Justin Trudeau Defends Immigration Record While Emphasizing Shared Values Over Common Ancestry
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s former prime minister, has acknowledged that his Liberal government allowed immigration levels to spiral out of control following the COVID-19 pandemic, but he continues to defend immigration as essential to the country’s future. Speaking at an event in Finland, Trudeau argued that successful integration depends not on common ancestry but on shared values.
Immigration Balance Admitted as a Mistake
Trudeau delivered his remarks during a fireside chat with Finnish journalist Jaako Loikannen at Suomi Areena, an annual public debate and social discussion forum held in Pori, Finland. The conversation covered a wide range of topics, including the state of global democracy, Canada’s role in it, and Trudeau’s own political legacy.
Loikannen highlighted the fact that the federal government under Trudeau had to acknowledge it had allowed immigration to grow beyond what the country could manage in response to labor shortages caused by the pandemic. “We didn’t quite get the balance right,” Trudeau admitted, referring to his October 2024 statement after two years of record-breaking immigration created significant pressure on housing and labor supply.
The Key to Integration: Shared Values
With Finland, like many European countries, debating its own immigration policy amid rising irregular migration, Loikannen asked what lessons could be learned from Canada’s experience.
“The key to immigration is the ability to integrate people into your society,” Trudeau told the audience gathered in a public park. “In a very different world, it is increasingly important to define a country by shared values rather than common ancestry.”
Trudeau said Canada was experiencing similar debates about immigration to those taking place across Europe. He concluded that giving people “a stake in the country’s success” was crucial to successful integration. “This is how immigration succeeds, and this is the challenge that we must all address in a very difficult and complicated time,” he said.
Former MP Criticizes Trudeau’s Approach
However, Kevin Vuong, one of Trudeau’s former MPs, offered a sharp critique of the former prime minister’s stance. Vuong said that when similar points about the need for immigrant integration and shared Canadian values were raised in Parliament, Trudeau “indicated that we were racist.”
“Inclusion does not mean exclusion. It is the promise we make to everyone who comes here: This is what we stand for, and you belong,” Vuong wrote in a social media post. He called Trudeau’s broad, values-based statements “an excuse to escape the hard work of nation-building” and criticized what he saw as a lack of actual leadership and results.
Vuong ran for the Liberals in the 2019 election, but the party withdrew its support two days before the vote following the revelation of a withdrawn sexual assault charge from earlier that year. He entered Parliament as an independent, joined the Conservative Party of Canada in 2023, and did not seek re-election in 2025.
Trudeau on Approval Ratings and Political Legacy
When Loikannen addressed how Trudeau’s approval rating had declined over his decade in office, the former prime minister took a characteristically philosophical view. He said approval ratings had no concrete “utility effect” other than the seizure of power.
“I mean, if it’s just about feeling really good, then maybe you’re in the wrong industry because in the best case scenario in politics, a third of the people like you, a third of the people hate you, a third of the people don’t even know your name,” he said.
Asked whether he ever lost confidence in himself during his time in office, Trudeau admitted he made mistakes and may have had personal doubts, but insisted he remained true to his core values. “I haven’t lost confidence in my core,” he said.
Canada’s Relationship with the United States and Trump
Loikannen also used the hour-long conversation to question Trudeau about Canada’s relations with the United States and President Donald Trump amid threats of annexation following Trump’s election in 2024.
“I honestly think there were a few Americans who were kind of surprised that Canada wouldn’t jump at the chance to join the U.S., that no European territory would be excited about the idea of becoming American,” Trudeau said. “I think this is perhaps an example of American exceptionalism, where so many Americans are convinced, without a doubt and mostly without too many facts, that America is just the very best place in the world and of course everyone wants to be a part of us.”
Trudeau described the president as an unpredictable entity within the international community. While previous administrations had operated with what he called “enlightened self-interest” and viewed strategic advantages for other nations as advantages for the United States, he said this was not Trump’s approach.
“It’s difficult for us as an international community to analyze what the American president might do because he has shown that he doesn’t always work in the best interests of Americans and the American people, and that makes him unpredictable in a way that no other American president really has been,” Trudeau said.
Closer Ties With Europe, But Not EU Membership
Earlier in the same month as Trudeau’s visit, Finnish President Alexander Stubb suggested that the 27-nation European Union should consider expanding to 40 nations, naming Canada as one of the potential new candidates. “Wouldn’t it be nice if Canada was the 28th state of the European Union and not the 51st state of the United States,” Stubb remarked at an energy conference in Helsinki.
Trudeau welcomed the similarities between Canada and European countries, particularly the Nordic nations, but said the relationship should remain professional rather than marital. “I think there are so many things we can do to work together more, to work more closely together, to coordinate, to take full advantage of all the benefits of our existing free trade agreements,” he said, suggesting that countries like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, the UK, and Canada could find opportunities to collaborate more deeply because they are like-minded.
He also argued that middle powers could increase their influence by strengthening the international rules-based order and working together rather than competing against each other for short-term commercial advantages. He pointed to existing trade agreements with Europe and Pacific nations as examples of how countries with common standards can “counterbalance major powers” such as the United States, China, Russia, and India, nations that “follow these rules when it suits them” and “use their power” when it doesn’t.
A Personal Note
On a lighter note, the former prime minister joked about his girlfriend, US pop star Katy Perry, who was not in attendance. He told Loikannen and the audience that Perry was also currently in Europe touring summer festival dates and that he would be joining her in the coming days.
Trudeau said the couple shared a “deep intellectual curiosity about the world.” “She’s so interested in what’s going on in the world,” he said. “We have great conversations, and that’s the building block of any healthy relationship. The ability to be at peace with each other and have genuine interest in each other, and that’s exactly what I have with Katy.”
