Century Initiative: Strategic Immigration Levels Planning for Canada’s Short and Long-Term Future

2026/05/08 Leave a comment

Summary of lessons and recomendations from the Century Initiative consultations on immigration planning. I was part of those consulted. Further reflection of CI’s efforts to distance itself from its earlier overly simplistic approach to immigration. My quick comments in italics.

As for the IRPA recommended changes, unclear whether the government is planning to make any amendments to IRPA given other priorities although the CIMM immigration study may suggest otherwise:

Key Lessons for Immigration Levels Planning

  1. Misinformation and disinformation pose growing risks to the integrity of immigration levels planning. True, but arguably also applied to a number of pro-immigration advocates.
  2. Significant investments are needed in Canada’s data ecosystem to provide the evidence needed for effective immigration levels planning. While IRCC and StatsCan generate a wealth of data, there still remain significant gaps, particularly with respect to integrating different data sets.
  3. Immigration levels planning requires deeper analysis at the local and regional level. Challenge is balancing local and regional with national levels, recognizing mobility rights mean that immigrants may relocate to pursue opportunities.
  4. Immigration levels planning requires longer time horizons to avoid sudden system shocks. In principle yes, but the famous line, “in the long run, you’re dead.”
  5. Immigration levels planning must combine quantitative and qualitative analysis to determine what types of immigrants are needed to meet Canada’s economic, demographic, and social objectives and how to improve outcomes for recent arrivals. Challenge is in the doing.
  6. Immigration levels planning must reflect Canada’s short and long-term absorptive capacity and social and economic objectives, rather than responding reactively to changing national and global dynamics. Good reference to absorptive capacity but there will always be political pressures to be reactive.

Recommendations

  1. Amend s. 94(2)(b) of IRPA to require the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship to include the total number of annual arrivals in the immigration levels plan (permanent and temporary). Long overdue.
  2. Amend s. 3 of IRPA to explicitly recognize permanent residence and citizenship pathways as core objectives of Canada’s immigration system and require that immigration levels planning account for expected transitions from temporary to permanent status. Also overdue. Always struck me as odd no reference to citizenship in the plan.
  3. Amend s. 94(2) of IRPA to require the Government of Canada to consider Canada’s absorptive capacity in the immigration levels planning process. Also overdue.
  4. Amend IRPA to introduce accountability and reporting mechanisms to the immigration levels planning process. Would be nice! Particularly with respect to outcomes, not just outputs.
  5. Develop a core set of indicators to inform immigration levels planning across short-, medium-, and long-term horizons, and provide transparent public information on how these indicators are used in future immigration levels plans. To a certain extent, the core CRS human capital criteria provides the basis for the indicators and the CRS and any indicators should be coherent and mutually reinforcing.
  6. Strengthen collaboration with other orders of government by more transparently reflecting regional priorities and realities within the national immigration levels planning process. Arguably, regular fed-prov consultation provide for this.
  7. Establish a formal long-term immigration planning framework that defines Canada’s demographic, economic, and nation-building objectives and explicitly guides future immigration levels plans. Again, in the long run we’re dead.
  8. Clarify and harmonize the Government of Canada’s language regarding immigration levels and targets. Always an area for improvement.
  9. Strengthen research and data infrastructure on two-step migration to better inform immigration levels planning. Agree.
  10. Increase the time horizon of immigration levels plans beyond 3 years, recognizing that longer-term projections are a forecast and subject to adjustment over time. In theory, yes, in practice not sure how meaningful given electoral cycles and events.
  11. Make strategic investments in the data ecosystem on immigration-related issues to better inform policy and planning. Always in favour of better data and analysis.
  12. Increase the depth, rather than breadth, of the Government of Canada’s immigration levels planning consultation process. Makes sense.

Source: Strategic Immigration Levels Planning for Canada’s Short and Long-Term Future

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ICE Immigration Enforcement Has Harmed U.S. Workers, Research Shows

2026/05/08 Leave a comment

Not that surprising:

New research finds that Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity has harmed U.S.-born workers. The findings contradict a central policy justification for ICE raids and arrest quotas in U.S. cities. Earlier this year, ICE and Border Patrol agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis and generated widespread protests. The new research shows ICE activity also caused economic disruption and failed to deliver on the administration’s promise to improve the economic situation of U.S. workers.

Immigration Surge Did Not Help U.S.-Born Workers

Under the Trump administration, ICE and Border Patrol agents surged into Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other major cities. Economists Chloe N. East and Elizabeth Cox at the University of Colorado Boulder examined the impact of immigration enforcement actions in a new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. While immigration enforcement has increased nationwide during the Trump administration, the researchers compared areas that “experienced a sudden, large increase in ICE arrests” to places that did not.

One research finding is unsurprising: Among individuals identified as likely undocumented immigrants not physically removed from the labor market, ICE activity produced a “chilling effect” of interacting with ICE, leading to a 4% reduction in employment. According to the research, in an average area, approximately six undocumented immigrants dropped out of the labor force for every one ICE arrest. That may help explain why employers often express difficulties in finding workers well beyond the number of people arrested or deported.

The research finds ICE arrests have not helped and, indeed, likely harmed U.S.-born workers, including those with a high school education or less. “There is a negative and significant impact on employment of U.S.-born male workers with at most a high-school education, who work in likely affected sectors,” according to the study. “This is consistent with a model where undocumented immigrants and U.S.-born workers are complements, rather than substitutes for each other in the labor market.”

There are additional disappointing results for administration officials, such as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, to ponder: “We see no evidence that employers increase wages to attract U.S.-born workers to fill these jobs in the face of immigration enforcement,” write East and Cox. “Instead, our results are consistent with employers reducing labor demand overall, including for jobs more often taken by U.S.-born workers.”

Source: ICE Immigration Enforcement Has Harmed U.S. Workers, Research Shows

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An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’

2026/05/08 2 Comments

Of note:

On Nov. 10, 2023, the Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov published a guest essay in the New York Times. Though scarcely a month had passed since the Hamas massacre of hundreds of Israeli men, women and children, Bartov expressed fears over Israel’s military response to this horrifying act of barbarity. But, he concluded, while “it is very likely that war crimes, and crimes against humanity, are happening,” he concluded, there is “no proof that genocide is taking place in Gaza.”By mid-2025, however, Bartov revised his stance in a second Times essay. As a scholar of genocide who has taught classes on the subject — including at Brown University, where he is currently based — for a quarter of a century, he announced, “I can recognize one when I see one.”In his new book Israel: What Went Wrong?, Bartov offers a searing analysis, both personal and professional, of the tragically entwined history of Israelis and Palestinians that climaxed with the disaster of October 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, followed by the even more disastrous response of Israel. Bartov’s account resembles an earlier book on an earlier war: Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, in which the veteran of two world wars examines the causes to France’s collapse in 1940. Both internationally known historians, and patriots who served their nation in arms, each man wrote their book when the debacles were still fresh.

For France, the collapse was as much moral and political as it was military. “Whatever the complexion of its government,” Bloch observed, “a country is bound to suffer, democracy becomes hopelessly weak, and the general good suffers accordingly if its higher officials are bred up to despise it.”As Bartov’s book reminds us, this diagnosis applies not just to the decay that undermined the French Third Republic, but also to the moral rot that has been sapping the foundations of the Israeli republic. In his account, Bartov weaves the parallel histories of Israelis and Palestinians — a history composed of two catastrophes, the Shoah and the Nakba, that have ever since shaped events.

Inevitably, the very mention of these events in the same breath often sparks a violent response from many Israeli and diasporic Jews, but Bartov rightly insists upon their pairing. One of the many reasons why Bartov’s book is so important is his insistence that the two events are “inextricably linked historically, personally and as part of a politics of memory” and that they each have “become constitutive of Israeli and Palestinian national identities.”William Faulkner’s old chestnut — the past is neither dead nor even past — is the through-line to Bartov’s sharply, at times brutally, etched history of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Crucially, Bartov argues that what has gone so terribly wrong since 1948 was inevitable only in retrospect. An alternative history, one shaped by a Zionism faithful to the ideals of the Enlightenment, was, if unlikely, certainly not impossible. At the very least the history of the past eight decades could have gone in a liberal and democratic direction….

Source: An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’

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Black women say they’re at risk due to unequal health care. The Ford government is being urged to act

2026/05/08 Leave a comment

Of note:

…At Queen’s Park on Wednesday, the Black Women’s Institute of Health pushed for urgent action on equity for Black women’s health, based on these experiences, shared by women in a report completed by the institute. The report, “Voices UnHeard,” was based on the findings of a first-of-its-kind national survey that focused on the experiences of Black women and girls and health care.

“There’s nothing in this report that I would say I haven’t lived or experienced,” said Kearie Daniel, who spearheaded the report and is the executive director of Black Women’s Institute for Health.

“This is the first time ever that we had anyone survey Black women across this country to this extent in a cohesive way,” Daniel said.

Researchers say there’s a lack of data about the experiences of Black women and girls in Canada when accessing health-care — that’s why a report like this is desperately needed. A health system ill-equipped to provide a basic standard of care for a community group that already disproportionately faces higher rates of certain chronic illnesses and medical conditions could lead to worse health outcomes and higher mortality.

The briefing Wednesday “was part of taking the report from just a report into action,” Daniel said.

The “Voices UnHeard” report was published in November. The report served as an anchor for the policy and legislative moves Daniel is advocating for at Queen’s Park.

The briefing followed Tuesday’s tabling by the NDP of the Black Health Equity and Accountability Act, 2026 (Bill 115), which Daniel says aligns with many of the 70 recommendations in the report….

…At Queen’s Park on Wednesday, the Black Women’s Institute of Health pushed for urgent action on equity for Black women’s health, based on these experiences, shared by women in a report completed by the institute. The report, “Voices UnHeard,” was based on the findings of a first-of-its-kind national survey that focused on the experiences of Black women and girls and health care.

“There’s nothing in this report that I would say I haven’t lived or experienced,” said Kearie Daniel, who spearheaded the report and is the executive director of Black Women’s Institute for Health.

“This is the first time ever that we had anyone survey Black women across this country to this extent in a cohesive way,” Daniel said.

Researchers say there’s a lack of data about the experiences of Black women and girls in Canada when accessing health-care — that’s why a report like this is desperately needed. A health system ill-equipped to provide a basic standard of care for a community group that already disproportionately faces higher rates of certain chronic illnesses and medical conditions could lead to worse health outcomes and higher mortality.

The briefing Wednesday “was part of taking the report from just a report into action,” Daniel said.

The “Voices UnHeard” report was published in November. The report served as an anchor for the policy and legislative moves Daniel is advocating for at Queen’s Park.

The briefing followed Tuesday’s tabling by the NDP of the Black Health Equity and Accountability Act, 2026 (Bill 115), which Daniel says aligns with many of the 70 recommendations in the report….

Source: Black women say they’re at risk due to unequal health care. The Ford government is being urged to act

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Carney to continue using Trudeau-era advisory board to suggest Senate appointments

2026/05/08 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see whether there is any impact on the diversity and political leanings of Carney appointments. Trudeau appointments: 55.2 percent women, 19.8 percent visible minorities, and 12.5 percent Indigenous:

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday he will continue to rely on the independent advisory board created by Justin Trudeau to suggest Senate appointments, but gave no timeline for filling a growing number of vacancies. 

After more than a year in office Mr. Carney has yet to make a single Senate appointment. Vacancies are mounting not just among senators but also on the board tasked with selecting new members of the Senate. 

There are currently nine vacancies in the 105-member Senate and another six senators are planning to retire by the end of 2026. The Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, consisting of federal, provincial and territorial representatives, currently has just five members. It has 24 vacancies, leaving most provinces without representation on the board. 

At a Montreal-area press conference, Mr. Carney gave no indication of when he would begin addressing the vacancies in the Senate. “We will be appointing senators in due course, and I will take into account the advice of the independent advisory committee that was established by my predecessor,” he said. 

Source: Carney to continue using Trudeau-era advisory board to suggest Senate appointments, Carney not planning to allow senators in Liberal caucus, senior government official says


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New international student numbers in Canada down significantly, but overall decline more moderate, study says

2026/05/07 Leave a comment

Of note:

Ottawa’s measures to cut foreign students may have dramatically reduced the number of new cohorts entering the system in the last two years, but the decline in total international student enrolment has been “more moderate,” says a new report.

The study by Statistics Canada on international enrolment in public post-secondary institutions estimated that the number of new students had dropped by 64 per cent from 216,867 in the 2023-24 academic year to just 77,939 in the current school year.

Over the two-year period, colleges saw their new international student intakes nosedive by 102,188 or 75 per cent, while universities saw a decrease of 36,740 or 46 per cent, it said. 

However, the agency’s estimates showed that the total number of international students decreased by only four per cent in 2024-2025 and by 26 per cent in 2025-2026. Over two years, it represented a loss of about 124,000 students, bringing the population back to nearly 300,000, levels similar to the second academic year of the pandemic (2021-22).

“These measures may have significantly reduced the size of new cohorts of international students (-64 per cent) in 2025/2026 and, more moderately, the total number of international students in public postsecondary institutions,” said the report released on Tuesday.

“A steady decline in the number of international students is anticipated in Canada.” …

Source: New international student numbers in Canada down significantly, but overall decline more moderate, study says

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Telus using AI to alter the accents of customer service agents

2026/05/07 2 Comments

Understand the concerns but on the other hand, as someone whose cancer treatment impaired my hearing, both physically and mentally, this would be an improvement:

…For labour representatives, the feature is another concern among many when it comes to the effects of AI on their members. 

At a hearing before the parliamentary standing committee on industry and technology last week, Roch Leblanc, Unifor telecommunications director, called on government to require companies to inform Canadians when AI was being used. 

He told members of Parliament that the union was aware of at least one Big Three telco using AI to mask the accents of offshore agents, “altering how customers perceive who they’re talking to.”

“The use of AI technology to deceive Canadians in any way should be prohibited,” he said.

United Steelworkers Local 1944 president Michael Phillips said he is aware of Telus using the technology internally, between agents based in Canada and overseas. 

He said that he was informed by a B.C.-based Telus employee that they had spoken with an agent in the Philippines. According to that employee, “this overseas agent was laughing about it, turning the accent masker on and off, revealing their Filipino accent, and then, taking the accent away when they turned on the AI technology,” Mr. Phillips said.

“As we’re trying to figure out what the parameters around AI and AI limitations are, I think that a very clear right that Canadians should insist on is the right to not be deceived by AI, especially not by folks that they are paying to provide telephone services for,” he said….

Source: Telus using AI to alter the accents of customer service agents

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Policymakers should be prepared for a ‘new reality’ after immigration cuts, think tank warns

2026/05/07 Leave a comment

Good note on how to interpret the study in this note of caution to immigration advocates:

…The think tank’s report warns that any misinterpretation of the data could lead to counterproductive stimulus, such as unnecessary interest rate cuts or new spending. 

“There’s concern that they won’t recognize that that’s the new reality,” said Don Drummond, a former senior executive at the Department of Finance and now a fellow-in-residence with C.D. Howe.  

Drummond said the recent cuts to immigration and temporary foreign worker levels were the right calls because Canada didn’t have the housing or health-care capacity to support the previous levels. The challenge, he added, is to understand that the new, lower levels will automatically have an effect on other statistics that are in part a reflection of population changes. 

The new report forecasts that total Canadian employment will decline this year and next and that inflation-adjusted economic growth will be between 0.4 and 0.5 per cent in the near term. It also forecasts that employment will fall by 54,000 this year and another 17,000 in 2027, assuming that the economy is neither overheated nor lacking demand. 

But those middling numbers are in part a function of demographic changes. “The risk is not poor performance,” the report stated, “but misinterpretation.”….

Source: Policymakers should be prepared for a ‘new reality’ after immigration cuts, think tank warns

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Archives see surge in Americans requesting family records to access Canadian citizenship

2026/05/06 Leave a comment

Yet another article on Americans seeking to establish Canadian ancestry. Good note of caution from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and the weakening of citizenship:

…The change in citizenship law has meant a surge of requests from Americans for birth records at the provincial archives.

“So the old slogan, ‘be … in this place,’ if they can prove that they were in this place through descent, then they are eligible to become Canadian citizens,” said Joanna Aiton Kerr, the provincial archivist.

Aiton Kerr said the calls started coming in December of last year and haven’t slowed down since.

Provincial Archives staff are currently sifting through a backlog of over 1,000 requests, but it’s hard work, especially when they’re getting an additional 400 citizenship related requests a month.

“It’s certainly an increase in work, but the reason archives exist are to connect individuals who are seeking information with that information,” said Aiton Kerr.

“It’s the job, so we will cope.”

Widespread increase

The increase in requests from Americans looking for birth records can be seen in other provinces as well.

In 2024, the Nova Scotia Archives had received 262 “genealogical e-mail threads.” Through the first three months of this year, it’s already received 1,354.

Prince Edward Island’s Public Archives and Records Office has seen a 143 per cent increase in requests so far this year.

The Rooms in St. John’s, home to Newfoundland and Labrador’s archival records, has seen “a significant increase” in requests with the “majority of recent requests … coming from clients in the United States.”

It’s not just provincial archives that are seeing an increase in requests.

…Commitment or convenience

Not everyone is as much of a fan of the new Canadian citizenship laws.

Daniel Bernhard, the CEO for the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, said becoming a citizen is a “transformative and special moment for so many immigrants.”

“A citizenship ceremony is a really beautiful and moving and emotional testament to the joys of being part of the Canadian family,” he said.

But Bernhard is concerned about what the new laws will mean for the value of Canadian citizenship in the future.

He said citizenship has both rights and responsibilities and he’s concerned the new law could mean more Canadian citizens with limited connection to the country who could use the citizenship as an insurance policy.

“This now kind of creates a sort of second less emotionally resonant, less patriotic, less committed citizen who will hold on to Canadian citizenship in some other home country … just in case,” said Bernhard….

Source: Archives see surge in Americans requesting family records to access Canadian citizenship

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Proposition de Québec solidaire: La citoyenneté donnée aux résidents permanents en cas de souveraineté

2026/05/06 Leave a comment

Trying to attract the cultural communities vote:

« C’est une proposition qui vise à faire sentir les Québécois issus de l’immigration partie prenante du projet, et qui vise à les rassurer sur leur avenir dans un Québec indépendant », affirme le porte-parole de Québec solidaire (QS) Sol Zanetti.

La proposition pourrait même être élargie aux demandeurs d’asile et aux « orphelins du PEQ [Programme de l’expérience québécoise] » : ce sont les amendements qui seront débattus par les militants de Québec solidaire lors du congrès du parti qui aura lieu vendredi, samedi et dimanche à Montréal. S’ils vont de l’avant avec ces ajouts, combien de passeports québécois faudrait-il alors imprimer ? Ça n’a pas été évalué, admet M. Zanetti.

Mais selon lui, le mouvement souverainiste doit changer son message s’il veut espérer une victoire. Le député, qui a codirigé les deux éditions du Livre qui fait dire oui, « distribué à 45 000 exemplaires », organise depuis plusieurs années une tournée des cégeps pour promouvoir l’indépendance du Québec….

Source: Proposition de Québec solidaire La citoyenneté donnée aux résidents permanents en cas de souveraineté

“It is a proposal that aims to make Quebecers from immigration feel part of the project, and which aims to reassure them about their future in an independent Quebec,” says Québec solidaire (QS) spokesman Sol Zanetti.

The proposal could even be extended to asylum seekers and “orphans of the PEQ [Programme de l’expérience québécoise]”: these are the amendments that will be debated by Québec solidaire activists at the party congress that will take place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Montreal. If they go ahead with these additions, how many Quebec passports would then have to be printed? It has not been evaluated, admits Mr. Zanetti

But according to him, the sovereignist movement must change its message if it wants to hope for a victory. The deputy, who co-directed the two editions of the Livre qui fait dire oui, “distributed in 45,000 copies”, has been organizing for several years a CEGEP tour to promote Quebec’s independence….

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

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