Stockwell Day warns Canada is next after Spain’s 60,000-migrant border breach
The former public safety minister warns Canada risks Spain’s migrant chaos as Carney praises “Muslim values” and Trudeau admits immigration mistakes.
Author: Alex Dhaliwal
Former Conservative cabinet minister Stockwell Day warns Canada is headed toward Spain’s migrant chaos unless Ottawa gets tougher on illegal immigration.
“This is an INVASION, not immigration,” Day declared in a video posted to X.
“What’s happening in Spain with their invasion... the same thing could happen to Canada,” he said. “People need to get a grip... Canada is not wide open.”
Day’s warning follows one of Europe’s largest recent illegal border crossings, in which an estimated 60,000 migrants entered the Spanish territory of Ceuta from Morocco over several days.
At least 57 people died, border facilities were overwhelmed, and local officials demanded a national emergency and military deployment.
The former public safety minister said countries invite disaster when they fail to enforce immigration laws.
“When you send that signal, your country is on the way to disaster,” Day said. “If you don’t do that and add on to that wide open and illegal immigration, you invite catastrophe [in] your own country.”
Day also rejected the idea that every culture shares the same values.
“All cultures are not equal,” he said. “In Canada we don’t believe women are second class. In Canada, we don’t believe that you can keep women from voting.”
His comments stand in stark contrast to remarks Prime Minister Mark Carney made during an Eid al-Adha celebration hosted by the Muslim Association of Canada last year.
“We must come together around the values of Eid,” Carney said on Jun. 5, 2025. “These are Muslim values. These are Canadian values.”
Carney also said, “Whether the prophet is called Ibrahim or Abraham, Ishmael or Isaac, the lessons and values of Eid are the same.”
According to the latest Census, 1.8 million Canadians identify as Muslim, compared with 19.3 million Christians. As recently as 1985, there were so few Muslims in Canada that the religion was categorized simply as “other” in the federal General Social Survey.
Carney went on to say the celebrations were overshadowed by “the intolerable suffering... including in Gaza,” and by “the hatred fueled by ignorance” faced by Muslim Canadians.
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau has also shifted his tone on immigration after presiding over record population growth.
Speaking in Finland, Trudeau said immigration only succeeds if newcomers are integrated into Canadian society.
“The key on immigration is the capacity to integrate people into your society,” he said. “Increasingly... defining what a country is through shared values and not through shared ancestry is the most important thing.”
He added that newcomers need “a stake in the success of the country” and acknowledged his government overshot immigration levels, saying, “We didn’t get the balance quite right.”
The admission follows years of rapid immigration growth under the Liberals.
A Fraser Institute study found Canada’s annual immigration intake nearly quadrupled after the Liberals took office, rising from an average of 617,800 newcomers annually between 2000 and 2015 to roughly 1.4 million a year between 2016 and 2024. In 2024 alone, Canada admitted 1.9 million newcomers, including 485,600 permanent residents, 518,200 international students and 912,900 temporary foreign workers.
The study said immigration “skyrocketed” after 2021, driven largely by temporary residents, expanded immigration targets and broader pathways to permanent residency. It also pointed to a 2016 Trudeau-appointed advisory council whose recommendations to dramatically increase immigration were, according to the report, “enthusiastically embraced” by the Liberal government.
Critics have also tied the surge in illegal border crossings between 2018 and 2022 to Trudeau’s 2017 social media post declaring, “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith.”
Former Liberal MP Kevin Vuong said Trudeau’s latest comments about integration contradicted his government’s earlier response to critics.
“Integration isn’t exclusion. It’s the promise we make to everyone who comes here: this is what we stand for, and you belong in it,” Vuong wrote. He said that when similar concerns were raised in Parliament, Trudeau “implied we were racist.”
While Prime Minister Carney has lowered permanent immigration targets to 380,000 annually, Ottawa still projects roughly 2.2 million additional newcomers between 2025 and 2027, including 1.125 million temporary residents through work and study permits.
For Day, the lesson from Europe is straightforward.
“Hope comes from speaking the truth,” he said. “Are they voting for people and policies that weaken a country... or are they voting for people and policies that respect the law, that respect legal immigration?”