called him irrehensible and an idiot. And then he got public attention. And then Trump endorsed him somehow. And of course, he's recanted all of that, apologized, it didn't know of the great man that Trump was, blah, blah, blah. So this is the person that has made the statement that Canada's salad bowl immigration is insanity.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Any initial thoughts?
SPEAKER_02:The initial thought is, you know, money is the irony of he thinks money keep him like from climbing up, like making more so much more difficult for him to climb up. Now he becomes that problem that he used to put finger at. For sure. For sure.
SPEAKER_01:That he suffered underneath, right? Um, went to school, found himself just in these, um, in these spaces of um leadership, and then to be handed a very powerful position. It's kind of like that line. I don't know if you ever saw the musical Hamilton.
SPEAKER_02:What line?
SPEAKER_01:Um, there's a line in Hamilton where Alexander Hamilton says to Aaron Burr, if if you don't stand for something, then what will you fall for? And I feel like such a simple statement, but I feel like if you're not standing up for your core values like like consistently, and like you you bleed them and you live them and embody them, then you will fall for just anything. And I feel like that's JD Vance. He's fallen for the power and and uh narratives to just support ideas that I think inherently he has embodied, and we're gonna unpack unconscious diversity and how we accept those things unconsciously. But yeah, that those are my thoughts.
SPEAKER_02:So unfortunate, very unfortunate. And those are our um the America's leaders.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, currently, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is. But he's saying all the quiet parts out loud, to be quite honest. They've they've always been there. Those thoughts and sentiments have also been there. Um so I I wanted to take maybe just a couple minutes, maybe five minutes. So let's just take, let's, let's just go with Vance's idea. Okay. No salad bowl immigration, um, melting pot, monoculture. What does that world look like? Hoshan, what do you think that world looks like?
SPEAKER_02:Well, if I still live in Canada, I'm monoculture. First, I will assume I'm white. I think people eat very boring food, um, especially in the sense of Canada. Because I would assume monoculture here. Well, I was just mostly white people.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But no, it's monoculture, so we have to pick one.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It'll be very boring food, very boring activities to do. Movies will be boring. Uh, because probably just on one type of things, or hero movies about the queen, the king, I don't know. Um fashion will be boring as well. Thing. What are they gonna wear even? I don't even know what kind of thing culture stuff they have. Um yeah. Not an exciting like situation to begin with.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I was thinking about this. I was like, what makes everything about who we are today? Take that all away, you wouldn't have the English language, you wouldn't have Christmas, you wouldn't have math, you wouldn't have um your clothes, you wouldn't have spices, you wouldn't have a lot. And it wouldn't think and and honestly, I don't know of any culture globally, and I've researched this, like there is no monoculture. Like there are dominant cultures, right? So like if we think of Japan or even maybe China, even Korea, um, we can there are dominant cultures, but there's still a lot of diversity within those countries. I mean, wouldn't you say that even in China, right, that there are there is maybe a more dominant culture?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:But would you say that China's monocultural?
SPEAKER_02:No, like China definitely not monoculture. In many ways, Pihala is very like open to a lot of like foreign cultures, like like the uh especially the influence of K-pop or Japanese, like Japan, a lot of culture influence in China. If you talk about monoculture, I actually think Japan may be the one of the most maybe mono-leaning culture. Like definitely not mono to any extent, but Japan like to keep their own traditions um and keep it from you know minimum influence. But still, like when I was in Kyoto, which is a very, very old Japanese town, uh city that has still maintained a lot of traditions and even buildings. If you're just walking in a city, it's very Japanese. There's barely any high-rise or like you know, quote unquote Western style buildings, or these wood houses. Uh, but if I still like if you look around the restaurant, the things they serve, or like if you go to any shop of like clothing, like still there's a lot of cultural influence from somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. If isn't there even Chinese influence? There were that like at some point, like there was Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:If you think you talk about Chu, like even kimono, if you would think about kimono, kimono is from uh the dress code, kimono is actually uh influenced by from the Tang dynasty. They inherent that kind of way of wearing and then they you know alter a little bit, become their you know, we call it kimono now, but it was actually from China, and even Macha, Macha was a very old way of making tea. They also learned it from China. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Before, yeah. And so even a lot of Japanese culture now we see it, it was not really from Japan. It was taken, it was taken from China, and then they just you know localized it in some sense. Yeah. So yeah, there's no monoculture.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, and I and from what I understand too in Japan, like they are looking at how youth and younger people are getting education outside of Japan, maybe not coming back. And so looking at even just how do we how do we keep going economically? Um, I I met two Japanese immigration lawyers, and they were saying that you know, we need immigration, but our immigration laws are so strict and so high. Like, you have to have a certain amount of money, you have to speak fluent Japanese, you have to live there for an X amount of years. And so these immigration lawyers are saying, like, looking to Canada, because Canada is this global model of saying, how do we do this? Because we're we're kind of fizzling out. Um, even sumo, I did an episode on sumo wrestling. Um finding athletes for sumo is really, really difficult. But the sport is being kept alive and at least has an international reputation because there's fantasy sumo clubs all over the world who watch the sport, who who really enjoy it, who are um finding, you know, a kind of respect for it. But then so in in some ways, I feel like other cultures can keep other cultures alive. You know, like all the Chinatowns that we have in Canada, we wouldn't know. I mean, obviously that's not like a pure reflection of Chin Chinese culture, but it is an aspect of it, and we wouldn't have an ounce of understanding if we didn't have Chinese people here building towns and building centers and businesses that reflected a culture, right? But yeah, I just feel like there is no way that like a melting pot works. We talk about unconscious bias, and I want to talk about unconscious welcome. So Canada has always been a salad. So, Mr. JD Vance, if you are rage listening to our podcast, I want you to know that Canada has always been a salad. That's that's always been who Canada has been. Even before colonizers came, it's been the default, not the exception. So before colonizers came to Turtle Island, there was an estimated 430 languages from over 50 First Nations here. And I can guarantee you, a First Nation in the northern part of Canada versus the eastern part of Canada, they did not have similarities. Like they probably had some commonalities, but culturally they probably practiced, observed different things. All cultures do, right? Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02:The similarities, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. When the British came over and then the French came over, so now we have French and English cultures and languages now. Like we have two languages as Canada's official language. If we look at even agriculture, plants who are kept by themselves and they aren't exposed to the ecosystem that they need to grow in, they die. So they're more prone prone to disease. They um they are more vulnerable to the other.
SPEAKER_02:A biology class.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. They can't resist changes in the environment because they haven't been exposed to any other ecosystem. And this is my point that like we as human beings, wherever we find ourselves, no matter what part of the world, we're part of this massive ecosystem. Massive. And so to say that like one group of people, or you know, we just need to like have one kind of way of doing things, that's how we should always do it. It doesn't work. And and people have tried.
SPEAKER_02:Just say even the the language we're speaking right now, English. English is one of the most um diverse language in the sense that it it takes um, it consists of a lot of other languages, yeah. A lot of words we've stolen in from other languages, from German, from uh French, um, like everyday use. Like fiance, there's no English fiance is a French word, there's no English equivalent, it's just we just use the French word.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Everything we do today is because of unconscious diversity in a cellurable world.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, even the English we speak it in itself is a proof of diversity.
SPEAKER_01:It is 80% of English is made up from other languages, 350 languages just in our English language. Math is predates the Western Empire, that's air like Arabic calendar.
SPEAKER_02:Our calendar, yes, dates back from that Egyptian calendar. It was the Egyptian calendar and then kind of changed a little bit, updated a little bit to a current calendar. Yeah. So a lot of things we use nowadays is not mono.
SPEAKER_01:No, especially like Apple products. So Steve Jobs was an was a descendant of a Syrian immigrant. Amazon, Home Depot, Intel, Google, eBay, all founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or immigrant children. Um right? Uh, our like you said, food, um, our upcoming holiday, Christmas. Um, it's a non-Christian, pagan, and Roman traditions. It's not even Christian. And yet we've we've adopted it. We've said, oh yeah, this is great. And I think this is this is the biggest piece is that JD Vance and many other people who are resistant to immigration, who want things a certain way, it's I'm comfortable, I'm uncomfortable with a world that I cannot control. When the reality is we have never had control of the world that we exist in. We never and we've always been subtly adopting and making other cultures and traditions a part of our lives every single day without thinking about it. But when it comes to someone right in front of us, someone who looks different than us, sounds different than us, does different things, our brains are just like we don't know what to do with that. We think in these binaries. Um, and monoculture can be appealing because it reduces this complexity of multiculturalism to a single storyline, right? Because multiculturalism requires that many truths can coexist, identities are layered, cultures interact rather than merge into sameness. And for many people, nuance can feel like a destabilization, right? We want a single dominant core narrative. We want simplicity. Our brains, if we have too many choices in front of us, we it's harder for us to make, we get overwhelmed. So this is kind of how, and this is how we were made to survive, whether it was the dangerous wolf that was chasing after us, our brains had to make swift decisions about what was safe for us. But what's also amazing is that our brains are capable of these things. We're capable of embracing multiculturalism, a solid immigration. Um, just a few examples of how monocultural projects were tried to be implemented uh worldwide. We have Nazi Germany, right? Uh 1933 to 1945. Um, we have Imperial Japan. So this is the Meiji to World War II. Um, so enforced Japanese cultural dominance in Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria. Um, it was banning local languages. They imposed Shintu and assimilation through schooling. The Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991. Um, so there's a lot of censorship, um, forced population movements. Um, they were really trying to encourage atheism at the time, like there's no spirituality. Um, one of these, and I'd love for you to maybe add the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966 to 1976, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:To an attempt to erase old culture, destruction of traditions, ideological purity campaigns, enforced homogeneity. Um, so that was one.
SPEAKER_02:Um they're kind of doing it now, even China. It's like very subtly having like a second wave now. They are banning a lot of like foreign programming, like even advertisement in public spaces. They change all of that. And they're displaying a lot of like eight like um Chinese history things on these billboards now, not even no advertisement allowed. So like they are in all kinds of ways, kind of in like kind of trying to make sure that Chinese culture or the monoculture was the only thing that's being displayed in public.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right, yeah. And the US, I would say, is doing the same thing because that melting pot, that assimilation with book banning, with uh arresting people who look different uh than Eurocentric people. Another movement was apartheid South Africa. So racial segregation, white cultural dominance, restrictions on moving, voting, relationships, cultural censorship, state violence. Um, Italy. So fascist Italy from 1922 to 1943, a nationalist monoculture, suppression of minority languages, political repression, state-controlled cultures, um, and then European colonial empires, obviously from the 16th to the 20th century, right? Trying to create this monoculture. Like we are the superior, you know, um, we're gonna eradicate all indigenous languages, we're gonna rename lands, we are gonna have hierarchical racial systems and forced religious conversion. But even we see this with sexuality, like conversion therapy. Like there's always been attempts for people historically on we want to create these monocultures, and the reality is they all fail. All of these failed at some point in time, and they're all still going to fail. Like it goes through these, like, you know, these cycles, right? Um, because monocultures require coercion, they require needed censorship, suppression, and violence to maintain illusions of cultural purity. Monocultures also produce fragility, like it makes systems very fragile. So rigid systems can't adapt to social change, global pressure, or even internal diversity. It can't, it can't adapt. It it just breaks under these systems. And resistance always emerges. Resistance always emerges because it's counter to who we are naturally.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because you're asking everyone to think the same, do the same, and like the same thing. It's not possible because even maybe this generation can do that. The next may not be, and the next and the next may not be, because people change, the world change, like all our brain change, you know, like uh is very crazy to think that that the system to make sure all of us do the same thing, think the same thing, and like the same thing, you know, will work. It's crazy to think that way.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it is. So the resistance always emerges. Collapse is also usually sudden. So monocultural projects tend to unravel quickly once their control mechanisms weaken, which is encouraging because this can only last for so long. But what's not encouraging is the many people that will suffer under the brutality of trying to create a monocultural system or society. Yeah. Um, yeah. And then after collapse, all of these events emerge pluralism. So from Germany to China, to Italy, to the United States, to Russia, to, you know, um our colonial empires of from Europe, cultures re-emerge because diversity is the natural human condition. So everything we do, everything that makes Canada Canada, that's always been Canada. And to call it insanity is to demonstrate that one, you're afraid, but two, you can't accept this idea that who you are naturally is very diverse. Mr. Vance, you wouldn't have your wife without immigration. You talk about the love of your life. This is my soulmate. I'm really happy for you, but you wouldn't have found her. Because under your regime and under your mindset right now, she would not be there. In fact, she'd be in an iced detention facility with her parents. So coming out of that, I think. Accepting the fact that Canada has always been and will always be a salad bowl.
SPEAKER_02:Hopefully.
SPEAKER_01:Well, if if we try to make it not, it w it will come back.
SPEAKER_02:It will fail, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's gonna fail. It's gonna fail. And we we see people trying to do that. Um so I wanna and land with or end with just thinking about immigrants, because this is this is the the narrative of the United States leadership. This is the narrative I'm hearing out of some conservative party leadership and even some liberals too, is that immigrants are take and they are a deficit. Rather than looking at immigrants as people who give. And we've talked about this, Ocean. You and I have talked about how much we give. Um we're stuck in this mindset of that immigrants need support and we need services so that we can be successful in Canada. That might be true for some, for some, but that's not that's not the heartbeat of immigrants.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_01:What we don't hear is what they bring, their ideas, their experiences, their education, their skill set, their traditions, their problem solving, and their innovations. Right? We talked about how over 40% of Fortune 500 companies are immigrant founded. Looking at Stats Canada, um, they asked um immigrants, like, what is the top reason that you immigrate? Higher quality of life. So immigrants are already coming with this idea that Canada has a higher quality. Immigrants aren't coming with this idea, like, I want to ruin that quality. No one does that. Who does that?
SPEAKER_02:No one does that. Oh, one people always want to live better, of course. No one wants to ruin it.
SPEAKER_01:We're coming to the best. We're we in our minds, we want to come to some quality. Like, if I wanted to go to a quality restaurant, I would not show up in my pajamas with food chunks sticking out of my teeth.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:I would dress up, I would want to look my best, I would want to like be a part of that quality experience. The second reason people immigrate was to contribute to Canada's growing economy. Immigrants see Canada as growth and opportunity. They don't see it as a dead end.
SPEAKER_02:So they want to work, they want to contribute.
SPEAKER_01:They want to work. Exactly. They want to contribute. How many times have you seen a company that's like slowly shutting down and closing? You're like, you know what, I'm gonna apply to work there. I want to work with that company because they are dying.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But this is the mentality that we think, like, oh, they're just coming to take rather than looking at why immigrants come and the values that they are bringing and the efforts and the passion and the beliefs that they have about Canada as a whole. So it's saying these are good things, and we want to be a part of these good things because we also believe they're good things. We're not we're not coming here to to poop on stuff and to just destroy. We're recognizing there's a quality system here, and we want to be a part of that quality system.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And on and not just like to taking, you know, to to also like be part of this good quality system, but also to contribute to it, right? Because the sends kids here to study, and then they eventually become a member of society that contributes back to the society, maybe become a doctor, become some sort of labor force, which we have. We have mentioned that before, that we many industry in Canada still needs a lot of we is uh we're facing shortage of labor.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, and we it's like Canada itself, um, the birth rate is not good enough to support the growth of our economy. So we generally just need immigrants to come to support the labor market. Otherwise, everything that you buy is gonna make gonna be more expensive or even slower surface, it's gonna be slower. Correct. Because if we don't if if we don't have enough immigrants to come here to join the work market.
SPEAKER_01:And and and people to stay. Like if that were to happen, you better believe Canadian-born people would be moving to other parts of the world because there was no opportunity, because they wanted to succeed, they wanted to contribute, they wanted a better life somewhere else. We have to come out of this mindset that immigrants take, they give. And they not just give economically, but they give culture, they give language, they give businesses, they give opportunities, they give just a different way of looking at things. And that's never been a threat.
SPEAKER_02:Thinking of this idea of like, there's another layer of that too. Like somehow, like we have like immigrant has to give. This is the only criteria can justify them coming here. If they don't give, they should not be here.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like that is another narrative that I feel like we kind of pigeonhole ourselves into as immigrants that feel we have to be off use. Otherwise, this land or this country. Yeah, if you're not, then you should get out of here. And I also don't think that is right, nor that is the truth, because like this land to begin with does not blank belong to the so-called Canada, because you know, because um, we all know the indigenous people are not involved in the immigration policy here.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And the second part is also like of use to whom? Why am I not working my life here, having my life here, that I support myself being independent is not enough. Why do I have to make of this great use to whoever it is with a society we're talking about? That's the only way that I can justify me moving here and live a life to support my family, or even just support my own. Or maybe I do not make any great contribution to anyone around other than my own and or my family. Why does it not not enough?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But that's just another thought.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that being human isn't enough. We value people based on how we see them and what level of value they're bringing to the table. Which I agree which is which is unfair. The sad thing is like Canadians are believing Mr. Vance and like, yeah, you you you tell us, yeah, our liberal government, you know, kind of a thing. And it's because of this idea that like we uh unconsciously don't realize how much we are ingesting and adapting and changing and how diverse we are just as people.
SPEAKER_02:We're spoiling many ways. We just so and take off. We're very spoiled, and then we definitely took granted, totally for granted.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We are so Mr. Vance, I have a few words for you. Canada and the United States have always been a salad bowl. No matter how long you've tried to make the United States a melting pot, and no matter how much you want to point your sticky, not so kind finger in our face and insult who we are, you've got to wake up and look at yourself in the mirror and recognize the diversity that you come from and the diversity that you embody in your family. Because if you can't accept that, you're never gonna I I I just would say just stop stop speaking, stop traveling, um, stop doing math, uh, stop uh listening to music, um, stop buying clothes, just stop everything that is not the culture that you prefer, and you will recognize that very quickly you are cold, naked, and afraid, and you cannot survive. That's my two cents. How about you? Do you have any words for Mr. Vance?
SPEAKER_02:Um Mr. Vance, I just think that since you already have an immigrant wife, um everything you said just makes no sense because obviously you're already enjoying what diversity and immigration has brought you. Yeah, you have a family because of it, and now you try to smear the power and the strength that diversity comes to us and how it enriches our life because you're living it, it is not just vile, but also hypocritical. And as we have mentioned, no matter how hard many regime has tried try to you know to suppress diversity or immigration, they all fail. So I want to let you know that you, like many other people, many people fail before you, you will also fail.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And we will prevail.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, diversity will always make it because it's who we are. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely, yes. Thank you, Hoshan. It feels good, it feels good to talk about it. So, um, thank you, Hoshan, for joining me in the No problem, of course. Yes, yes. Thank you for preparing this. Of course. Are you ready for a Canadian salad bowl pop quiz? Hoshen, Mr. Vance, and all of our listeners.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely. What about you? I'm ready too.
SPEAKER_01:I will let you go first since yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. My question is when has Canada start uh regulated immigration?
SPEAKER_01:When did they start regulating immigration?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like 1910?
SPEAKER_02:1910?
SPEAKER_01:I mean they did a lot of regulations against Chinese. Yeah, yeah. Earlier. Before. Yeah. 1875.
SPEAKER_02:1875. That's very close. It's 1869.
SPEAKER_01:1869.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the Canada's first immigration policy following the uh Federation.
SPEAKER_00:Oh.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It contains very few restrictions on immigration. Um, the Immigration Act is like uh published in 1869.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:After they did they from different cultures came to annihilate cultures that already existed to say now we're gonna make up rules about which cultures can be here and which ones can't.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, indeed. And then they of course through the years, there's a many, many different like the Chinese Immigration Act in uh 1885, we mentioned before. There's another revision of the Immigration Act in 1906. Like there's a many versions have come after to keep changing it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well, good, good to know. Okay, 1869.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, 1869. What about you?
SPEAKER_01:All right. How many of Canada's prime ministers were immigrants? Like from from from born outside of born outside of out outside of uh present day Canada, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Probably zero.
SPEAKER_01:Is that your final answer?
SPEAKER_02:Actually, no, they say one.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, one. Is that your final answer?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Four. Four There's been four. Okay. Four, yeah. So the very first prime minister was born in Scotland. Alexander Mackenzie, born in Scotland.
SPEAKER_03:Oh.
SPEAKER_01:Sir Mackenzie Bowell, born in England, and John Turner was born in England. Okay. This is also a rule, or not even a rule, but there is, you do not have to be born in Canada to be Prime Minister.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we just need to be a Canadian citizen, yes.
SPEAKER_01:So take that Canadian, can't, you know, salad bowl, Auntie, McGee, Mr. Vance.
SPEAKER_02:You know, in in the States, you have to be born in the States. Yes, you do. Uh-huh. Yes, you do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. So in your face, why we're in Canada. That's why we're in Canada. That's right.
SPEAKER_02:We can be presidents. Oh no, we can be prime minister.
SPEAKER_01:You should be prime minister. You'd be so good.
SPEAKER_02:You should be, we could get co-prime minister.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I would love that.
SPEAKER_02:Every day we do a podcast.
SPEAKER_01:We would do, we would. And then we would give everyone hugs. And then um I don't think we can hug everyone.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01:There'd be a lot of hugs. My arms would be. Yeah. And get sick. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
SPEAKER_02:Too many people took a string.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Exactly. Yes. Well, if you're new joining us, thank you so much. Please leave a review of what you thought of this episode. Also follow us on social media. We are on Instagram, TikTok, and Blue Sky. Um, and check out our website. We include all of our links to all of the information that we talk about. Just so you know that we're not pulling stuff out of our nose. We're credible. Um, and we are researched and masters level people. That's right. Immigrants get their masters. Um, and uh, but yes, please leave us a note, share us with your friends and family, and join us every Tuesday for you. Thank you, thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:It's written and produced in British Columbia, Canada by Hoshman How and Dream McCoy. Theme music is by Navera Abbott Young from Pixabay.
SPEAKER_03:This has been a good Janklin production.
