David Suzuki is warning about a new threat to Canada’s environment: immigrants.
Speaking to the French newsweekly L’Express, Suzuki took on his usual targets, accusing Stephen Harper of being “anti-science,” condemning the “dismantling” of Canada’s environmental protections and praising Europe’s efforts to regulate carbon emissions.
But then the interview, published July 1, took a strange turn. When asked about Australian environmentalists opposing population growth and immigration, Suzuki responds: “I believe Canada is full as well!”
The interviewer, Jean-Michel Demetz, follows up by saying it’s “a little selfish to want to close the door behind you.”
To this, Suzuki replies that Canada does have a responsibility to help people “struggling to survive elsewhere. But there’s no more room.”
So why does Suzuki think that Canada is “full?”
There’s a bit of a hint earlier in the interview, when he tells Demetz that, “thanks to the immense size of the country and its limited population, our overall ecological footprint remains modest,” before adding that per capita, Canada’s emissions are “just behind the United States and well ahead of Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France - the last one through it’s qustionable choice to use nuclear power.”
But that’s not Suzuki’s only problem with Canada’s immigration system.
“Our immigration policy is disgusting,” Suzuki tells Demetz. “We plunder the South by depriving them of their future leaders and we want to increase our population to support the growth of our economy. This is crazy!”
Of course, this isn’t the first time Canada’s favourite grandfatherly TV host has seen his polished public image tarnished.
In January, he came under criticism for requesting an escort of “nicely dressed” “ladies (females)” while making a $40,000 speech at John Abbot College in Montreal.
[image via Flickr]