1/ Another unprofessional and intellectually dishonest CBC “journalist,” @JonGatehouse, claims to have refuted a key part of my speech on immigration by selectively quoting from it and making me say something I did not say. twitter.com/CBCTheNational…

2/ He writes: Per Bernier, that means "only 26 per cent of all the people who come to Canada every year actually fulfil our economic needs," and that the remainder are "dependents" who "may not master any of our official languages, or are too young or too old to work."

3/ This gives the impression I said that 74% of immigrants – those who are not directly chosen on the basis of their skills and work qualifications, but come as spouses, children, under family reunification, or as refugees – are ALL dependent children or seniors who won’t work.

4/ Gatehouse then writes that “nothing prevents them from seeking work” and proceeds to give stats showing a large proportion of them do work, which according to him proves that my statement was “patently false.”

5/ But that’s not at all what I said. Excerpt from my speech: “three quarters of all immigrants who come to Canada are dependents, DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT QUALIFICATIONS THAT WE NEED, may not master any of our official languages, OR are too young or too old to work.”

6/ What I said is that none of these 74% were chosen to directly fulfil our economic needs. Many will not work. But even those who find work do not have the right qualifications we need, and earn less than other Canadians for most of their lives, as Gatehouse confirms.