The majority of Canadians are not confident that refugees being admitted to the country from the Middle East are being adequately screened by the Liberals, according to a Leger poll released Thursday.
While a quarter of Canadians said that they were confident in the Liberals screening Gazan refugees for security risks, 64% said they were not.
Additionally, more Canadians said that they disagree with the Liberals increasing the number of Gazan refugees five times this year to a total of 5,000. 43% said they oppose the policy decision, while 41% support it.
The survey was conducted online between Aug. 23 and Aug. 25, about three weeks after an ISIS terrorist was arrested for allegedly planning an attack on Toronto’s citizens.
The Conservatives demanded an emergency meeting to determine how he was able to enter Canada.
“Canadians are learning a man who allegedly dismembered someone on video on behalf of ISIS immigrated to Canada on Trudeau’s watch,” said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Leger’s poll also revealed that 65% of Canadians feel the “current” immigration plan will admit too many immigrants. The question was prefaced by saying Canada would welcome 485,000 immigrants to Canada this year and admitted 470,000 in 2023. This is a misrepresentation of total immigration to the country, as it only considers permanent residents.
True North previously reported that Canada welcomes about 2.2 million immigrants annually after accounting for permanent residents, temporary foreign workers, international students, and illegal immigrants.
Despite often hearing flawed statistics, Canadians have become so opposed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mass immigration policies that he recently reversed his position, saying he would cut the number of permanent residents and drastically cut the temporary foreign worker program — both of which skyrocketed during his tenure.
Over half of respondents to Leger’s poll, 53%, said that Canadian companies should not be allowed to use the temporary foreign worker program to bring in low-wage and low-skilled employees.
Despite the new restrictions, Canada is still likely to surpass the number of temporary foreign workers in 2023.
Canadian citizenship and immigration lawyer Sergio Karas previously warned that Canada taking in Gazan refugees presents “serious security risks.”
“We don’t want to end up with somebody slipping through the cracks and then finding out that they have connections to Hamas or to any other terrorist organizations that are operating in Gaza,” he said.
A Mar. 2024 survey highlighted that 71% of Gazan and West Bank residents supported Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in over 1,200 Israelis being murdered — the biggest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Only 5% of Palestinians viewed the massacre as a war crime.
Various United States senators previously wrote a letter to the United States Department of Homeland Security requesting increased security across the Canada-United States border over concerns of unvetted Hamas terrorists making their way to Canada thanks to the Liberals’ resettlement efforts.
“Irrespective of Canada’s immigration policies, the U.S. should not waive common-sense terrorist screening and vetting for any individual entering the U.S. through other countries,” reads the letter.