2024-04-25
52 分钟Justin Trudeau, facing record-low approval numbers, is doubling down on his progressive agenda. But he is so upbeat (and Canada-polite) that it’s easy to miss just how radical his vision is. Can he make it work?
Hey, there.
It's Stephen Dubner.
We recently published a three part series on immigration, mostly about the economics of immigration.
The first two episodes were focused on the US and part three on Canada, which has recently turned the volume way up on immigration.
They now take in half a million new permanent residents a year in a country of around 40 million.
For that episode, we interviewed a variety of people, including Canadas Immigration minister Mark Miller.
There is no doubt that we have.
Made a conscious decision to be an.
Open country and a country that needs to grow.
The reality is, we don't have much of a choice.
Miller's point was that Canada, like many high income countries, has an aging population and a need for more workers in many sectors of the economy.
We did ask Miller about the pressures that immigration is putting on Canada, especially when it comes to affordable housing, access to healthcare, and potential mismatches between immigrants and jobs.
But after we put out that episode, a lot of our canadian listeners wrote in to say the pressures were even greater than we knew, especially because Canada wasn't taking in just a half million new permanent residents a year, but nearly 700,000 international students and 750,000 temporary foreign workers.
So we decided to revisit some of these questions not with the minister of immigration, but with his boss, the prime minister.
You can invite half a million people into your home every year if you're Canada.
Today on free economics radio, my conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
And we go way beyond immigration.
We discuss whether to drill, baby, drill.
We talk about how Canada is reconciling its brutal history with its indigenous population.
We hear why Trudeau isnt a big cannabis user, even though he legalized it, and what he might do if he loses re election next year.