Urback: Hate absolutely has its place in Canada. It has been normalized, ignored and excused

2026/07/30 Leave a comment

Unfortunately correct, particularly for the Jewish community but not limited to it:

…We know that hate has its place in Canada not simply because these acts have occurred, but because nothing meaningful is being done about them. The Prime Minister won’t name the problem. Law enforcement, Crown prosecutors and politicians all blame each other for failing to take action. Ottawa’s response is to assemble an advisory council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, and to throw money at Jewish institutions to beef up their security. That is as clear an admission as anything that hate indeed has its place in Canada: We know the hate is here, but instead of tackling it, we’ll give you money to insulate yourselves from it. 

This is Canada’s new normal. A bakery’s windows are smashed, and we sigh and move on. Buildings are shot at, and we click our tongues. Many Jews are now actively exploring emigration to places where hate is less readily excused or ignored, unlike in Canada, where politicians insist “this is not who we are” while pretending not to recognize what this country has become. 

A day after the attacks on Kiva’s Bakery, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller, who will also chair the Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion, wrote on X that “Antisemitism has no place in our communities, and it is an attack on the values of inclusion and respect that define our country.” But that view is precisely the problem. Antisemitism absolutely has a well-established place in our communities now; a weekend trip to Bathurst and Sheppard will confirm that. The more pertinent question before the government now is if it intends to actually do something about it, or simply offer money for bulletproof glass and continue deluding itself with the notion that hate has not been normalized in Canada.

Source: Hate absolutely has its place in Canada. It has been normalized, ignored and excused

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with

Deadline passes for Trump to ask Supreme Court to reconsider birthright citizenship ruling

2026/07/30 Leave a comment

Telling:

The deadline passed Tuesday for the Trump administration to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its rejection of the president’s birthright citizenship restrictions, with no new filing on the docket.

President Donald Trump vowed to seek a rehearing shortly after the opinion handed him a loss on a signature issue, but by Tuesday the 25-day window had elapsed with no new activity. 

A petition would face long odds: The court has not agreed to rehear an argued case in more than 50 years. 

The high court’s 6-3 decision in June struck down Trump’s executive order that would have denied automatic citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. 

The Republican president’s restrictions on birthright citizenship had been blocked by several lower courts before reaching the justices, and they did not take effect anywhere in the U.S….

Source: Deadline passes for Trump to ask Supreme Court to reconsider birthright citizenship ruling

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship, Trump administration Tagged with

Immigration department refused more than 20,000 visas from World Cup fans

2026/07/30 Leave a comment

Of note:

The immigration department refused more than 20,000 visa applications from foreign nationals who applied to come to Canada for the FIFA World Cup, official figures show. 

Canada played host to 13 games in Toronto and Vancouver in June and July, issuing 26,000 visas to visitors, including people invited by FIFA to work at the tournament. 

However, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada refused another 20,845 visa applications related to the tournament. It refused an additional 205 electronic travel authorizations for visa-exempt foreign nationals. 

Among the refused visa applications were 3,135 from Ghanaian fans. IRCC approved only 470 visas for Ghanaians, whose national team played Panama on June 17 in Toronto. …

According to new data provided to The Globe, the department refused applications from 1,965 Nigerians who wanted to come to Canada for the international soccer tournament, which Canada co-hosted with the United States and Mexico. Only 220 Nigerian fans who applied for visas were approved to come here for the World Cup….

Toronto immigration lawyer Stephen Green said Canada’s immigration officers would have closely vetted applications, including to see if applicants had enough money to support themselves while they were here. 

“They were checking for whether or not someone would leave at the end of their proposed visit,” he added. 

Templar Kalundu Iga, director of policy and global strategy at the Canadian Centre for African Affairs and Policy Research, said the comparatively high volumes of visa applications from Nigeria and Ghana were not surprising, with both being major footballing nations. 

But he said there was a “pronounced disparity between approvals and refusals,” noting that 90 per cent of applications from Nigeria were declined and 87 per cent from Ghana.

“The World Cup could have been used to deepen our understanding of African tourism, diaspora mobility and investment flows, while connecting immigration policy to the objectives of Canada’s Africa Strategy,” he said in an e-mail. “Instead, the data risk presenting African mobility principally through the language of immigration risk.”…

Source: Immigration department refused more than 20,000 visas from World Cup fans

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

MPI: Population Aging Is Here. Immigration Can Offer Half an Answer.

2026/07/30 Leave a comment

Another analysis on the limits of immigration to address population aging and low fertility rates:

Countries around the world face a demographic transition that is arriving faster than many governments have planned for, as falling fertility and aging populations place growing pressure on workforces, tax bases and the public systems that support retirees. 

The scale of the change is now visible well beyond the wealthy countries that have long grappled with aging populations. China’s annual births have fallen to levels not recorded since 1949, and comparable declines are underway in countries across Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, leaving many countries old before they grow rich, with shrinking workforces and rising costs for pensions and health care. 

A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) policy brief finds that treating immigration as a numbers game—rather than planning for integration and workforce participation—leaves much of its demographic dividend on the table. 

In many fast-aging, wealthier countries, governments have long leaned on immigration as a response to shrinking, aging workforces, but the math does not support that expectation at scale, Meghan Benton, director of MPI’s Global Program, writes in Population Aging Is Here. Immigration Can Offer Half an Answer. Holding worker-to-retiree ratios steady through migration alone would require a 75 percent increase in the combined population of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries by 2050—a level of growth few, if any, publics would accept. 

Immigration should be understood as a partial lever rather than a substitute for broader demographic strategy, which must include retirement-age extensions, productivity investments, family-friendly policies and social security reforms, the brief notes. 

On the immigration front, Benton argues that governments need to pay greater attention to whether newcomers and their families can participate fully in the economy; failure to do so leaves real fiscal value on the table when integration is treated as secondary. 

The brief sets out several principles for better leveraging immigration, including prioritizing the skills and career stage of arriving immigrants; treating integration programming, including language training, as an investment rather than a cost; folding immigration into the same long-term planning governments already apply to pensions, housing and infrastructure; addressing pension gaps for aging immigrants through portable retirement funds; and ensuring immigration narrows rather than widens global inequality by investing in skills partnerships that connect training, mobility and local development. 

The brief also cautions against assuming artificial intelligence can quickly substitute for immigration. Benton notes that prioritizing high earners may be difficult given rising low-skilled labor shortages in sectors such as elder care, agriculture, hospitality and construction, which remain largely resistant to near-term automation. Governments will need to prioritize those with flexible skills. 

“While immigration cannot solve population aging, it can be a useful demographic and economic lever—if it is employed more effectively,” Benton writes. “The next few years will provide a real-time experiment in the success of policies that prioritize immigration versus other economic levers to help countries navigate population aging, including extending retirement age, investing in productivity advances and reforming social security systems. Different models are already taking shape.” 

Source: Population Aging Is Here. Immigration Can Offer Half an Answer.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Immigrants to Canada have adopted the country’s low-fertility rates, new research finds

2026/07/30 Leave a comment

Not new but further confirmation that immigration has a limited impact on overall population growth:

Economic migrants, who make up the bulk of Canada’s immigrants, have adopted their new country’s behaviour in one significant area — they have very low fertility rates, new research suggests.

“Immigrants are feeling the low-fertility pressure of Canada here, like everyone else,” says demographer and sociologist Rachel Margolis, a professor at Western University, and one of the authors of a new paper on immigration and fertility.

Even groups with relatively high fertility — family stream and refugees — are also below the replacement level of 2.1 children, according to the research. Additionally, the top three source countries Canada draws immigrants from are low-fertility nations. The total fertility rate in India, the top source country, for instance, has dropped to 1.9 children per woman.

At a record low of 1.25 children per woman, Canada has entered an “ultra-low fertility” era. In 2024, it joined a list of several countries, including Finland, Italy and South Korea, with a fertility rate below 1.3.

Canada grows its population and bolsters the economy through immigration. But that short-term solution for population loss doesn’t address long-term population aging, according to the study….

Ramos highlights that it’s probably time for the country to consider a population strategy. “I think Canada’s policy has largely focused on economic issues and treated other issues as challenges to the economy, whereas really, underlying most of the economic issues are demographic issues.

Source: Immigrants to Canada have adopted the country’s low-fertility rates, new research finds

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Barutciski: The UN’s Refugee Convention finds itself at a crossroads 75 years later – because of how it’s being interpreted

2026/07/29 2 Comments

Sort of inevitable that conventions get reinterpreted over time but always useful to assess that reinterpretation and the impact of these changes. But yes, empathy and understanding required in both directions:

…The 75th anniversary of the Refugee Convention offers a critical opportunity to change this unsustainable trajectory. Today, the greatest threat to refugee dignity is not domestic xenophobia, though societies must remain vigilant against it. It may be a maximalist and activist reading of the historic treaty pushed by open-border advocates that has stifled candid, pragmatic debate. 

Refugee protection can only survive if it retains the democratic support of host populations. Without it, public goodwill will continue to dry up, leaving governments to scramble with short-sighted, improvised burden-shifting schemes. 

Crucially, sovereign states are not permanently bound by expansive judicial decisions, even if it is reasonable for the interpretation of international treaty law to evolve. National parliaments possess the authority to amend domestic legislation to clarify ambiguous legal terms. By codifying precise thresholds for asylum, most legislatures can effectively override a judiciary and restore the structural parameters originally intended by the treaty.

The central predicament is that few political leaders in the West possess the courage to confront the contradiction characterizing modern refugee law. Instead, mainstream politicians maintain a facade of humanitarian concern, failing to recognize that sustainable policy requires empathy in both directions – toward needy foreigners, and toward the citizens asked to absorb them. 

Source: The UN’s Refugee Convention finds itself at a crossroads 75 years later – because of how it’s being interpreted

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with ,

Indian students arranged marriages of convenience for spouse work permits to Canada, warned New Delhi migration official

2026/07/29 Leave a comment

The warnings were there:

The number of Indian undergraduate students applying to come to Canada has dropped over the past few years, in part because Ottawa ended a program granting the spouses of international students work permits, an internal government communication shows. 

The communication discloses how marriages of convenience by some Indian students had enabled their spouses to accompany them to this country to work and to help them pay for their studies.

A 2025 e-mail report, obtained under access to information laws, to immigration department officials from Canada’s High Commission in New Delhi discusses a number of integrity issues involving Indian students, including marriages of convenience.

Marriages linked to immigration to Canada were advertised in Indian newspapers and dating apps, according to the report.

But a change in the rules in 2024 by then-immigration minister Marc Miller closed this avenue to Canada for international students’ spouses. …

Richard Kurland, an immigration lawyer who obtained the e-mail through an access to information request, said Canada can pick who it wants to come here to study and “that should mean only the people who can afford to study in Canada without working.”

“Study permits should not be a dating trampoline to Canada,” Mr. Kurland added. 

The number of Indian study permit holders dropped to 93,840 in 2025 from 188,125 in 2024 and 277,950 in 2023, according to IRCC figures, reducing a key revenue stream for many colleges and universities. 

Syed Hussan, executive director at Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said he thought the drop in numbers was because “people are choosing not to go to countries where they cannot go with their families.”…

Source: Indian students arranged marriages of convenience for spouse work permits to Canada, warned New Delhi migration official

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , ,

Canadians returning from ISIS ‘highly likely’ to pose threat, intelligence report says

2026/07/29 Leave a comment

Reasonable assessment:

A group of Canadians detained overseas for allegedly being part of ISIS will “highly likely” pose a threat when they return home, warns an intelligence document obtained by Global News.

The Integrated Threat Assessment Centre report was written in June, after Iraq said it had taken custody of an unspecified number of ISIS membersfrom Canada.

The suspects are liable to contribute to extremism once they returned to Canada, “either directly through an act of violence or indirectly by radicalizing others,” the intelligence report said.

“A potential return of Canadian extremist travellers currently in Iraqi custody would highly likely pose a violent extremist threat to Canada,” it said.

The danger posed by returning ISIS supporters was underscored on Saturday when a 21-year-old attacked Berlin’s Pride festival with a vehicle and knife….

Source: Canadians returning from ISIS ‘highly likely’ to pose threat, intelligence report says

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with ,

Don’t pay tax? Don’t vote, says Shopify CEO

2026/07/29 1 Comment

Yet another tech bro with anti-democratic tendencies:

Canadians who don’t pay income tax and pensioners shouldn’t have the right to vote, according to the CEO and co-founder of e-commerce company Shopify.

In a post on X, Tobias Lutke endorsed a plan that would strip millions of Canadians of the right to vote. A post by a retired banker suggested proportional voting based on the level of income tax paid.

“What about weighted voting proportional to the level of income tax you pay? (no income tax paid – 0 vote, $1-100k – 1 vote, $100-200k 2 votes and so on… cap it at 5 votes for $500k+. For those that constantly complain about the wealthy not paying tax/fair share they’d have nothing to worry about right? Why not reward representation of taxation and build a democracy around those that foot the bill?” wrote Eric Thor.

To which Lutke replied, “Good system,” adding in another post, “Reward productive people with leverage.”…

Source: Don’t pay tax? Don’t vote, says Shopify CEO

Filed under Politics Tagged with , ,

ICYMI: World Cup leads to 175 asylum claims from visitors who arrived in Canada for matches

2026/07/28 Leave a comment

Not surprising. About 0.07 percent of total visitors:

…Visitors to Canada who applied for visas to attend the FIFA World Cup have so far lodged 175 asylum claims, including from Senegal, Ghana and Egypt.

Canada played host to 13 games in Toronto and Vancouver in June and July, issuing 26,000 visas to visitors. Spain won the international tournament on Sunday by defeating the previous reigning champion, Argentina.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada declined to say how many of the refugee claims were made by soccer players or support staff from visiting teams.

The number of claims could still increase, including from foreign nationals who overstay the terms of their visa and later claim refugee status. ….

Source: World Cup leads to 175 asylum claims from visitors who arrived in Canada for matches

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

← Older posts