Paradigm Shift

Paradigm Shift: immigration

• Rob • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Rob & Jesse Discuss the Complex Issues surrounding immigration, How It Effects the Job Markets In Both Canada & The U.S. The Right Way & Wrong Ways Of Doing Things & How It Has Effected Both Countries, 


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SPEAKER_00

Welcome back to the program, guys. Welcome to the paradigm shift. Uh, I am Big Rob, of course, back with my partner Crime Jesse. What's going on, buddy?

SPEAKER_01

Hey, what's happening? Glad to be back. I know we uh missed an episode over the weekend, looking to make that one up and uh get busy offended.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we got some feelings to hurt, absolutely, and this one's gonna do some damage, I think, right? So hot topic issue, immigration, both illegal and legal. Man, what a touchy subject. Um, I kick things off from here in Canada. Uh, I'll start off with a little bit of a story to kind of get things going. Now we have in Canada a chain of coffee shops, whatever you want to call it. It's our version of Dunkin' Donuts in the States. It's Tim Hortons. You probably don't know if you've heard of them or not. They're massive. Massive in Canada, right? Uh, and it is a homegrown Canadian company. It is like Canadians, when they think of Canadian companies, Tim Horton is Tim Hortons is always at the top of the list, right?

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um, I mean, they they're one of the biggest sponsors for youth hockey in Canada, getting kids ready for you know, getting to the NHL and all that kind of stuff. Like Sidney Crosby and uh uh Nathan McKinnon are both spokesmen in Canada for Tim Hortons, right? Like they're massive, right? However, over the last few years, they've fallen under a lot of scrutiny. There's been a lot of backlash. My wife, for example, absolutely outright refuses to go to Tim Hortons ever again.

SPEAKER_01

That's anti-Canadian of her.

SPEAKER_00

It is, yes, absolutely. So she said, It's me or Tim Hortons, and I'm sitting here with my Tim Hortons coffee missing her. So there was a story that was being covered in Canadian news. Uh, there was an owner of a Tim Hortons here in Canada, and he started firing staff that had been there for like 14-15 years, started getting rid of them to hire immigrants because he could pay them less money, right? And they're and obviously at the end of the day, when you're coming to a new country, you know, probably legally, right? Even legally, you you want to, when you get a job, I would imagine, just from my own kind of perspective, I would want to make sure that I was under the good graces of whoever was owning the business and managing the business, no matter what, right? I would take loads of BS, loads of crap. I'm just happy to be here right now, right? That's that's my perspective on how I would kind of conduct myself, right? Um, and most of them do. Most of them are just happy to be here, man. Right? Just want to work my job. So the problem is Tim Hortons was doing that. They were firing Canadians and hiring all illegals, and this is this is becoming this has become a massive problem in Canada because sorry, not illegals. I'm sorry, legals, right?

SPEAKER_01

Immigrants, just immigrants, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, yeah, immigrants. Um now in saying that one of the biggest problems is that they're taking all of the jobs of the youth, right? Like when you get out of high school or you're in high school, you go for a job, you go to McDonald's, you go to Tim Hortons, right? You go to these, these big these they're they're entrance ways into the workforce for youth. They're not jobs you want to hold on to for the rest of your life, they're jobs for youth, you know, teenagers coming out of high school to gain experience and references and all that kind of stuff, right? That's those are entry points into the workforce. Well, all those jobs have been taken for the most part by immigrants. So that that creates a backlog of young people now who have um a really hard time getting a job, right? Because there aren't any. They're taking the the jobs for even like skip the dishes and Uber Eats and DoorDash, whatever you guys have in the States, right? Here it's skip the dishes and Uber Eats. And I don't think I've had a like a born and raised Canadian citizen deliver any of my food ever from one of those places. Ever. Okay, right. And listen, there's nothing wrong with that, but again, those are entry-level jobs for the youth in our country, right? So now the youth, all of their entry points into the workforce are are kind of taken up. So now they're in a position where they either have to know someone or their dad has to know someone for them to be able to even get a job, right? Because again, if you're an if you're uh an immigrant, you're gonna accept less wages and you're gonna take a lot more abuse from these owners and managers because you're just happy to be here at the end of the day. And that's that's what they like, right? It's unfortunate. So this is a big you know, kind of a stuck state cycle here in Canada, anyway, where uh you know it's created this massive problem. And I mean, there's more to get into, obviously, as we go along, but I want to get your take on on that. Is it the same where you are?

SPEAKER_01

Um maybe. Let me elaborate. So now uh obviously under Trump too, they've been like purging immigrants left and right. Both legal and illegal, both like like you're brown, you're out, you know. They're just they're just trying to throw this out, you know. Yeah, so um the way they're doing it is is not uh very questionably legal in the US. So it's very controversial, right? Now that being said, all the jobs that the illegal side used to take are all the jobs that Americans don't want. It's landscaper, right? The guy mowing lawns, like nobody wants that job. It was um the roofing company, nobody wants to get on a 130-degree roof and scrape, scrape that bitch off and be up there for you know all day long and do it day after day after no one wants that job, right? Um construction, you know, uh new home building. There, there's tons of that. Um, you know, there it's it's very specific kind of uh jobs here for that for most of those. Uh those are probably more on the illegal side, right? Now on the legal side, we do have some of that same problem where like if you go to like the grocery store, for example, um, you definitely see it there. You know, you see it, you see it in the fast food. Like you said, kind of those low bar, low bar, low barrier to entry kind of intro positions. Um they are definitely in them. And you know, like um my wife and I, we joke about this sometimes. That I used to, I had two great jokes that our our comedy specials, one was gonna be called You Me and No Money, and the other one was gonna be called Subway Never Called. Okay. I was in college, I applied to Subway. I I mean I was I was like, I'm like, look, I'm like, I am desperate. I'm like, I gotta get a job somewhere. Not even Subway would call me. And you know, I don't know if it's a product of just just more people going for these jobs or the fact that like like you can't even go in in person anymore and be like, hey, you know, this is this is my son, and he's looking for a job, and you're the owner, and he I think he would do great here, and he's got all these great qualities. Like, if you walked in and said that, they look at you like you may as well go, yeah, yeah, you may as well be like speaking like Chinese or something, you know, and they look at you like uh you need to go online and submit an application, but when you do that, it gets buried under like 10,000 other ones. And and you know, my my point in saying that is that all these kind of low barrier jobs, at the point of my life that I was supplying to those, I couldn't get any of them. Um, and I think it's probably even harder today because there's even more competition for them. And you know, the other thing is that the the global economy right now is being propped up by AI, everything else is floundering. So you're basically kind of in a recession. You've got more people in the job pool fighting for these jobs, right? Coming in from other countries where their options are jack shit, you know, they have nothing. So then they show up over here, and then like you said, then you know, your kid, for example, can't get a job, right? And I would I would say that's kind of how it is here. And and I would say that, you know, me personally, um, you know, I've I've had good and bad service um from all different, you know, colors, creeds of people. It it just sort of depends. But I would say that I think I think it comes down sometimes to the owner, right? Like you're talking about Tim Hortons. I'm assuming that's a franchise. Is that a franchise?

SPEAKER_00

Massive, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. So so basically every single franchise is run by a franchisee, and they may have one Tim Hortons, they may have 10, right? So that owner who's hiring, they're purposefully doing this, right? And I don't know if I told you this. I read a book maybe maybe a couple months ago that was arguing against um like affirmative action here in the U.S. It was really controversial because it it was kind of from a from a black perspective. And usually from from uh people who are black, they'll say, just sort of in general, like, well, you know, there's like systemic racism. And is there some truth in that? Sure, absolutely. But at the same time, is affirmative action the answer, right? And in the book, they kind of argued that, well, the lowering of academic standards to let you in the door uh puts you at a disadvantage because when you do get in the door, um anything that you accomplish is now kind of like marginalized. And likewise, if you got in the door and you weren't qualified, then when you graduate, you're not ready to go. And so it was kind of like this idea of kind of like quotas, right? Like in the university system, you see that a lot in the US, where you know they have to have so much certain minority groups. And this particular book was kind of arguing against that. And so my point in saying all this is that when you go back to the franchise ease at Tim Hortons, they may have something very similar uh to that. Like they may have some sort of requirement or something that they have to go by. And then when you go over there, you're like, What is this? Like, what is going on? Like, this isn't an accurate representation of the Canada that I know, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, here's the thing about Tim Hortons is that in Canada, the government has a targeted wage subsidy for immigrants, that's why they don't want to hire Canadians because well, why would I pay a Canadian citizen, like someone who was born and raised here, uh, when I can get subsidized to pay an immigrant to be here by the government? And Tim Hortons has taken full advantage of that across the board. They're probably saving billions of dollars nationwide by doing this right strategically. Uh as a business, it is what it is, right? But Canadians obviously have turned their backs on Tim Hortons as a result, and you also have this cycle, like you were talking about, of customer service has gone so far down the toilet, right, that it's not even funny. And this this I I had said earlier, my wife will not go to Tim Hortons anymore, right? And the reason is because you walk into a Tim Hortons, it's a coffee and donut place, right? Obviously, like Dunkin' Donuts, you've got the display case of all of the fresh donuts right there at near the till. You go into a Tim Hortons, you go up to the till, you look in that donut case, there are flies and wasps all over all the donuts, like all year round, summertime, it's 10 times worse, but there's like wasps flying around and stuff inside there, and you know, there's there's flies everywhere, and it's like, I'm not buying a donut from here. Are you crazy? Like, so that's why my wife won't go there anymore. And then also, when you walk in, there's five or six employees who are who are obviously immigrants to the country, right? And you walk up to the till and you'll stand there for 10 minutes at the till before someone comes up to ask you for your order. They all just are talking in their language, hanging out, and you know, then they come up at the till eventually and and take your order. And and and to further that, there's a you guys have 7-Elevens down in the States, right? Yeah, yeah, there's a 7-Eleven two blocks from my house, and again, all the staff there are immigrants. I go in, I get what I need, I come up to the counter, and the woman is, I don't know, she's counting lottery ticks, she's writing stuff down, right? Uh or she's out in one of the aisles counting things or whatever, right? And they'll literally sit there, they'll tell you, just give me five minutes. Right? Um, no, I will see what you're doing, come and serve the customer. Like, I'm not trying to be an arrogant ass, but what you want me to stand here and wait? Like, and most of the time when I'm in a store like that, I'm in a hurry. Yeah, you know, I'm stopping here for an energy drink on my way to church or something like that. You're like, oh, just give me 10 minutes while I count these candy bars. What? No, get your ass over here and work, you know. You've got a lineup of four people and you're counting fucking lottery tickets. They'll literally say, just give me a few minutes. I I'm beside myself. And here's the thing I don't blame them for it because I I strongly doubt that they have the concept down of what good quality customer service is. A lot of them aren't coming from retail positions and stuff like that, probably very little experience. So it's not necessarily their fault, right? But they should be trained that the customer, you you should be caring about the customer, right?

SPEAKER_01

So, okay, so I gotta ask you then is is the issue with kind of a systemic bad service experienced from the immigrant population, is is that kind of the the core of this? And then uh an add-on to that, I I would like to ask, is that if you were a franchisee and you had, let's say, 10 locations, what would you do?

SPEAKER_00

Well, that's exactly it. That's why to get your second question first. Uh, that's why I said earlier, I get it, running a business, the incentives are there from the government. Why would you you would be stupid in terms of business to not take advantage of those incentives?

SPEAKER_01

You almost have you have to do it at the end of the day. A business is there to make money, and and when you start multiplying locations, all those dollars add up, all those subsidies, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly. So I don't necessarily put all the I don't put any of the blame on the companies for taking advantage of uh subsidy opportunities that the government is providing. I put the blame on the government for providing those subsidies in the first place. You're incentivizing um companies to not hire Canadian citizens, and they're not going to as a result, right? Like people who are from here, right? They because if you just if you don't put those subsidies in, well, then the best candidate gets the job, period. There's no favoritism, one way or the other, right? Whoever's good is good. Uh, and then your first question, I blame in terms of the customer service and all that stuff. I don't put the blame on the individuals who are coming in and working these jobs. I put the blame on lazy management and ownership. For one, they're trying to save money by paying these people less. And for two, obviously, if you're bringing someone in and you want to pay them less with subsidies and stuff like that, you have to make sure they're trained properly in customer service and they're just not doing it. Right? That's where I think the problem is ownership and management, right? Bring them in, hire hire immigrants. That's not a big deal. Train them properly. Because they don't know, and then they get people yelling at them, and people are mad at them for something they were never taught.

SPEAKER_01

And how how frustrating is it when you're just going to get a donut and you can't you can't do that, right? There's a wasp sitting on it. Hey, uh, I have a really funny donut story. Um, not related to that, but sort of. Um, I I had a house kind of in a yuppier part of town that I lived in at one point in time, and there was a Dunkin' Donuts, right? Like you said, the American equivalent of Tim Horton's Dunkin' Donuts. So I go there, it's like, you know, Saturday or Sunday morning, and uh uh while I'm there, like line builds up behind me. It's it's nearly out the door of all these people. Everybody wants to get their donuts, right? And so, you know, there's maybe one or two people in front of me. I finally get up, get up there, and I'm like, whew, like this is quite a line. I'm glad I got here when I did, you know. So I I order, you know, half a dozen donuts, whatever. And I'm I'm kind of pointing out to the girl, and the girl was like a you know, a high schooler, in this case, not an immigrant, but a high schooler, right? And uh, and I'm pointing out my various donuts, and I get five of them done, and I go to number six, and I say, and I'll take the apple fritter. She goes, That's not a donut.

SPEAKER_00

You want to have this argument with me right now?

SPEAKER_01

I was like, I was like, okay, uh, potato potato, throw the fucking apple fritter in the goddamn box. And she was like, I I can't do that. I'm always like, Okay, let's try this again. I will pay the extra 10 cents for the goddamn apple fritter.

SPEAKER_03

Give me the fritter.

SPEAKER_01

And she was like, I I I can't I can't compute. And I was like, Are you serious? Like, you want to pick this fight with a line out the door. And and she was like, I I I can't do it. You have to get that separately. And I was like, I'm not getting a goddamn apple fritter separately, throw it in the fucking box. Like, I don't get shit. Just throw it in there. Yeah, bill me, you know, whatever. And she couldn't, she couldn't figure it out. And I was like, This is absolutely insane. I was like, you know what? Just just give me my five fucking donuts. I'm leaving.

SPEAKER_00

Wow, unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And that goes to a lack of training again, right?

SPEAKER_01

Well, well, you know, it's kind of it goes to like just common sense, right? Okay. So first of all, you know, that there's the old adage that the the customer's always right. Okay. Secondly, whether your company uh classifies an Apple Fritter as a donut or not, me as a customer, I don't, I don't fucking care. Just throw it in the box. Just charge, charge me the difference. Whatever it is. I don't even care. Just throw it in there, you know. And the fact that she like just couldn't compute, it was it, you know, like I I've got this uh this line about there there's people that can sort of like um think outside the box, and then you have the box checkers, and it's it's two groups of people, right? And the box checkers, when you go like, hey, I want to go from A to C, they're like, but we didn't hit B. I'm like, I don't give a shit. I want to go from A to C. Let's make it happen, let's build a bridge, you know. And they're like, What? And you sit there and you go round and round and round, and eventually, you know, I never got my apple fritter, you know, some more old story.

SPEAKER_00

Still bitter about that apple fritter.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I left them a shit review on Google. I was like, oh, this damn Duncan has lost their minds. I don't know what's going on over here.

SPEAKER_00

I will have satisfaction. I don't think I've ever actually left a review, good or bad, on any bit. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But but anyway, it it was it was bad service, was what it was, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um, so then you get to the you know, I I don't know as much as I should about what's going on with ice and stuff like that. Um I know that there's been some extremes from what I'm hearing. Um and you know what? A clip came a clip came through on my newsfeed, I think, on X a few weeks ago, and it really, really it pissed me off. Because so it was like these rows of barbed wire, and it was this woman crawling, and they've got cardboard between her and the barbed wire, right? And she's crawling, and in one hand, she's got an infant, right? Like a like a can't even walk but can crawl age, right? I don't know what that would be one, whatever, right? Yeah, she's carrying this this this baby, and she and she, you know, she's putting the baby down, the baby's trying to crawl through, and so and you look at this view, and and you know, like I guess the impact was supposed to be, you know, fucking American governments and Trump and you know, like making this stuff happen. But then I, you know, I I didn't that's not what came to my mind. What came to my mind is this fucking irresponsible woman carrying putting this baby in this fucking situation, right? Like, I don't know what her position is, I don't know whether she can't get citizenship, she doesn't want to wait. I don't know what what it is, but to put a baby in that fucking situation and then put it on somebody else as it's their fault because they're trying to enforce you you gotta have border laws in a country, otherwise, we don't have countries, we just have fucking land everywhere, everyone just goes wherever they want, like you know, and there's I don't understand, I guess, the argument, and maybe I'm just not educated enough in it at the end of the day, but I don't understand the argument of if you want to come into a country, Canada, US, I'll speak on, they have a process to do that. Yeah, why are you not going through that process? Why are you crawling with an infant under fucking barbed wire?

SPEAKER_01

Right? Think of it like this: like if you were going to somebody's house, are you gonna go to the front door or are you gonna go to like the bathroom window and break it out and try and snake your way through there?

SPEAKER_00

Crawling through the doggy door in the backyard.

SPEAKER_01

I mean that that that's kind of what this is, you know, and I I think so. Going going to ice for a second, some of the ice thing things in the US are really controversial because they're targeting people who are here legally, who are here on like these asylum status, who are literally at their immigration hearing, and now you're gonna arrest them. And not only are you arresting them, but you're sending them somewhere that they've never been. Like, hey, you know, we're we're picking you up and you're going to the Central African Republic, you know, and they're like, but I'm from Mexico. And it's like, dude, we don't care. It's like, okay, probably not the best idea, right? So now on a side note, this is interesting. So I had this this uh coming to my YouTube feed, this was like a year or two ago, this guy that he randomly decided he he kind of had this novel idea that he wanted to um what do they call that? Terascape. He wanted to terascape an arid environment. So basically, dead land he wants to bring back to life, right? And there's there's different examples of this, like all over the world, where people have done this in places and it's pretty cool and they can pull it off, right? So what was interesting is in this video, um, I'm not I'm not uh sure how familiar you are with the state of Texas, but it's in Texas, okay? He lives in like Dallas Fort Worth, which is you know hours from the the southern border with Mexico, right? But he buys a property right on the border, and it's like dead land. And so he's like, you know, I'm gonna bring it back to life, and I'm I'm gonna get a well, and you know, I'm gonna plant seeds and we're gonna put trees and we're gonna bring this thing back to life. And that's the whole idea, right? And so he's kind of like filming just just how difficult this idea is. It's insanely difficult. Like it's super far away. He's gotta like you know, tow in heavy equipment. It's it's just ridiculous. But what's crazy, so he gets this piece of land that's right on the border, it's multiple acres, right? And uh what he quickly starts to realize is like, oh, here comes one, there comes another one, here comes another one. Like, like these guys just like like no shit, just like kind of coming through coming over the border, however they got through, who knows? But they're like just sort of wandering. They don't speak English, they don't know where they are, like, like in terms of just like kind of like you're saying with the lady with the baby, just recklessness, like this is colossally reckless. You could easily die out there and no one's ever gonna find you, you know? And so what was crazy was he bought the property to Terascape it, but he ended up putting in like a little almost like a little outpost type thing, where at night he put like a like a light on it and and he filled up like a cooler with some water, and he and he he put a like a solar camera on it just to see what would happen, you know. And no shit, the thing looks like a bus stop. Like there's there's like 15 to 20 people there, and they're they're all just kind of like I don't know where the hell I'm at, and they're you know, and they all look like exhausted and they don't know what they're doing or why. It's like this this is pure insanity. I think that's crazy, you know. The people that are taking those risks, and likewise, like where I'm at in Florida, we get a lot of uh you well, at least we used to, we get like a lot of like uh immigrants that would come over on a boat from like um Haiti or Cuba, and and and when that boat sinks, guess what? They all die, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, from my understanding as well, the states has a fast track system, from what I understand, uh, because the the one of the arguments is, well, you know, you don't know what they're running from and stuff. Well, from what I understand, the states has a fast track process where if you are actually have a legitimate reason to be scared, right, that that your life is in danger, if you go back to your country, they're going to kill you, right? Doesn't the states have like an like an amnesty kind of program as well? So it's not necessarily, well, you have to sit there and fill file paperwork and wait before maybe you'll get killed, right? There's there's ways that the states have of protecting you as well, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. That's like asylum. So, like a good example of that would be like Syria. You know, Syria is like a bombed-out Mad Max wasteland now, and there's a lot of immigrants that have immigrated all over the world, and some of them have come to the US and they come under that asylum status that they're fleeing a war-torn country.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, it's so I mean there's a process for just about everything. At the end of the day, you just, you know, and I guess well, some people, you know, can't go through the process because they have criminal records. Well, you don't understand the fact that the government doesn't want to let you know, people with criminal pass into the country, right? Like, I mean, that makes sense to me. It's you know, I don't know. I just I think that there's processes, and I think people should just use them at the end of the day. That's that's why they're there. No one is saying you can't come into the country, they're saying go through the proper channels, become legal. Why would you not want to be legal? Why would you not why would you want that hanging over your your you know, looming over you forever that at any minute ice can come and just boom, you're gone back to where you came from, right? Why wouldn't you want to have that paperwork saying, hey, I'm here legally, man? Like I'm like I'm an American citizen, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That's I don't know. In the past, I don't I think ice came about after 9-11. Um, it's part of the Patriot Act, believe it or not, that that's that's where ICE comes from. And it's it's kind of turned into this monstrosity at the moment that's sort of run amuck. But I agree with you 100% that it's like the laws are there to follow, right? And you need to immigrate the proper way. And you know, like most most of the people that are are in the US by two, three, four, five generations, um, a lot of us, you know, our our um ancestors came through Ellis Island, New York. That's that's where they they that's the front door, you know. So it's like if you're coming in on a boat or you know, you're running under the barbed wire, like what the hell are you doing? And likewise with Canada, I don't even know how this works with Canada. Like, how do you how how do they come into Canada? Like, what's how's that work?

SPEAKER_00

Funny story. Um, I about I don't even know how long ago, years ago, a few years ago, I was working at a uh a grain elevator, like a mill, right? And it was on it was in Ontario, it was on it was right on Lake Superior. So these massive grain ships would come in uh from the ocean, from overseas, right? And they would come through the Great Lakes and they would come up to Lake Superior and they would uh they would buy grain and stuff like that, like the grain elevator, they'd dump all the grain into the massive cargo ships, and so they'd come in. And and I I was working security there, and um, I was younger, and so I'm in this this little hut, this house, whatever, nice little place. Um, and when the people come off the boat, they have to come to my security uh place, and they have to just sign a logbook, you know, where they're from, sign their name. They don't have to show ID or anything like that, just sign their name, they're out, and then they then they go drive into the city, right? Which is like 15 minutes down the road or whatever. They drive into the city, they're in Canada. There's I'm I was the screening process for ships coming into the country, and me and my logbook, there was no search, there was no nothing, and these ships were coming in from China and everywhere, right? And a lot of people coming off the ships didn't speak English or anything. And I I I I remember I was talking to my father about it, and I was telling him, he's like, I'm like, they put they put all of this emphasis on the border, uh like the roads and the airlines and all this kind of stuff. Meanwhile, you can just hop on a cargo ship on a grain ship from China, come into the country through the Great Lakes, no screening process except for you know a 28-year-old security guard with a binder that you got assigned. You got they got backpacks and stuff like that. I don't we don't search their bags or nothing. I don't know what they're carrying into the country, right? Like, yeah, they can give you a fake name, you wouldn't know. Yeah, I I don't check that there's no IDs, there's no process for checking their IDs or anything.

SPEAKER_01

So even if they give you an ID, how do you know it's real?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and like I know it sounds absurd because it is. Like, I I like I said, I was talking about Gaddaways like this is ridiculous. I said, I know I'm I am our country's last line of defense the grain elevators, holding it down, yeah. Sleep tight. I'm like Batman, I guess, right? Yeah, that's funny. It was it was that ridiculous and absurd, and you know, uh, so they put so much emphasis on like the airlines and stuff like that. Meanwhile, you can just do something like that, and God knows what they're bringing into the country as well.

SPEAKER_01

So let me tell you a story kind of kind of from my side, you know. I like to bring up some of these corporate stories. So this is from corporate America. So in the IT world of corporate America, it's usually um a lot of Indian people from you know the country India, right? And 60 Minutes did a story on this a few years ago, and there's like four main universities, I guess, that just churn out IT people, like computer IT, like that's like their big export outside of like Bollywood, right? Is these these these IT people that go through India. And so what was interesting was that at our company, you know, I would say for the IT department, easily 80, 85 percent is Indian. And only only that small fraction is not. And one of the guys told me at one point, he said, he said, you know what? When um these people come through and you know, they're on their green card or whatever, they're here temporarily, their visa, whatever. Um, he said, you know, we actually have no way of verifying what they're telling us in their resume. Yeah. Like, and he said, he said, we don't, we don't call on any of this, we don't, we don't spot check anything. We just sort of take their word for it that they're telling us the truth. And then these per particular positions in the IT world pay higher than your average employees also. And so, like in the US, it kind of turned into a huge problem where you had these seasoned Americans that are training their replacement who's coming in on a resume that no one's verified. You don't know if it's real or not. And then the other interesting part about it is like in the corporate world, you'll be involved on like a software rollout for whatever system, right? For years, it'll take three, four, five years, three to five years, let's say, right? Any software, any area of the department. There's like multiple software things always going at once, right? And so what happens is that when you have this IT team that is here temporarily, at some point they got to go home, but the project isn't done. So now we got a replacement, and they don't know what what the last guy did. So it turns into like this this weird thing where by the end of the the project, by the end of completion, it's a completely different team. And it's like, is this actually what we wanted? And everyone's like, I don't think so. And then like like the shit's constantly breaking, like all like non-stop. There's always something broken. And uh, like I had one of the directors tell me, he's like, Yeah, it's like a game of whack-a-mole. Every time we hit it down over here, it pops up over there. I'm like, oh great, okay, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00

Jeez, yeah. Yeah, and that's you know, that's one of the problems, but um, all in all, then we get into um we get into here in Canada was a controversial issue. Uh they were letting in the liberals were letting in so many immigrants and trying to allow them to vote immediately, right? Voter manipulation, right? Of course they're gonna vote for whoever lets them in, right? So then there's that, right? Um there's there's fears. I've I've heard fears of people saying that you know they're they're bringing in so many, uh, for example, like you said, Indians and stuff like that, that eventually are we gonna end up with somebody in the country uh who who immigrated here because we're not we're not like I don't uh from my understanding, we're not like the states. You don't have to be born in Canada to be the prime minister of Canada. I know in the states you have yeah, you have to be in the states, you have to be born in America, right?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_00

Um, so what happens if you get some, I mean, that's the biggest fear, you get somebody who immigrates in ends up getting all the votes because we've let in so many immigrants, and then we have somebody from India running our country or wherever else, right?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think on that front it depends on the individual. So let me give you an example. If I gave you the choice between Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's born in Austria, that's a that's a fucking no-brainer, Arnold Schwarzenegger. No brainer.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, but we can't pick him because he's not economic don't be an economic goody mode.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, he did the leadership speech a few months back where he was talking about the Conan sword, and that was like one of the best speeches I think I've ever heard in my life. And it's it's an act, it is a travesty that that guy cannot run for president here, and I have this fucking dipshit who's in office now who is completely out to lunch, but I can't vote for Arnold. So my point is is that I think on some of that stuff it depends on the individual. Now, I I can see what you're saying about like maybe what you're tapping into is like lobbyists, right? Like, like you get these these influential groups, like one of the big problems in the US is APAC, okay? So that's the Israeli lobby. That it's it's the they pay more than anybody, like the entire government is on APAC's payroll. Everybody. Like that's a problem. So like in the US, all like the regular people like me are just kind of like, why are we blindly following Israel into Armageddon and Iran? And it's like, well, just because it's like, what? No, you know, and there's like all these, there's like memes the question to bigot. Yeah, there's memes like like Netanyahu's like, yeah, we love it when you know the Americans die first, you know, and it's like, what are we doing here? But but you know, that's where like the lobby is very powerful. And I mean that could that could happen anywhere. Like, you know, when I think of uh immigration, one country that really stands out to me that is is kind of questionable how it's gone is France, right? So I don't know if you remember like a couple years ago when France kept having terrorist attacks, right? And like one of them was the it was like the the paper that did a cartoon of Mohammed that's like against I mean, you just don't do this, period. And of course they did it, and then like like 20-some people got murdered at the paper, right? And then they had the uh there was a terrorist attack at a concert hall that killed over a hundred people, and each time it happens, they're usually immigrants from like North Africa that have immigrated to France, and all the French people are like, This isn't the France that I remember, but we're literally letting in like anyone, and it's like out of control now, you know.

SPEAKER_00

I have another story for you. Um, I don't know if you remember or not, but I used to uh manage a nightclub, right? A few years back. Yeah, and so I needed to hire some security guys, some new bouncers. I hired three guys, coincidentally, and they were all from Ukraine. This was when we were getting the influx of you know uh immigrants from Ukraine because of the whole Russia-Ukraine thing kind of kicked off. And um, so just so happened, three guys, one at a time, right? They didn't know each other or anything. I just I was interviewing people and I hired them. And um, they were there, they were here on uh they didn't have citizenship yet, right? But they were in the process of getting citizenship, and part of it was they had to have a job. You have to have a job at all times to get you know throughout the whole process because the process can take two or three years, right? And then every year they have to uh renew or whatever and keep going with the process or whatever. So anyway, I gave them jobs to kind of try to help them, you know, with this process. I'll tell you at first, man. Ukrainian uh bouncers from nightclubs, they don't mess around in Ukraine. These guys they came in and holy smokes, because they're used to guns and knives and all kinds of stuff coming into their bars, right? And so these guys were like hard ass when they came in. And I've been running security in nightclubs for over 25 years, so I was like, my policy is any night I can go home that I didn't have to get into a fight is a good night, right? So it they were very hard around the edges to kind of smooth them out and realize that every time someone gave them a little bit of mouth, they didn't have to slam their face in the pool table and you know, throw them out the door. Sometimes walk away, right? Fuck you too, and we walk away, right? Like it is what it is, yeah, yeah. And um, as long as they're not hurting anybody or anything, just you know, I I I got a tolerance level, so uh, you know, but they were good, really, really good dudes, and you know, one of them in particular, um I couldn't say his name in Ukraine, so he's like, just call me Jack with his accent, just call me Jack. Okay, Jack. So I call him Jack. And um he he uh when I ended up resign like retiring, he uh he had contacted me and he needed reference and uh he needed advice because he got his citizenship. He got it, right? And he was so excited he wanted to join the military.

SPEAKER_01

Really?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but he didn't know which branch of military he wanted to join, you know, uh air, land, or sea, right? Do you want to join the army, do you want to join the navy, um, or the air force? So I I talked to him a little bit on the phone about it, and I told him, well, one of my best friends I grew up with, he's been in the Navy for almost 20 years now, right? And I mean, they pay for your education, uh, all of your training, and I mean, you the whole time you're in the Navy here. In Canada, anyway, you can continue to get as many qualifications and go to school as much as you want. You can leave here with, like, you know, you could be qualified to do 10 different careers, right? From firemen to whatever you want, right? They'll train you on all of them. It's free. Your education's free as long as you're in the military. You don't have students. Yes, right. So, you know, he asked me which one would be best, and I said, Well, from everything my friend has told me, because my friend will call me from you know from from uh out out east all the time and tell me, you know, we do video calls and stuff, and tells me all about the navy and you know how great it is. And he told me, he said, you know, if there's a war, right, and Canada has to go, the Navy is always the last to be called in from Canada, anyway. He says Navy's always last, right? So you whole you Canada could be involved in a war, and the Navy might not get involved at all, right? So he's like, that's the safest route, right? And um, so I told my friend that. And you're I told him all about the education and stuff, uh, the the guy Jack from Ukraine, right? And uh then he he messaged he texted me about uh two months ago and uh told me that he had uh he had taken my advice, he joined the Navy, and he was absolutely loving it, right? And he's getting his education and his training, and just thanked me up and down about you know helping him through this entire process from getting a job to help him getting his citizenship to joining the military and all that stuff. Now he's building a career for himself, he's he's got his citizenship, and you know, why can't more people just do that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's really cool. He's a contributor now, right? Yeah, and he's getting an education, right? Everything he's and he's doing it the right way, he's not taking on debt, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he's he's set for for the rest of his life as a Canadian citizen. He's good, he has a career in the military and in the navy. When he leaves the navy, when he retires, he's gonna get a pension and benefits, and he's qualified to start a new career in in society. He's got no student loans or anything to worry about, right?

SPEAKER_01

And so yeah, I I I got a uh segue on that. So here in the US, um, at least around me, there's a there's a lot of uh in our areas Albanians, okay, so like Bosnian, Albanian, etc. And um it's really interesting. So I didn't I didn't have much experience with them until I bought my most recent house. We had to do all this construction and all this shit gang. And uh what's what's fascinating about this group is they do everything with cash. Everything is cash. Okay, I don't know if you have this issue in in Canada, but over here, everything's cash, and every one of these guys has like a wad of cash in their in their pants, like at all times, right? And you know, I'm starting to catch on. I'm like, okay, so they do everything in cash. So basically on their taxes, they make it look like they don't make anything, right? Now, yes, they're paying things like sales tax, stuff like that, okay, fine, but they're not paying like, you know, for social security, they're not paying federal income tax, all this shit that me and all the dumbasses in corporate America are all we're all just locked in the matrix, plugged in, paying away, you know, our whole careers. We're paying all this shit. And so the the what happens though is all these people that are living on cash end end up getting way ahead of the the citizens who have been here that think think you're doing the right thing, you know, by by joining the workforce or whatever. And then this group's over here, and literally everything's paid off. Their cars are paid off, their houses are paid off, they'll come in as a group. You know, usually it it's more of like a group mentality. So, like your standard American family, like let's say if there was like three kids, the three kids would move out at some point, and maybe one of them comes back later. But in this family, they all just live in the same house because that house is paid off. Everything's paid off. And so the point is, is they they get way ahead financially, but then they don't actually carry the tax burden because they're kind of like gaming the system.

SPEAKER_00

Well, there is a there is a big problem now that you mention it with um the trucking industry in Canada and the the Indians that are coming into the c to the country. Because what happens is they get one who is illegal, who is legal, not illegal, who is a legal immigrant, right? They're here legally, and they'll get uh they'll go in and they'll get a uh license to operate uh semi, right? And I I remember I was I was uh driving cross country and I pulled over at a Husky truck stop to get gas, and this semi pulled over, and like eight of them got out of the semi, right? Because what they do is they just pass the driver's license around, right? Like eight dudes will get out so that and then they just they they do that because they can just keep driving then. They don't have to one guy doesn't have to pull over. Now in Canada that's illegal because you have to have books, you have to have your schedule, you have to pull over every eight hours uh and and rest. I think for at least I can't remember how long, of like three to five hours or something like that, right? Yeah, and you have to have a logbook, and if you get pulled over, you have to present that logbook to the cops to show that you are you know doing that. So a lot of truckers they'll keep two sets of books, right? And they'll they'll do it that way, and they'll have eight guys in the truck, and so it's the truck's just going non-stop. They don't pull over for eight hours to get sleep or anything, they just sleep in the truck. And what's happening is um like I went in and I was taking a test at uh at uh MPI, which is like the DMB here, right? You go in for your driver's licenses stuff, and there was a there was an Indian guy in the booth next to me taking a test to be a semi-truck driver, and he's sitting there, he's got his phone out, and he's looking up the answers to all the questions on the test. And I'm just sitting there like, what the fuck is going on here? No one's watching this guy, like he's just googling the answers to the tests, and then yeah, and then he passes and he gets a license. Like, but what's happening is we're starting to get um because they're not passing and getting actual driver's licenses and as operators of these semis, we're getting a lot of deaths on the on the inner on the highways and stuff like that, right? Because they're killing people because they don't know how to operate these vehicles. There's a clip that went viral, I believe, around the Toronto area. This Indian was driving a semi, and you know, they got the camera on him as he's driving, they got the camera on the outside, and he just there's a there's a traffic jam on on the expressway, and he just plows through like 15 vehicles, killing like God knows how many people, and he's just nonchalantly trying to stop the truck. He wasn't in a panic or anything like that, and and it was just like like what the fuck, man! Like, clearly, this guy did not have a license to be operating that vehicle. Someone just gave him the quick rundown, and he crushed like 15 vehicles in a bumper-to-bumper situation. That the video was going viral here in Canada. Another guy a couple years ago, uh, it was a four-way, it was a there was like a stop. He was coming onto the highway, right? It's like a four-way stop, he's coming down this road, and he didn't stop at stop sign, and he plowed right through a uh school bus full of uh it was a hockey team, uh, kids' hockey team killed all the kids on the bus. All of them died. It was a couple years ago. The whole fucking hockey team, right? What was the consequence? He got shipped back to his country because he was an illegal and didn't have a license. So there was no justice for those families. He didn't go to prison where he came from, they just shipped him home again. So, what would happen to you if you just blew a stop sign and ran through a school bus full of you know teenage hockey players? Probably manslaughter in a best case scenario, right? Yeah, you'd be in jail for the rest of your life. So they can just come here, they you know, they kill somebody and they just get sent back home.

SPEAKER_01

Something kind of interesting with that also is like and you know, I I don't know if you saw that if it's like this in Japan where you were recently, or if you've seen this elsewhere in the world, but in a lot of countries the road rules are just sort of loose. It's kind of like, yeah, there's a path and take the car that way. Like, like there's no traffic lights, there's no signs, there's no road lines, no one gives a shit. Oh, in the flow of traffic, yeah, yeah. They just sort of like lightly beat the horn, they go and then they they go wherever they need to go. And then there's there's literally no rules. So then when they come over to like North America, it's totally different, you know. That's like, yes, there are rules, and yes, you need to follow them, and you need to pay attention. I mean, like I, you know, you said about the guy that like plowed into people, you know. I I know we had one of those here recently too, and it was the same story of like, you know, the guy was like illegal, he was a truck driver, and he just plowed into and you know killed like a whole family.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's you know, and it's all again a the point in that is that it's it all relates back to not going through the legal processes of all of these things, whether it's coming into the country, getting your fucking license to operate a semi or whatever the case might be, there's reasons that these training and and processes exist because otherwise you have people plowing through school buses and and not knowing how to stop in a traffic jam and killing families and stuff like that, right? Like these these processes exist for a reason and it's to save lives. And when people get bent out of shape and say if you demand that somebody go through the proper proper channels and processes to do things legally, then you must be a racist or you must be whatever. You're fucking idiot, right? Like people die when these things are not done properly. You'd feel differently if it was your family who got run through behind by a semi from an illegal immigrant in the country who didn't have a license to operate a semi. You'd feel pretty fucking different about it then, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know, interesting story. Um, when I was in high school, this is like one of two axe car accidents I've been in my whole life, right? I the way I would go to high school, I would have to make this left turn. And the there was always oncoming traffic, there was no stop sign, and I don't I don't even know if there was a light there. It was like you just kind of had to make this left, right? And if you made the left within 50 feet, there was a railroad crossing. And so all the students every day, we would all, you know, everybody is kind of like flooring it to make the left turn to get to the other side, right? But if the train randomly comes, the gates go down, and then everyone slams the brakes, and you get you get stuck. And so people would always get stuck out in the road. And I had been driving at that time for, I don't know, three months or so. And sure enough, I went to go one day, all of a sudden everybody slams the brakes, trains come in. The the back half of my car was sticking out in the road, right? And in the area where um my uh high school was, you know, there was a lot of uh illegal immigrants that would like pick vegetables and stuff like that, right? So there was a guy driving a truck from like a hundred feet away that literally just drove straight into me, right? Like he he could see me there the whole time, drove straight into me, you know, totaled, totaled the vehicle. And I challenged it in court, right? And I said, you know, I was basically already across and he should see me slow down, know that there's the train holding us up. It's literally, you know, how like you know, thousands of students get to school every day. And and so when I challenged it, he never showed up. And they said, Yeah, he was an illegal immigrant, and like there was no record of him or nothing. And so my my car was totaled, but then the the whole thing got thrown out, you know. So it was like, yeah, you don't get any points. Well, thanks for the consolation, but but now my car's like toast, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's funny, it's not a coincidence, right? No, and again, a victim of somebody else who didn't go through the proper legal processes, and you were victimized as a result, right? Your car was destroyed, you had to go buy a new car, right? Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

It's uh here's a grievance. I got a grievance for you. I don't know if if you have a similar scenario in Canada, you may. So one of my grievances that I've I've realized as I've gotten older is I fall into the demographic of white, middle-aged male that I quote, make too much money to ever get any benefits, but I don't make enough to break out of you know the matrix, right? Being plugged into the matrix.

SPEAKER_00

You're in the sweet spot. What's that? You're in the sweet spot.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yeah. I I'm kind of in like the stuck area, right? And what what we realized, you know, when we're looking at like like, okay, what about like starting up a business? And you know, you need like a business plan. And in the US, they have the small business administration, the SBA loans, there's things like that, right? Well, you know who qualifies for all this shit? It's it's the immigrants. They all qualify because they're all flush with cash, because again, they're not paying any taxes anywhere, right? And then they come in it kind of like you said, it's usually like a group, right? So, like somebody has like a house that like everybody from that town, when they come to the US, they all live in that house at some point in time, and then they eventually kind of go out from there. But the point is, is that they end up getting all these, all these benefits. But me, like somebody who's trying to do it by the book, trying to follow the rules, trying to contribute, I somehow don't ever qualify because I'm not marginalized in any way, shape, or form according to the government. And therefore, the other group is the one that's like getting ahead where they've got you know paid off gas stations, paid off liquor stores. Again, it's all cash, it's all under the table, nobody's paying taxes on shit, but I am you're a middle-aged white man, you're the devil.

SPEAKER_00

White devil, right? Yeah, white devil. What do they call him on uh ace ventura? Uh Quinciocha or whatever, white devil. Yeah, white devil. Uh we're it seems like uh we're this is gonna have to be another one that we uh that we cover again because there's just so much to dive into. Um yeah, and I'm running out of time today, brother. So I'm gonna have to wrap this one up at an hour. Uh what are your closing thoughts?

SPEAKER_01

My closing thoughts is it's complicated, right? It really is kind of across the board. There's pros, there's cons, there's a right way to do it, a wrong way to do it, there's enforcement that should be done the right way, there's the wrong way, and it's a mixed bag all across uh all across the board. And I think kind of going back to that story that I gave you earlier about the guy that wanted to tear up farm his property on the border. I mean, I don't think most people realize stuff like that happens every day, that there's just these these people, and and it's a liability, truthfully, because where are they going? How are they absorbed in? You know, like who's who's paying for this? How how are you how does this work? Like, I understand you pay sales tax, but you're not paying income tax, you're not paying into social security, like here in the US, that's a big deal. I mean, it's huge safety net that's going to be bankrupt like within a decade, you know. So it, you know, there's a lot of strains that you need to do it the right way, and then likewise, you know, for the people that are trying to do the right thing, there should be a path for them too. But there isn't, right? Because we're all stuck.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, like we often like we often say on this channel, guys, on this podcast, a lot of topics we talk about. There's a lot of intricacy to it, there's a lot of uh detail that gets left out, and as always, we would encourage you to table the conversation and not try to glaze over these types of situations with a an I'm right, you're wrong stance, because you know, uh two things can both be right at the same time, right?

SPEAKER_01

They can. What what you're touching on is nuance. There's a lot of nuance within that discussion, and when somebody just says it's this or it's that, that's not true. It's it's gray, the whole thing's gray, and you sort of need to be able to make decisions along the way in it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so uh that's what we that will that's what I would like to leave you guys with is just you know don't be closed-minded to uh somebody else's perspective because at the end of the day, somebody else's perspective might help shine a light on something you might not have thought of, right? So uh, but we will be back to offend you again on uh Sunday.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, and and I gotta say, I I'm uh open to bashing Tim Hordons whenever you would like.

SPEAKER_00

Let's get him as a channel sponsor.

SPEAKER_01

Likewise, if Duncan would like customer service training, I'm open for that job as well. You will train your staff, yes. Yes, I know what an apple fritter is, it's a donut.

SPEAKER_00

Put the fritter in the bag. Uh all right, guys. Well, this concludes another episode. Make sure you hit the five star review. Support us, uh, be greatly, greatly appreciated, guys. Thank you to our um our our viewers who or listeners who continue to listen every week. It's greatly, greatly appreciated. Big Rob signing out.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you again. See you next time.