Citizenship articles of interest March 2026

Articles and opinions related to citizenship that I found of interest in March:

Idées | Après la loi C-3, un réveil franco-américain

This is the second article that has focussed on potential applicants from early waves of Canadian francophone emigrants to the USA. This possibility was never raised I believe in either House or Senate hearings on C-3 and its predecessors, and the focus and discussion was on second generation, not earlier generations (Indian media did flag possibility). I will be making a data request in 2027 and have asked IRCC whether their data collection will distinguish between second and earlier generations:

…“Pour comprendre l’onde de choc, il faut revenir au fameux « plafond » : la limite de première génération. En clair, les enfants nés à l’étranger de parents canadiens pouvaient être citoyens canadiens, mais ne pouvaient pas transmettre automatiquement leur citoyenneté à leurs propres enfants si eux aussi naissaient à l’étranger. La chaîne s’arrêtait après une génération née hors du pays.

Une décision rendue en Ontario en décembre 2023 a jugé ce régime inconstitutionnel dans certains cas, ce qui a forcé Ottawa à corriger le tir. C-3 permet donc la citoyenneté au-delà de la première génération née à l’étranger, mais en posant une condition de « lien substantiel » : la citoyenneté peut circuler plus loin dans la chaîne familiale à condition qu’il y ait une ancre réelle au pays, démontrée par 1095 jours — trois ans — de présence physique cumulative au Canada.

Et voilà ce qui change tout : pour beaucoup, il ne s’agit pas de « demander » la citoyenneté comme un privilège, mais de faire reconnaître un statut qui s’appuie maintenant sur des règles précises afin d’obtenir une preuve de citoyenneté. Psychologiquement, ce n’est pas la même posture.”

Pourquoi la Nouvelle-Angleterre s’enflamme

Si cette loi fait battre le cœur de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, ce n’est pas un hasard. Entre 1830 et 1970, près d’un million de Québécois ont traversé la frontière — surtout vers les villes industrielles — pour travailler dans les filatures et les manufactures. Le résultat démographique est immense : leurs descendants représentent aujourd’hui près de dix millions d’Américains.

Cette diaspora a longtemps été racontée comme une épopée ouvrière : un peuple qui quitte la terre, cherche du travail, construit des quartiers, des paroisses, des clubs, fondent des journaux. Mais c’est aussi une histoire de hiérarchie sociale : des Canadiens français devenus main-d’œuvre bon marché, comme tant d’autres groupes dans l’Amérique industrielle. Ce double héritage explique la charge émotionnelle du moment : la loi C-3 ne touche pas seulement un cas juridique ; elle réveille une mémoire.

Surtout, elle arrive des années après qu’une fierté franco-américaine s’est reconstruite « par en bas » : balados, blogues, festivals, initiatives locales. Parmi ceux qui s’activent aujourd’hui, il y a des amis à moi qui animent un balado franco-américain très écouté, d’autres qui ont fondé le PoutineFest du New Hampshire — devenu assez solide pour essaimer, avec des éditions à Burlington, au Vermont, et dans “le Maine — et d’autres encore qui tiennent depuis longtemps des blogues franco-américains. La fierté n’a pas attendu Ottawa. Mais l’accès, lui, oui.

L’Amérique pousse, le Québec attire

Pourquoi maintenant ? Parce que l’Amérique inquiète. Dans mes échanges, je sens moins une mode qu’une fatigue : fatigue politique, fatigue institutionnelle, fatigue culturelle. La citoyenneté canadienne devient un filet de sécurité pour certains : un passeport, oui, mais surtout une option familiale.

Mais réduire ce mouvement à une fuite serait une erreur. Beaucoup ne parlent pas d’abord de soins de santé ou d’élections. Ils parlent de langue. Ils parlent d’immersion. Ils parlent d’un désir de vivre — enfin — dans un endroit où le français n’est pas un folklore, mais un espace public.

Plusieurs se disent fièrement Franco-Américains. D’autres se décrivent carrément comme « Québécois », avec ce mélange de fierté et d’envie : envie d’une société qu’ils perçoivent comme plus cohérente, plus collective, moins brutale. Et ils sont lucides : tous ne pourront pas transférer leur carrière ici. Les avocats, les fiscalistes, ceux qui ont des professions encadrées le savent. Pourtant, ils avancent, parce que ce n’est pas seulement une équation économique : c’est une trajectoire.

Bienvenue chez vous »… mais préparons-nous

Soyons francs : cette loi a un impact particulier — et probablement disproportionné — sur les descendants de Québécois aux États-Unis. Elle ne déclenchera pas automatiquement une migration de masse. Les démarches restent exigeantes : prouver la filiation, retrouver les bons documents, faire valider les chaînes.

Mais la direction du courant est claire. Et le Québec doit regarder cette réalité en face : une partie de cette diaspora va frapper à sa porte, non pas comme des étrangers, mais comme des « revenants » — avec une attache réelle, un imaginaire familial, parfois un français brisé, parfois un français intact.

La question n’est donc pas seulement de savoir combien viendront, mais comment on les accueillera. Oui, la citoyenneté donne des droits. Mais l’installation au Québec implique aussi des devoirs, des choix, un ancrage. Et si une partie de cette vague devient une immigration durable, elle peut aussi être un gain : démographique, économique, culturel — et, franchement, linguistique, si ces nouveaux arrivants viennent précisément chercher le français.

Alors, oui : Québécois et Canadiens français, préparez-vous à dire « bienvenue chez vous ». Mais disons-le intelligemment : avec des parcours d’accueil réalistes, des ponts de francisation adaptés et un discours public qui évite de transformer des cousins en boucs émissaires.

Parce qu’au fond, C-3 ne fait pas que corriger une incohérence juridique. Elle réactive une vieille histoire : celle d’un peuple parti travailler ailleurs… et dont les descendants, un siècle plus tard, demandent non pas la permission, mais la reconnaissance de revenir toucher le fil.”

Rémi Francœur Franco-Américain, l’auteur est analyste politique et ancien directeur de campagnes politiques au New Hampshire. Il est installé à Montréal depuis 2015.

…”To understand the shock wave, we must return to the famous “ceiling”: the first generation limit. Clearly, children born abroad to Canadian parents could be Canadian citizens, but could not automatically transmit their citizenship to their own children if they were also born abroad. The channel stopped after a generation born outside the country.

A decision rendered in Ontario in December 2023 ruled this regime unconstitutional in some cases, forcing Ottawa to correct the situation. C-3 therefore allows citizenship beyond the first generation born abroad, but by placing a condition of “substantial link”: citizenship can circulate further in the family chain provided that there is a real anchor in the country, demonstrated by 1095 days – three years – of cumulative physical presence in Canada.

And this is what changes everything: for many, it is not a question of “asking” citizenship as a privilege, but of having a status recognized that is now based on precise rules in order to obtain proof of citizenship. Psychologically, it’s not the same posture.”

Why New England is on fire

If this law makes the heart of New England beat, it is no coincidence. Between 1830 and 1970, nearly a million Quebecers crossed the border — mainly to industrial cities — to work in spinning mills and factories. The demographic result is immense: their descendants now represent nearly ten million Americans.

This diaspora has long been told as a workers’ epic: a people who leave the earth, look for work, build neighborhoods, parishes, clubs, found newspapers. But it is also a story of social hierarchy: French Canadians who have become cheap labor, like so many other groups in industrial America. This double legacy explains the emotional charge of the moment: Law C-3 does not only affect a legal case; it awakens a memory.

Above all, it comes years after a Franco-American pride has rebuilt itself “from the bottom”: podcasts, blogs, festivals, local initiatives. Among those who are active today, there are friends of mine who host a much listened to Franco-American podcast, others who founded the PutinFest of New Hampshire – which has become solid enough to swarm, with editions in Burlington, Vermont, and in “Maine – and others who have long held Franco-American blogs. Pride did not wait for Ottawa. But access, yes.

America is pushing, Quebec attracts

Why now? Because America is worried. In my exchanges, I feel less a fashion than a fatigue: political fatigue, institutional fatigue, cultural fatigue. Canadian citizenship becomes a safety net for some: a passport, yes, but above all a family option.

But reducing this movement to a leak would be a mistake. Many do not first talk about health care or elections. They speak language. They talk about immersion. They speak of a desire to live – finally – in a place where French is not a folklore, but a public space.

Many proudly call themselves Franco-Americans. Others describe themselves flatly as “Quebecers”, with this mixture of pride and envy: desire for a society that they perceive as more coherent, more collective, less brutal. And they are lucid: not all will be able to transfer their career here. Lawyers, tax specialists, those who have supervised professions know it. However, they move forward, because it is not just an economic equation: it is a trajectory.

Welcome home”… but let’s get ready

Let’s be frank: this law has a particular — and probably disproportionate — impact on the descendants of Quebecers in the United States. It will not automatically trigger a mass migration. The steps remain demanding: prove filiation, find the right documents, have the channels validated.

But the direction of the current is clear. And Quebec must face this reality: part of this diaspora will knock on its door, not as foreigners, but as “revenants” – with a real attachment, a family imagination, sometimes a broken Frenchman, sometimes an intact Frenchman.

The question is therefore not only how many will come, but how they will be welcomed. Yes, citizenship gives rights. But settling in Quebec also implies duties, choices, an anchorage. And if part of this wave becomes sustainable immigration, it can also be a gain: demographic, economic, cultural – and, frankly, linguistic, if these newcomers come precisely for French.

So, yes: Quebecers and French Canadians, get ready to say “welcome home”. But let’s say it intelligently: with realistic welcome paths, adapted francization bridges and a public discourse that avoids turning cousins into scapegoats.

Because basically, C-3 does not only correct a legal inconsistency. It reactivates an old story: that of a people who have gone to work elsewhere… and whose descendants, a century later, ask not for permission, but the recognition of returning to touch the thread.”

Rémi Francœur Franco-American, the author is a political analyst and former director of political campaigns in New Hampshire. It has been based in Montreal since 2015.

Source: Idées | Après la loi C-3, un réveil franco-américain

Canadians living abroad are calling for increased turnout among overseas voters and arguing that barriers to casting a ballot could be affecting election results.

Looking forward the PROC report and recommendations. In contrast to the USA with relatively strong Republicans and Democrats Abroad, Canadian political parties do not appear to have the same interest although the Liberals seem to have a greater focus that the Conservatives (https://www.conservativesabroad.ca). The Liberals have the expansive multi-generational interpretation of C-3. As in the case of “Lost Canadians” and previous elections, the number who may be interested and vote is likely smaller than advocates believer.

Upcoming analysis on the provincial and country breakdowns for the 2025 election, sample below, Ontario and British Columbia have higher proportions than other provinces:

Timothy Veale, the director of Grits Abroad — an organization aimed at connecting Canadian Liberal voters living worldwide — said nearly five million Canadians live outside the country and roughly 3.5 million of them are eligible to vote.

Veale said the share of non-resident Canadians voting in federal elections is mired in the low single digits. He said the causes include mail-only voting, compressed timelines, uncertainty about ballot arrival and delivery and a lack of outreach from party campaigns.

Daniel Scuka, a member of Grits Abroad living in Germany, said parties need to “wake up” and encourage Canadians overseas to vote. He said Elections Canada could also be directed to do more to support overseas voting.

Veale said federal parties should see overseas voters as an opportunity.

“I’d like to see a politician ask us for their vote,” he said. “In the last election … I don’t think anybody courted any of the five million people living overseas.”

Veale said the system “needs modernization” and Canadians should be able to vote in person at an embassy, consulate or high commission. He also pointed out that several countries allow online voting.

“We have the right to vote and a 37-day election was not designed for people abroad to apply to vote,” he said. “If you get approval, then you have to wait for the ballot to be sent to you, then you have to send it back. And imagine having to navigate over 200 different national postal systems around the world.

“We’ve seen how other countries operate and we can do way better than this. It’s just a matter of will, as I see it.”

Elections Canada said in an email that 101,690 voting kits were issued to electors living outside of Canada in the last general election. Of those, 57,440 were returned on time and tallied….

Source: Canadians living abroad looking to increase voter turnout ahead of byelections

As Americans in Canada prepare U.S. tax filings, lower citizenship renunciation fee offers a way out

Not to be cynical but given that Democrats abroad tend to be larger than Republicans….

The U.S. government’s decision to decrease its citizenship renunciation fee by more than 80 per cent may result in more Americans in Canada giving up their U.S. citizenship, cross-border tax experts say, as the deadline for Americans abroad to file their taxes approaches.

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department announced that the consular services fee charged to Americans giving up their citizenship will drop to US$450, down from US$2,350, effective April 13.

Unlike Canada and most other countries, the U.S. bases its tax system on citizenship rather than residency. That means a U.S. citizen must file a U.S. tax return every year regardless of where they live. In addition, the U.S. requires Americans to report on their foreign financial accounts annually. 

The deadline for filing a U.S. tax return is April 15, but Americans living abroad receive an automatic filing and payment extension until June 15, and a possible further extension to Oct. 15, if they request it. To avoid interest charges, any taxes are still due by April 15….

Source: As Americans in Canada prepare U.S. tax filings, lower citizenship renunciation fee offers a way out

Multiculturalism articles of interest March 2026

Articles and opinions related to multiculturalism that I found of interest in March:

  • Racial and Ethnic Disparities
  • Activisim/Advocacy
  • Quebec Bill 21
  • Representation corporate boards and public serice

Disparities

Picard: To address racism in health care, we need to collect data on race

Agree, without data, over reliance on anecdotes:

…It’s important, of course, that data are collected voluntarily and that people’s privacy is respected as it is with all health records. 

The public needs to know, too, that the information will not appear on their health card or on medical charts. Rather, it is used in an aggregated fashion to reveal trends and inequalities between racial or ethnic groups, without identifying individuals. 

The big barrier to collecting and using race-based data is technical: digital health systems still need to adapt. But we know it’s doable, even on a large scale. 

During the pandemic, for example, the Coronavirus Rapid Entry Case and Contact Management System (CORES) included data on race, income and household size. As a result, we learned Black, Indigenous and people of colour in Toronto were over-represented in the tally of COVID-19 cases and deaths. That allowed, among other things, targeted vaccination campaigns. 

The data also allowed people who are too often marginalized and ignored to be heard, an important first step in correcting disparities. 

Race, culture, language and socio-economic status can all have a profound impact on health, individually and collectively. 

Allowing gaps in data collection to persist is bad for our health, and our health system. 

Source: To address racism in health care, we need to collect data on race 

StatsCan: Criminal court outcomes of Black accused persons in Canada, 2016/2017 to 2022/2023

Latest useful StatsCan study highlighting disparities

  • There were 100,450 Black accused persons in adult criminal courts between 2016/2017 and 2022/2023. Black people (6.2%) were overrepresented as accused persons in adult criminal courts over this period, relative to their representation among the adult population of Canada (3.7%).
  • The proportion of Black accused persons in adult criminal courts has generally increased over time, from 5.7% of all accused in 2016/2017 to 7.1% in 2022/2023. 
  • Between 2016/2017 and 2022/2023, the proportion of Black people in adult criminal courts in Nova Scotia and Ontario was more than two times higher than that of Black people in the total adult population of these provinces. Black people were also overrepresented as accused persons in criminal courts in Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta and New Brunswick compared with their representation in the total adult population.
  • More than 4 in 10 (42%) cases involving a Black accused person completed in adult criminal courts between 2016/2017 and 2022/2023 resulted in a guilty decision. This was equal to the proportion of cases involving Black accused persons that were withdrawn, dismissed or discharged over this period (42%).
  • Compared to the rest of the (non-Black) accused population, Black accused persons less often had their case result in a guilty decision and more often had it withdrawn, dismissed or discharged. 
  • Black accused persons most often received a guilty decision for cases where the most serious offence was a Criminal Code traffic offence such as impaired driving (69%) or an administration of justice offence such as breach of probation (49%), and least often for cases where it was a violent offence (33%). 
  • Between 2016/2017 and 2022/2023, just under half of violent crime cases (47%) and property crime cases (46%) involving Black accused persons were withdrawn, dismissed or discharged.
  • Similar proportions of Black and non-Black accused persons were sentenced to custody upon being found guilty in adult criminal courts (29% versus 27%). Probation was the most common sentence handed down to both Black and non-Black accused persons. 
  • It took nearly two months longer for court cases involving Black accused persons to be completed in adult criminal courts between 2016/2017 and 2022/2023, compared to non-Black accused persons (219 versus 165 days).

Source: Criminal court outcomes of Black accused persons in Canada, 2016/2017 to 2022/2023

CMA: Black Canadians more likely not to fill prescriptions because of financial constraints, study finds

Another insightful study:

Black adults in Canada are more likely not to fill prescriptions because of financial constraints than white adults, according to a new study that highlights disparities in prescription medication coverage as a major barrier to equitable health care.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday. Its authors concluded that the prevalence of cost-related prescription non-adherence – defined as the inability to fill a prescription or delaying, splitting or skipping doses because of financial pressures – was 75 per cent higher among Black adults than white adults.

Coverage for prescription medications was also lower among Black adults, the study showed. In 2022, for example, 72.5 per cent of Black adults were covered compared with 80 per cent of white adults. 

One of the study’s authors, Oluwabukola Salami, a Canada Research Chair in Black and racialized peoples’ health at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, said this study is the first of its kind and broadens the understanding of how Black Canadians experience health inequities.

“We know that Black people are more likely to have cardiovascular disease, to have certain types of cancer and to die from any of these conditions. But we always looked at how access to care is a challenge to Black people,” Dr. Salami said.

“This study presents new findings related to medication specifically.”…

Source: Black Canadians more likely not to fill prescriptions because of financial constraints, study finds

Activism/Advocacy

Amira Elghawaby entend poursuivre son combat contre la laïcité à la québécoise

Suspect may be harder given lack of a government platform and support staff and resources:

Amira Elghawaby, ancienne représentante spéciale du Canada, continue de s’opposer à la loi 21 sur la laïcité malgré l’abolition de son poste.

Bien que son poste ait été supprimé par le gouvernement de Mark Carney, elle se dit en paix et prévoit de rester active dans la scène publique.

Elle exprime des inquiétudes quant à l’efficacité du nouveau comité consultatif sur la lutte contre le racisme et la haine.

Source: Amira Elghawaby entend poursuivre son combat contre la laïcité à la québécoise

Jamie Sarkonak: The crusading judge who helped Liberals build a race-based sentencing regime

Sarkonak appears to be following judges with activist backgrounds as seen in her previous column on Justice Go.

There is a judge on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice whose signature move is letting violent men walk free because of racism. One of the architects of race-based sentencing, his name is Faisal Mirza, and he was appointed to the bench by former prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2022.

Mirza’s flourish of race-based acquittals is not a case of a judge gone rogue: indeed, it’s perfectly on-brand. He was writing about the need for more racial considerations in the Canadian justice system in 2001, before he even became a lawyer. Back then, he argued in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal that mandatory minimum sentences for drug and weapons offences would be racist because of the disproportionate impact they’d have on Black people.

Toronto police, he asserted, were racist because of the arrest statistics they produced: in 1988, Black individuals comprised 51 per cent of drug arrests, 82 per cent of mugging arrests and 55 per cent of purse snatching arrests. This, he said, was evidence of over-targeting. He concluded that more mandatory minimums would exacerbate the effect, because the threat of being convicted on a charge with a guaranteed jail term would disproportionately pressure Black accused persons to make plea deals and forfeit the opportunity to expose racist police at trial.

This became a career pursuit. When the Supreme Court was deciding whether to strike down the mandatory minimum for illegally possessing a loaded firearm in 2014, he argued as an intervener in the case that its disproportionate impact on Black individuals needed to be taken into account. The court ultimately ruled that this mandatory minimum was unconstitutional.

In 2018, Mirza laid the foundation for Ontario’s racial sentencing regime. He was the defence lawyer of Kevin Morris, a Black man who was convicted of various firearms offences. They were lucky to draw the hyper-progressive, destructively lenient Shaun Nakatsuru for a judge. Mirza filed two racial context reports about Morris and Black people as evidence, and the judge emphatically agreed to consider them. He settled on a 15-month sentence to account for the racial factors, even though three years was considered the starting point. On appeal, the Ontario Court of Appeal made racial considerations in sentencing the province-wide rule in 2021….

To his credit, there have been instances where Mirza refrained from applying a racial discount, and from tossing out evidence because of racism, but it doesn’t excuse the other times when he let his biases reign. It’s undeniable that he has a habit of projecting racism in assessing any interaction with the state and undermining public safety with his assumptions. One day, it’s going to end up getting someone hurt — if it hasn’t already.

Source: Jamie Sarkonak: The crusading judge who helped Liberals build a race-based sentencing regime

Dummit: How accommodation hollowed out Canadian nationalism

Not an easy country to govern given differing regional and group interests. Will be interesting to see how the (still) forthcoming revision to the Harper era citizenship study guide provides a cohesive and coherent national perspective:

….Taken as a whole, this legacy of national hesitation makes governing difficult. Is it any wonder that Carney spends so much time abroad signing international agreements? Foreign policy is one of the few areas where a Canadian government can still act as a single whole with relative clarity about the national interest.

But Carney’s real test will come when he finally returns home.

Canada’s genius has always been accommodation. But accommodation, repeated often enough, can gradually hollow out the idea that the country itself even has a single political purpose.

When Carney eventually tries to move forward with projects deemed nationally significant—whether mining developments, high-speed rail, or (God forbid) a new pipeline—he will run directly into Canada’s familiar pattern of internal division.

That’s when we’ll truly find out who is willing to embrace an “Elbows Up” style of nationalism. Until then, we’re left wondering: whose elbows? Defending which nation?

Source: How accommodation hollowed out Canadian nationalism

This woman is suing Canada for its ban on adoption under Muslim law

Inevitable that the ban would be challenged. Of course, this predominant affects Muslim families but perhaps a more appropriate challenge would be with respect to Pakistan’s application of kafala:

A Toronto woman is being denied the right to reunite with her adopted children because Ottawa does not recognize adoptions from Pakistan under Islamic rules, a court has heard.

Jameela Qadeer is the maternal aunt of Salman, Umme and Umm; she and her husband raised them as their own in Pakistan after her sister died of a brain hemorrhage in 2012. The Pakistani court has granted them guardianship of the kids and authorization to travel after their biological father, who was absent in their lives, abdicated his responsibility for their care.

An Ahmadiyya Muslim, a sect of Islam deemed heretical in Pakistan, Qadeer fled to Canada in 2017 and was granted asylum. However, her adopted kids have not been allowed to join her. Since 2013, Ottawa has stopped accepting adoption from Pakistan because it says the Islamic rules known as kafala only allow for guardianship of children, but do not sever biological ties as required by Canadian law.

In a fight to reunite the family, Qadeer and her sister’s children, along with two Muslim organizations, have taken the federal government to court, challenging the refusals of permanent residence to the children, and the constitutionality of Canada’s ban on recognizing adoption from Pakistan. 

They contend that Canada’s immigration policy has disproportionately affected Muslim families and denied them equality rights under the Charter, even when a guardianship arrangement following traditional kafala is permanent and sanctioned by a foreign court. 

“That categorical refusal does not only affect the individual applicants,” Armaan Kassam, lawyer for the National Council of Canadian Muslims told the opening of a three-day Federal Court hearing this week. “It affects Muslim families across Canada who adopt through foreign court-supervised guardianship processes.”

Warda Shazadi Meighen, lawyer for the children, said her clients’ biological father officially abdicated his responsibility in 2013 to Jameela Qadeer. Before leaving for Canada in 2017, Qadeer and her husband were granted judicial guardianship by a Pakistani court under national guardianship laws, giving them exclusive custody. ,,,

Source: This woman is suing Canada for its ban on adoption under Muslim law

Quebec Bill 21

Khan: In Quebec, laïcité has become its own kind of religious orthodoxy

Ironic but accurate:

…In the meantime, there is no legal recourse to challenge laws that are clearly discriminatory. Those primarily affected by these bills are veiled Muslim women – whom Quebec ostensibly wants to liberate, while strengthening gender equality. In its oxymoronic quest to impose freedom, then, the government is excluding those very women from the job market and impeding their financial independence. And it’s so 1950s to hear the high priests of laïcité – François Legault, Bernard Drainville – tell women what they can and cannot wear.

Given the situation, it’s time to tell the world about Quebec’s laïcité mission. Canadian embassies, high commissions and consulates should be clear to prospective immigrants (especially from la Francophonie) that their religious freedoms and expression will be curtailed in la belle province. Here at home, the federal government, along with the governments of Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba, should help those adversely affected by Quebec’s laws resettle in francophone communities in the rest of Canada, if they wish to leave. They deserve an opportunity to thrive without compromising their faith.

And finally, something must be done about the notwithstanding clause. Governments show no slowdown in its use, while the wider public seems unaware of its fundamental threat to basic freedoms. Perhaps a jarring public education campaign is in order, using the spectre of Donald Trump. After all, his administration has overseen attacks on domestic human rights, circumvented judicial warrants, tried to suspend legal protections to immigrants and denied equality before the law. Little wonder he wants to absorb Canada: The notwithstanding clause would allow him to do all that legally.

Source: In Quebec, laïcité has become its own kind of religious orthodoxy

Kutty | When parents are shut out of classrooms over what they wear, we have a problem

Absurd and unreasonable:

Two mothers in Quebec were recently told they could no longer volunteer at their children’s elementary school unless they removed their hijabs. For one of them, it meant being shut out of a classroom she had supported for years — not because of anything she did, but because of what she wears.

They are not alone. Across Quebec, people of faith — including Muslim women who wear hijabs, Sikhs who wear turbans, and Jewish Canadians who wear kippahs — are being pushed out of classrooms and public life unless they conceal visible expressions of their identity. In a separate incident, twelve Muslim women reportedly lost their teaching jobs because they refused to remove their hijabs. These are the lived consequences of Quebec’s secularism law, Bill 21, which prohibits many public-sector employees — including teachers, police officers and government lawyers — from wearing visible religious symbols while performing their duties.

The constitutionality of this law is now poised for its most consequential test. Canada’s Supreme Court is now hearing arguments in a landmark case examining whether Bill 21 violates fundamental rights, including freedom of religion and equality under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Quebec has invoked the notwithstanding clause — Section 33 of the Charter — a rarely used constitutional mechanism that allows governments to override certain fundamental rights, including freedom of religion and equality, for renewable five-year periods….

Source: When parents are shut out of classrooms over what they wear, we have a problem

Representation

StatsCam: Representation of women on boards of directors and in officer positions, 2023

Useful study with breakdowns:

Statistics Canada is releasing new data on the gender composition of leadership and strategic decision-making roles within publicly traded corporations, privately held corporations and government business enterprises operating across a variety of industries in Canada.

This data helps inform the objective “More company board seats held by women, and more diversity on company boards” and the indicator “Proportion of board members who are women, by type of board” in the Leadership and democratic participation pillar of the Gender Results Framework.

Additional information and other studies and statistics related to gender and enterprises can be found in the Gender, diversity and inclusion statistics hub, the Business performance and ownership statistics portal and in the Representation of women on boards of directors and in officer positions: Visualization tool.

Women hold just under one-quarter of director positions

In 2023, women occupied just under one-quarter (23.2%) of seats on boards of directors, increasing 0.5 percentage points over the proportion of women recorded in 2022 (22.7%). 

Just over half of boards (50.3%) did not include any women directors in 2023. In addition, 25.8% of boards had one woman director, while boards with two or more women directors accounted for 23.9% of the total. 

Educational services has the highest representation of women directors, followed by the utilities and finance and insurance industries

Educational services had the highest proportion of women directors in 2023, with women holding 35.3% of board seats. This reflects an increase of 4.9 percentage points from 2022. 

The utilities industry recorded the second-highest share in 2023, at 34.1%. Corporations in finance and insurance followed, with women representing 28.2% of board members. 

The agriculture industry had the lowest proportion of women directors, with women occupying 8.8% of board seats….

Source: Representation of women on boards of directors and in officer positions, 2023

Treasury Board not tracking impact of public service job cuts on equity groups

Will be curious to see the respective numbers of hirings, separations and promotions in the forthcoming TBS EE report. Hopefully, TBS will continue to provide the breakdowns by visible minority groups.

Slides from last year’s EE report.

Advocates are raising concerns about how job cuts will affect public servants in equity groups — something the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says it’s not tracking. 

The federal government has committed to cutting the number of public service jobs by about 40,000 from a 2023-24 peak of 368,000 as it looks to find savings.

Departments and agencies across the public service have started notifying staff of coming job cuts.

Barb Couperus, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat — which oversees government operations — said the office does not collect information centrally on the impact of workforce adjustment on employment equity designated groups.

Equity groups include women, Indigenous people, people with disabilities and members of visible minorities.

Couperus said heads of departments are responsible for managing their workforces.

She said departments will continue to pay “close attention” to maintaining representation and meeting their obligations under the Employment Equity Act.

The act requires federally regulated employers, including the government itself, to take steps to eliminate employment barriers and maintain proportional representation in the workplace for members of equity groups.

During layoff periods, Couperus said, departments can prioritize keeping staff from equity groups if there are gaps in representation.

Nicholas Marcus Thompson, president and CEO of the Black Class Action Secretariat, said he is “disturbed” to learn the Treasury Board isn’t tracking the impacts of job cuts.

“What that suggests is that this is not a priority for this government,” he said.

Over the past five years, the government has hired approximately 5,000 Black workers throughout the entire federal public service, said Thompson. It also has increased the number of Black executives from around 99 in 2020 to more than 220, he said.

“What we’re seeing now is that those gains are being lost as a result of workforce adjustment,” said Thompson, adding his organization has started tracking data on workforce adjustment. “Many folks have reached out to us to find out what their rights are.

“Usually with workforce adjustment, the first to go are folks that were the last to come … So far our data is showing that, despite these equity gains, it’s now turning out to be equity losses.”

Thompson said his organization wants to see the government require equity impact assessments before workforce adjustment decisions are made. It also wants the government to be transparent about the process and publish data on which demographics are being affected.

Rabia Khedr, national director of Disability Without Poverty, said people with disabilities working in the public service will be feeling anxious.

“Generally speaking, a lot of times people with disabilities may be at an entry level position, so that makes them vulnerable,” said Khedr.

The most recent employment equity report for the public service says that as of March 2024, 9.7 per cent of federal executives were people with disabilities, up from 4.6 per cent in March 2019.

Khedr also said she’s unhappy about the lack of central tracking of the impacts of job cuts on equity groups.

“That then leaves it to the individual leadership within departments to make those critical decisions,” she said.

“It really depends on the leadership and their commitment to diversity and inclusion … There’s a risk that equity-denied groups might be more vulnerable in terms of who gets cut and who stays.”

Source: Treasury Board not tracking impact of public service job cuts on equity groups

Canadian citizenship test now entirely self-administered and online

Juno News caught this change. Deserves wider reading and concern given “take home test” is a further diminishment and integrity reduction of Canadian citizenship:

The majority of immigrants seeking Canadian citizenship will apply completely through a self-administered online citizenship test, which they will be permitted up to three attempts to pass.

The virtual format for the Canadian citizenship test, popularized throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, is now the default, according to new instructions from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).

Before 2020, citizenship tests were written in person by default. Applicants were generally given 30 minutes to complete the test. If they failed, they had one opportunity to rewrite it before being referred to a knowledge or language hearing.

The IRCC released updated information on Monday, formalizing a 45-minute time allotment for the online, self-administered test. Applicants must answer 15 of the 20 questions correctly.

Meanwhile, most citizenship ceremonies have also gone virtual, with the Conservatives pushing Ottawa to reinstate in-person ceremonies.

In December, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner calledon the Liberals to return to in-person ceremonies, which she called a “sacred event” where new Canadians “swear an out to the country and take on the responsibilities and obligations that come with citizenship.”

During a press conference in Ottawa, Rempel Garner said it was time for the Carney government to “restore the value of Canadian citizenship.”

“Last year, over half of the people who became Canadian citizens did so by clicking a box online. That’s crazy. There is no way to justify this practice, and with support for immigration at an all-time low, returning to inclusive nation-building ceremonies is a no-brainer,” she said at the time. “In person, citizenship ceremonies are the essential unifying bedrock of Canada’s civic life.”

She called for an immediate end to “one-click citizenship” and to “restore the full dignity and communal significance” of the in-person ceremonies for new Canadians.

“Just as with marriage, these are sacred events, and the responsibilities and obligations taken on swearing the Oath of Citizenship in front of an official should be upheld as an integral part of committing to those responsibilities that come along with being Canadian,” Rempel-Garner said. “The Liberals rejected every opportunity to restore in-person ceremonies. Justice Minister Sean Fraser even defended virtual ceremonies, saying the practice could be easier for bureaucrats to manage.”

This comes after the president of the Customs and Immigration Union, which represents the Canada Border Services Agency, revealed to an immigration committee that the majority of asylum claims are being done through an app. He warned Canadians that removing person-to-person interviews could compromise Canada’s security.

Source: Canadian citizenship test now entirely self-administered and online, Link to IRCC page Citizenship test: How the test works

March blogging break

Back in April.

Trump might order banks to verify clients’ citizenship. What’s so wrong about that?

Follow the money applies even more strongly to Trump, his family and his enablers:

…And while banks are required to adhere to anti-money-laundering and KYC rules and list where a customer lives, they are not currently required to collect and verify citizenship information.

If Mr. Trump signed such an executive order, it could require banks to retroactively get citizenship information from existing customers and collect it from new customers.

Politics and privacy aside, that task would be Herculean – and expensive. The costs would likely be passed on to customers.

Opponents of such a measure would say that once again, Mr. Trump is overreaching his authority. This has nothing to do with the integrity of the banking system and everything to do with his agenda.

Supporters would be quick to remind detractors that one of Mr. Trump’s top campaign promises was to crack down on illegal immigration. And while not everyone agrees with his tactics, don’t be so naive to think you can do the job by being soft, and this is what the majority of American voters said they wanted.

At the end of the day, it really comes down to the now infamous line from All the President’s Men, the 1976 film about the Watergate scandal. 

If you want to shine a light on corruption, “follow the money.” And that, presumably, is what such a measure would be meant to do.

Source: Trump might order banks to verify clients’ citizenship. What’s so wrong about that?

Wand: Discrimination by design? Race-based admissions in Canadian medical and law schools

While I largely disagree with the recommendations, good to have this data analysis on the impact of these preferences:

…Key findings include:

• In nine of 14 schools, the non-racial-minority, or non-Black, non-Indigenous applicant group had the lowest acceptance rates. Even among the five remaining schools where the “Discretionary” and “Black” applicant racial groups had the lowest acceptance rates, those rates were much higher than if the applicants from these two groups had been required to compete against all applicants, regardless of race.

• Thirteen schools (with two exceptions for LSAT-specific analysis) admitted fewer non-racial-minority or non-Black, non-Indigenous applicants than would have been the case had they selected applicants according to their top-ranked academic performance.

• Further analysis showed that 216 applicants or 10 per cent were admitted with lower grades out of 2,150 medical and law school first-year students who were all from designated racial minority applicant groups. A similar admission pattern was also observed for LSAT/MCAT scores, with 132 racial minority applicants admitted with lower scores, or 6.1 per cent of the total number of admitted students. This analysis indicates that race-based admission policies result in the admission of academically weaker students.

• In every school that provided admissions data, the non-racial-minority or non[1]Black, non-Indigenous applicant groups experienced the highest number of rejections despite higher academic scores than the admitted applicant from other racial groups with the lowest academic score from their group.

• Most medical schools and many law schools refused to release their race-based application and admission data at all. This lack of transparency raises serious concerns about accountability in publicly funded institutions.

The implications are troubling. Institutional racism potentially erodes fairness and undermines public confidence in our standards for medical and legal education. Such racism is also remarkably resistant to scrutiny – operating behind policies that limit access to basic admissions data.

These findings give some specificity to broader concerns about DEI in Canadian universities and colleges, where critics have raised alarms about the growth of DEI bureaucracies, opaque hiring policies, and admission practices that prioritize group identity over merit.

Canada also stands out internationally. University officials in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands reported that race is not considered in admissions decisions for medical or law schools.

Policy recommendations to address the racial segregation and discrimination identified in this report include:

• Provincial governments should prohibit the use of race as an admissions criterion in medical and law schools.

• To restore academic rigour, these schools should rely exclusively on objective measures such as the MCAT, LSAT, and required prerequisite coursework. Provinces should consider suspending funding to medical and law schools that continue to factor race into admissions decisions.

• In addition, provinces that continue to consider race in medical and law school admissions should be required to publicly release race-based application and admission data using consistent, transparent measures of discrimination, preferably measures similar to the measures used in this study. Without this disclosure, governments cannot effectively oversee or correct the disturbing trend of racial discrimination that threatens the overall academic strength of our medical and law students.

Recent public debates in Canada, including high-profile campus protests, faculty resignations over DEI mandates, and legislative scrutiny of “equity hires,” reflect growing concern that universities are straying from their core missions under the banner of DEI. Rather than sorting applicants by racial category, universities should focus on ensuring that all prospective students, regardless of race, have the academic preparation needed to compete fairly. This includes access to tutoring, frequent testing, and meaningful academic feedback well before the application stage….

Source: Discrimination by design? Race-based admissions in Canadian medical and law schools

Pakistani refugee who returned to his homeland six times wins chance to keep Canadian status

Sigh, another overly permissive judgement by Judge Go:

A Federal Court judge set aside a ruling by Canada’s Refugee Protection Division (RPD), saying it failed “to engage with a critical piece of evidence” when it revoked a Pakistani man’s refugee status after he returned to the country on multiple occasions. …

The RPD, a division of the Immigration Refugee Board of Canada, found Ahmad “voluntarily re-availed himself of the protection of Pakistan” and “had not provided sufficient evidence to rebut the presumption,” the judgment reads. The tribunal found Ahmad’s description “of the agents of persecution ‘evolved depending on his audience,’” shifting between fear of religious extremists and government authorities on different occasions. The RPD found his statements to be inconsistent.

On February 18, Justice Avvy Yao-Yao Go ruled in favour of Ahmad, arguing that the RPD found inconsistencies “where none existed.” The judge added that the tribunal “compounded this error by failing to consider a key precautionary measure that the applicant took against the religious extremists while in Pakistan,” when Ahmad avoided going to a mosque.

“While the RPD noted the applicant’s evidence that he did not attend mosque or engage with the broader community,” Go wrote in her ruling, “the RPD never engaged with this evidence when conducting its analysis on the applicant’s intention…Rather, the RPD focused on the fact that the applicant had a ‘large wedding,’ the duration of his visits, and the fact that the applicant brought his family to Pakistan, and found these factors to indicate a lack of subjective fear of persecution.

“By failing to engage with a critical piece of evidence that may rebut the intent to reavail, the RDP fell short of its heightened duty to provide justified, transparent, and intelligible reasons to explain its decision,” the justice continued.

Go granted Ahmad his request for a judicial review and sent his case back “for redetermination by a differently constituted panel of the Refugee Protection Division.”

Ahmad’s legal counsel, Daniel Kingwell, lauded the decision in a written statement to National Post on Thursday afternoon.

“We are very pleased with the judge’s ruling. The court recognized that Mr. Ahmad had provided a number of reasons for returning to Pakistan that were not adequately assessed by the Board – in particular to attend to essential family duties including his marriage, the birth of his child, and the illnesses and deaths of his parents,” Kingwell wrote, noting that the ruling was “consistent with a number of other decisions where the court has taken issue with an overly aggressive approach to refugee cessation.

Kingwell explained that Ahmadi mosques were the “primary targets” of religious extremists in Pakistan and that Ahmad’s conduct while in the country comported with this, taking necessary precautions that “were consistent with his ongoing need for refugee protection.”…

Source: Pakistani refugee who returned to his homeland six times wins chance to keep Canadian status

How Bookbinders Used Old Records to Help the Nazis Find Their Victims

Interesting research and wonder whether any of those involved had a sense of how their work would be used or was it more a case of wilful blindness and complicity:

Bookbinders and restorers in the 1930s and ’40s used their craft to help the Nazi regime create a database that was used to persecute and kill Jews and others who were deemed racially impure, a British researcher has found.

Key to building this database were church, civil and synagogue records, which were often hundreds of years old and damaged beyond legibility when the Nazis came to power in 1933.

By tasking professionals with cleaning up these documents, which held information about millions of people, the Nazis gained access to generations’ worth of material — which they used to target specific population groups, the new research shows.

The findings are the result of more than two decades of work by Morwenna Blewett, an expert in conservation history.

She was working as a conservation fellow at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts in 2004 when a question came to her: What had happened to the art restorers who did not flee Nazi Germany during World War II?

She pondered the question while sorting through an old filing cabinet in the museum’s basement — where, as she recalled in a book published this month, “Art Restoration Under the Nazi Regime: Revelation and Concealment,” the “warm, dark air smelt faintly of cigarettes, coffee and engine oil.”

Soon, she had expanded on her query: “How did the Nazi regime intend to use conservation and restoration to achieve its aims?”

The answer, she discovered, was that paper restorers and bookbinders in Nazi Germany had helped the regime track down people’s Jewish ancestry by conserving and cleaning up old records from churches, as well as from synagogues and civil registers.

Dr. Blewett said that, by publishing her book, she hoped to shed light on this part of the Holocaust, which she called “one of the longest and most insidious of all National Socialism’s projects to exploit the field of conservation and restoration.”…

Source: How Bookbinders Used Old Records to Help the Nazis Find Their Victims

CILA’s New Report: Engine of Growth

Count me as sceptical given the history of various business immigration programs:

CILA has released a major new report entitled Engine of Growth: How a Canadian Business Immigration Council Can Support National Prosperity.

Business immigration has the potential to advance the Government of Canada policy priorities outlined in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s May 2025 mandate letter.

In 2025, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA) launched its Catalyst Canada initiative. The purpose of Catalyst Canada is to explore how Canada can fully harness business immigration to promote economic growth and job creation. This CILA report summarizes the findings of Catalyst Canada.

“Business immigration can support Canada’s economy in various ways,” says Siavash Shekarian, Chair of CILA’s Catalyst Canada initiative. “These include promoting productivity and GDP per capita growth, supporting affordability and the health care system, as well as strengthening foreign direct investment, international trade, and Canada’s fiscal standing.”

Business immigration once comprised up to one-quarter of Canada’s economic class admissions (30,000 business immigrants annually). Under its Immigration Levels Plan 2026-2028, the federal government is now seeking to welcome 500 business immigrants per year. 

The federal government has stepped back from business immigration due to challenges such as backlogs and the belief that the economic benefits have been limited.

The federal government’s main goal should be to develop a framework that enables it to test and iterate various business immigration programs until desirable policy outcomes are achieved. Employing an iterative approach will enable evidence-based policymaking and also avoid previous shortcomings of launching new programs and then abruptly shutting them down when policy objectives are not met.

CILA recommends the formation of a federal Canadian Business Immigration Council (“CBIC”) comprised of key government stakeholders and other experts to advise the government on business immigration program design and evaluate performance to ensure the programs can advance national economic development and prosperity objectives.

This report argues that fixing business immigration requires fundamental paradigm shifts, not incremental change. These shifts are from volume to value, from processing to governance, from intuition to evidence, from one-off consultations to continuous feedback, and from centralized control to shared stewardship. These shifts collectively point to a simple truth: Canada does not need perfect policy. It needs a system capable of becoming better, faster.

A shift of this scale is only possible through collaborative policymaking. Government cannot, and should not, attempt to design and steward complex economic programs alone. The private sector, civil society, academia, and immigrant communities each hold pieces of the broader truth. Effective governance requires weaving those perspectives together into a single, coherent system.

CBIC embodies this shift. It is not a traditional advisory committee. It is an institutional mechanism designed to collect real-time market intelligence, track outcomes that matter, identify risk early, and recommend adjustments before systemic problems take root. CBIC operationalizes the humility that good policy demands: the recognition that no model is flawless at launch, and therefore the system itself must be built to evolve.

“This is the core message of Catalyst Canada: success lies not in perfect policy, but in policy architecture designed for continuous improvement,” says Shekarian.

“Programs will require tuning. Criteria will require adjustment. Market behaviour will reveal blind spots. But a trusted, adaptive governance engine allows those insights to translate into action quickly, transparently, and responsibly.”

Source: CILA’s New Report: Engine of Growth

Jason Kenney on Canadian immigration – Transcript

Good long read:

JAYME POISSON: Hi everyone, I’m Jayme Poisson. 

[Music: Theme]

JP: So over the last week or so, the debate over Canada’s immigration policy has really come to the forefront. In Alberta, Premier Daniel Smith has promised to put a series of restrictive new immigration policies to provincial referendum. In a televised speech on Thursday, she drew a straight line between immigration and the province’s finances. 

SOUNDCLIP

DANIELLE SMITH: Although sustainable immigration has always been an important part of our provincial growth model, throwing the doors wide open to anyone and everyone across the globe has flooded our classrooms, emergency rooms and social support systems with far too many people far too quickly. 

JP: Smith went on to suggest a number of measures that would limit access to both education and health care for some newcomers, like charging temporary residents to access services or setting up a one year residency requirement before anyone who isn’t a citizen or permanent resident can qualify for provincial support programs. And then on Tuesday, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre brought forward a motion that would compel the federal government to review and restrict the services that asylum seekers get. Critics have said both moves are sowing hate and division and amount to scapegoating immigrants. And this is all happening at a time when, according to polling from the last couple of years, popular support for more immigration is on the decline. My guest today is someone who is uniquely positioned to talk about the proposed changes in immigration policy. Jason Kenney is the former United Conservative Party Premier of Alberta. Prior to that, Kenney spent nearly two decades in federal politics and was a cabinet minister under Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party. He spent years working on the Immigration and Multiculturalism file and was widely credited for shifting the support of new Canadians from the Liberals to the Conservatives. Mr. Kenny, thank you so much for coming on to the show. 

JASON KENNEY: Pleased to be here. 

JP: So Alberta Premier Daniel Smith said on Thursday night that immigration was, quote, “out of control”, that federal policies put unsustainable pressure on provincial programs like health care and education. Do you agree with the Premier? 

JASON KENNEY: Yeah, I think all of those things are true. Now, it has gotten somewhat under control over the past year or so, as the federal government has sharply reduced intake for foreign students and temporary foreign workers. But still, I think their levels are totally out of whack with our capacity to integrate people. I always used to say, as Canada’s longest serving minister of immigration for five years, that if we wanted to maintain broad support for and successful outcomes of immigration, we had to be very conscious about ensuring the success of integration. And that the levels did not get out of whack with our ability to settle people, find housing for them, ensure their proper integration in the employment market. And also we need to be aware of, it’s harder to measure, but we need to be aware of the intangible qualitative factors around integration. You know, we don’t want to end up in a society that is characterized by very thick ethnic enclaves as opposed to one of social cohesion. So that’s, these are things that we all have to be conscious of. And there should be space for, I think, a broad public debate. I think it’s wrong to suggest concerns about extraordinarily high levels of immigration and pointing out some of the social and practical stresses. I don’t think any of that is racist if it’s done in good faith. 

JP: Critics who work in these fields education, health care, they say that these issues are long running. I was just reading that the last hospital built in a major city like Edmonton was in 1988. ER physician and former MLA Raj Sherman, who served on the province’s Health Quality Council, said that in ’92, Alberta had a population of 2.7 million and had 11 thousand 7 hundred staffed hospital beds. Today, there are 8 thousand 8 hundred beds serving 5 million Albertans. Is it really fair to be blaming rising immigration rates for what critics say is a lack of capacity planning? 

JASON KENNEY: Well, I think there’s a bit of sophistry in those numbers. For example, if you look at inflation adjusted or real per capita health care expenditures, Alberta is generally run above the growth of population and inflation as the health care budget has ballooned and for most of the past 40 years has been held in Alberta, has been more expensive public health insurance than in other provinces. So, look, I must tell you that in coming out of Covid, when I was the premier, several of my colleagues were hammering the table, demanding large increases in temporary foreign workers, foreign students to provide tuition to their colleges and universities and immigration levels overall. And I said to them, colleagues, as the only person around here with expertise in immigration policy. I warn you to be careful what you ask for, because we are already facing very significant strains in our housing market, in health care and a in a fragile economy as we exit Covid. And the idea of flooding the population, you know, with millions of newcomers, we do not have the capacity to settle is going to create huge negative downstream effects. And, I mean, I had the same warning for the Trudeau government when it decided to double the intake of permanent residence and then let loose on the temporary foreign worker and student programs. I think it was entirely predictable that this would, you can’t, I’m sure there’s just no practical way that you can add enough capacity in housing, healthcare and education, etc… to accommodate intake levels that we experienced under the Trudeau government. 

JP: You know, the government, though, has drawn down on those programs, right? So why call for all of these changes now? 

JASON KENNEY: You know… well, first of all, I’m not endorsing any particular changes. What I’m articulating, what I’m trying to argue for here is a realistic immigration policy. That’s evidence driven, that is aligned with our country’s capacity to integrate, which we cannot integrate infinite immigration. For me, for those who are in total denial about the stress placed on social services, the labour market, I guess, I would ask them, what’s their… do they think there’s a limit? I think the question answers itself. There are practical limits to our generosity. We are a very generous country. We should be an open and welcoming country, but our openness cannot be unlimited. And particularly when we have a legal and a moral obligation to provide a high quality of life for Canadians and newcomers who are already here. And I will… you know, I think it’s important in this context to stress that new Canadians are as or more likely than native born Canadians to call for lower levels of immigration. Why? Because they tend to be the folks who are most acutely affected by the housing shortage, by the health care shortage, by the huge new competition, particularly in lower skilled employment in the labour market, competition from foreign students and temporary foreign workers, amongst others. So look, let’s not go back to some, I think really a braindead dichotomy, false dichotomy in this debate that either you’re pro-immigration and therefore no, in favour of no reasonable limits or you’re an anti-immigrant racist. Let’s figure out a pragmatic, sensible middle ground, as we had, frankly, in Canada for a very long time before Trudeau’s, I think, incompetent, naive and ideologically informed mis-administration of immigration. 

[music] 

JP: The current number under the Carney government, which has now been in power for a year, is 3 hundred and 80 thousand permanent residents this year. This is lower than previous years, right? Is this too high a number? 

JASON KENNEY: It’s much higher than previous years. If you… I mean, the Harper, Harper government, we averaged about 2 hundred and 60 thousand permanent residents. And if you want me to be totally truthful about that, I thought that was probably a bit too high. I saw some of these concerns a long time ago emerging, and I wouldn’t have lowered it radically, but somewhat, to put this in context, when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister in his last term. Canada hit a big recession in 1982. His view was the very pragmatic, traditional Canadian view, up to fairly recently, was that there is no sense in inviting newcomers to join a country with high unemployment, when Canadians were already struggling for work. And so he reduced levels by 40 per cent, 40 per cent from like 120 thousand to 80 thousand in 1982. What the Carney government has done is to take Trudeau’s, like 420 thousand permanent residents target to reduce it to 380 thousand, that’s virtually meaningless. When you look at the huge overhang from the Trudeau catastrophe, including something like 3 million temporary residents who came here primarily on work permits and study permits, who are either overstaying, seeking a renewal of their visas, trying to jam in to the permanent residency stream. A huge part of this is not merely a quantitative, it’s also qualitative. By which I mean we used to have what was widely regarded across the world as something of a model human capital immigration system through the point system for selecting economic immigrants. But right now, because of these mistakes, if you are a… I have a friend, a Brazilian friend who’s a pediatric oncologist, 35 years of age, speaks four languages, literally a model immigrant. You know, he would be making much higher than average incomes, providing critical health services, contributing massively for his entire life, zero integration challenge cannot get into Canada through the point system. But if he was, he had come here as a foreign student with a work permit in a fast serve restaurant who maybe spoke, barely spoke either official language, he would now have a higher chance of getting permanent residency in Canada. We have taken our human capital model and turned it on its head. And that’s also going to have a lot of problematic downstream effects. 

JP: I just want to come back to this critique that, you know, the primary reason why people are feeling these stressors is because of poor governance, right? Not immigration. So like when it comes to education, for example, in Alberta, there is a clear downward trend in per student funding in the province. Our own colleagues gathered data around this for the years between 2015 and 2022. So again, like is it fair to lay issues around classrooms on immigration? Is it really immigration that’s causing this? 

JASON KENNEY: Earlier, I said we should avoid a false dichotomy in this debate, and you’re presenting that false dichotomy again when there are serious problems, social or public policy problems, they’re very rarely a single cause. But I will remind you, I mean, what you’re articulating there or what you’re reflecting is I think that the lazy, totally predictable script of the teachers unions and the left broadly, which is you need to spend infinite money on these programs. The teachers unions and that lobby, of course, said it wasn’t enough. There was scarcity. You know, maybe there is an argument that the government, that Alberta needs to spend more on, on education. But that argument does not acknowledge that there is a problem with completely untethered population growth and demand. Population growth is, in principle, a good thing. I mean, look I’m the guy who launched the “Alberta is Calling campaign” to encourage Canadians to think about moving to a place with the lower cost of living and lower taxes, etc… And because population growth has been a key driver of Alberta’s modern economic diversification, but it has to be a manageable and realistic population growth so the public services can keep up with it, the labour market can keep up with it, and we don’t end up with a kind of anti-immigrant backlash that is now appearing in Canadian politics. 

[music] 

JP: The current premier is really laying the blame for these problems that Albertans are facing at the feet of immigration. And do you think that she’s wrong there? Do you think that she’s putting way too much emphasis on what’s causing these problems? 

JASON KENNEY: I think it’s a primary driving factor, it’s not the only one, but there was zero regard from the Trudeau government about what impact these extraordinary levels would have. Now Alberta, because of its more prosperous economy and higher paying jobs, etc… on average, you know, we have higher incomes. For those and other factors it has tended to attract a large number of the overall intake of immigrants to Canada. Certainly as primary immigrants but also we get a lot of secondary migration of newcomers who arrive, let’s say Toronto, Vancouver and when you put all that together, it does impose large pressure. Now, I do think until not long ago, Premier Smith was in favour of some of those very high levels. She always used to lobby me. When she was at the CFB and as leader of the Wildrose Party to, for example, loosen the temporary foreign worker program, and I think that she was calling for more immigration and faster population growth until recently. But, you know, that’s just context to say, I think she recognizes that this has placed unsustainable pressure on the system. And it’s right to want to correct that. I’m not sure that a referendum is necessary to… I haven’t even looked at all of that that’s being proposed here. 

JP: You know, you’ve talked about this “Alberta is Calling” campaign a few times already where you yourself invited people to come to the province. And so wasn’t that pressure from the Premier welcome? I guess what I’m trying to get out here is, like the Premier herself said that she wanted 10 million people in Alberta by 2050. Right. Just two and a half years ago. 

SOUNDCLIP

DANIELLE SMITH: So I’ve said, let’s have an aggressive target to double our population. I’m going to put this out there because I’ve said that in the throne speech. I want people to understand how important that is. We have to be that bastion of liberty, and people are going to want to come here, and we want to embrace them, and we want to be able to build this place out so that we can actually have the political clout in Alberta that we deserve, because right now, we’re being treated as a junior partner by Ottawa, and if we end up with the strongest economy, we’ll double our oil production… 

REPORTER: So you want to go from, rough numbers, you probably know the number better than me. 4.7 million, roughly. 

DANIELLE SMITH: We’re almost at 5 million. 

REPORTER: Okay. So you want to double it to 10 million? 

DANIELLE SMITH: Yeah, I do you. 

JP: You were calling for more people to come to the province. So, like, is it fair to just invite a bunch of newcomers to come, only to say a couple of years later that they’re to blame for health care and education being stretched, stretched too thin?

JASON KENNEY: That’s a rhetorical trick you just played there. 

JP: Ok fair. You know, I think the premier is, the current premier is certainly, seems to be saying that from her speech. 

JASON KENNEY: There’s a difference between blaming irresponsible planning of immigration levels, which I think characterizes the Trudeau government and blaming those who came through the program. Look sure there are, and I’ve been commenting quite strongly on people on the, I think, extreme right who are trying to exploit this frustration by blind blaming immigrants. I don’t hear responsible Canadian elected leaders doing that. And I will say what, you know, the optimal approach for a dynamic, prosperous province like Alberta is a population growth that’s manageable. And no, when I launched the “Alberta is Calling” campaign, it was part of a larger effort to restart the Alberta economy after we’d been through several years of decline and stagnation. And we had been hemorrhaging people, capital, jobs, businesses. And we were seeing net outmigration, to me that was a great concern. And so to turn that around and to get back to diversifying our economy, I thought it was important that we invite people from across Canada and their skills to come to Alberta, of course, within reason. But what, you know that… when you have like… What I was looking for, what we had was net interprovincial migration to Alberta of like 20 thousand to 25 thousand manageable numbers, I think. But when Trudeau comes in and starts like opened up the floodgates, that is, that’s ridiculous. And by the way, I’ll tell you, I was the only premier around the Council of the Federation predicting that this would happen with those kinds of policies. It’s not just Alberta. You shouldn’t, with respect, I don’t think you should be focusing on this as an Alberta issue. It is a Canadian problem. 

JP: I take your point. But if I could just focus on. Alberta just a little bit longer because I know this is something that you have so much knowledge about. You know, I was looking at some data from the Canadian Energy Centre from a few years ago, and it was pointing to how as of 2019, immigrants represented over 35 per cent of all employment in the oil and gas industry. And so could the policy changes that Smith is asking Albertans to vote on in the fall have a negative effect on the economy? You know, don’t places like Banff and Lake Louise and Jasper, for example, rely heavily on seasonal and temporary foreign workers to sustain their tourism dependent economies? 

JASON KENNEY: Like, I’m not entirely sure what the question is, because we do need and want immigration, and I do think that is the position of the government of Alberta. I don’t speak for them, and I, I don’t think there’s a call for zero immigration. I think there’s a call for reasonable levels. By the way, some of the things that you, I haven’t had time to listen to that speech, but if you suggest… 

JP: Let me give you an example…

JASON KENNEY: If you suggest that people shouldn’t… If she’s suggesting people should not qualify for welfare on their first year of arrival in Canada, that seems to be entirely reasonable. In fact, when I was the federal immigration minister, I was asking provinces to adopt that policy to help reduce the pull factor for false asylum claims, which is another thing that’s run completely out of control thanks to total mal-administration by the Trudeau government. One of the reasons why we have, until recently, been one of the only developed democracies with a broad cross partisan pro-immigration consensus, is because of the powerful founding myth of immigration in Canada. You know, the Ukrainian pioneers, to the northern prairies and so on, who built much of western Canada. We think about that immigration myth. We think of people who came here with a deep sense of personal responsibility, not of entitlement. God knows they didn’t show up in Canada expecting a gold plated public services and welfare payments upon arrival. And I think, frankly, many Canadians are observing and many new Canadians are observing that that has become too often the case with, for example, failed asylum claimants. So whether it comes to the interim federal health program, which is run out of control, welfare payments and so forth, I do think limiting access to some of those things, demonstrating that newcomers are contributing to the country is critical, not just for our economy, not just to reflect fiscal limits, but also to reinforce and rebuild public support for immigration. If we want to avoid a politics characterized by what we’re seeing across the Western democracies, where Nigel Farage is leading in the polls in the U.K. and now one nation is in a tie to lead in Australia. These are all xenophobic, anti-immigrant, pro remigration quote, unquote parties. If we don’t have a degree of, you know, bring back some rigour into our system and realistic levels, I fear that that kind of politics will emerge in Canada. 

JP: Do you think that it’s responsible to put these kind of questions in a referendum? You know, this is very complex policy. Governments have to take in a lot of factors. The economy, you know, interprovincial migration, I mean, you brought many of them up today. Do you do you think that these kind of questions should be decided upon in a referendum? 

JASON KENNEY: I do think that direct democracy has, can have a salutary role in a system like ours occasionally on very big questions like constitutional, proposed constitutional amendments. We did that in Alberta under my government with equalization. I think it’s you know, if you’re going to do that, you should probably in my case, we put that in our platform. So we had a mandate to in turn put that one simple, clear, very consequential issue on the ballot. I don’t think that normal policy changes require a referendum, or frankly, I don’t think that a referendum is the most desirable tool for normal policy changes. I will tell you that, you know, I overhauled Canadian immigration policy in between 2008 and ’13, in virtually every respect, I think improving it. Most people, I think, would agree. We did that without referenda, obviously. We did a total overhaul of the asylum system, for example, of the skilled worker program, all of the programs, and we did that without referenda. So it’s, I think what’s required is leadership here at all levels of government, because if we want to maintain the positive aspects of immigration in Canada, and we restore a broad cross partisan pro-immigration consensus and keep at the margins these extremist racists who are trying to exploit the current frustration, then we need to get back to a properly rules based, well-managed, pragmatic system that’s in line with our ability to absorb newcomers. 

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JP: On the federal level. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is introducing a motion that will call on the government to, quote. 

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PIERRE POILIEVRE: Force a review and a cutback in benefits to asylum claimants to ensure that non-citizens and non-permanent residents do not get superior health benefits than Canadians. Second, it would ensure that those asylum claimants who are here and have been rejected. Only get lifesaving emergency care and not special care. And third, it would ensure that judges give the full sentence and allow for a complete deportation of foreign nationals who are non-citizens that commit crime in our country. 

JP: This just came out, but Ottawa is already requiring sponsored refugees and asylum seekers to co-pay for their health coverage starting in May. They are already moving on some of this. So is this really necessary or do you think that this also might be about riding a wave of political sentiment here? 

JASON KENNEY: I think it’s absolutely necessary. And it’s frankly, well behind the public sentiment that my advice to Mr. Poilievre, like 2 or 3 years ago, was that, I could see where the public was going on these issues. I reiterate that that public sense of frustration and even a sense of injustice at some of these abuses of our generosity includes large numbers, a majority of new Canadians who see it most closely, who see the fake asylum claims. If you’ve waited for five years or so to come into Canada legally, through the front door, through our properly managed immigration systems, and you see other people crashing in here through a fake asylum claim, getting welfare, public housing, supplementary health benefits that you don’t get as they try to delay endlessly their removal from Canada. That undermines the integrity of our system. So no, I think he’s absolutely right. And he’s basically calling for policies that the Harper government had implemented, which included ending access to anything but emergency care insurance for failed asylum claimants. Why? Because they have no legal right to be in Canada. 

JP: You know, we have seen the courts threaten to overturn the Harper government’s attempts to cut refugee health care. Back when you were in the federal government. I think that’s what you were just talking about. And the court called the move cruel and unusual, especially since, as the judge pointed out, that it affects children who were brought to this country by their parents. And I wonder how you would respond to that. 

JASON KENNEY: Well, I would respond by saying it’s not refugee healthcare for people whose refugee claim has been rejected as invalid. It’s supplementary insurance for illegal migrants who are illegally residing in Canada, subject to removal. So you know, and there’s a whole suite of benefits that are still extended to… That the Trudeau government extended effectively, which has created a draw factor. So, you know, and by the way, when you say that… you said earlier that sponsored refugees are required to have a partial coverage or partial payment now, a co-pay, they’ve introduced that. That’s fair. Now when the privately sponsored… 

JP: And that is being critiqued to, I should say, as cruel as well. There are people… 

JASON KENNEY: Of course. Of course. Everything’s cruel if you’re on the hard left. The, you know, the privately sponsored refugee program is a well-managed program. I expanded it by moving selection over from the government assisted program because these are usually community, usually faith groups, starting with the Vietnamese boat people in 1979, ’80, who gets sponsored into Canada. And the sponsor, the sponsor takes on board any responsibility for their income, support, housing, etc…, not the taxpayer and the sponsors are involved in the successful integration of those newcomers. I think that’s a model where you actually have a sense of personal and community responsibility, and not just Canada as the world’s hospital or the world’s welfare program. 

JP: I just want to move to the kind of broader consensus debate around immigration right now. As we wrap up, you know, after Danielle Smith’s speech last week, Rachel Notley wrote on social media, “the Premier is sowing hate and division to distract from the fact that her government is the real culprit”. But are you worried that this and kind of, other kind of language that we’re hearing from politicians across the country could ratchet up racism and hate towards immigrants. That, for example, if people are reasonably angry about their mother being stuck in an emergency room for 24 hours, that they might direct that anger towards immigrants. 

JASON KENNEY: Well, you know, I think very few Canadians would blame an immigrant for that. But if you’re Canadian and you can’t get access to health care, and you observe that under the Trudeau government, several million people were added to the population in a very short period of time. You’re not stupid. You’re going to make a correlation and say, we need a sensible, pragmatic immigration policy. There is a choice between that very Canadian common sense response and nativistic racism. Okay. And I do think we have to call out the nativism and the racism as I do all the time. We also have to acknowledge that irresponsible immigration policies that drive population growth completely out of line with our capacity to provide services and ends up with, with a high…. By the way, the high levels of very low skilled folks that came in under Trudeau, as opposed to the more highly educated people of the past, are also driving down per capita GDP. It’s not just about access to health care, it’s about our prosperity as a country. So Canadians have every right to see that correlation, to object to it, to call for, I think, a significant reduction in levels until we can get this back into equilibrium. 

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JP: Just on your point that we need to kind of call out racist or nativist language. I’d be interested to get your thoughts on some remarks made on social media last week by Bruce McAllister, the executive director of Smith’s Calgary office. He said, quote, unsustainable mass immigration into Canada fills him with, quote, profound disgust. He went on to say, quote, why import from nations with failed systems when our Judeo-Christian heritage and principles have worked so well here? And is this the kind of language that you think needs to be called out? 

JASON KENNEY: Yeah, I think that kind of language is at best unhelpful and I… not the kind of language I would ever use. And I think that’s, again… 

JP: Are you concerned that he’s still there? I mean he works there, he’s pretty high up.

JASON KENNEY: That’ll be for his boss to decide. I really try to avoid second guessing my success rate. I think as a general rule, it’s not a desirable thing to do, but if you’re asking about those kinds of sentiments, I think that that’s where you can take, I think, well-founded anxiety and opposition to irresponsible immigration policies, and that there is a kind of language that can start to bleed that into nativist rhetoric. And I think we all have to be very alert to that. 

JP: You know, just to end this conversation, you have alluded to this throughout our conversation. You were raising concerns last week about the way that immigration is being debated, because the director of the Canadian anti-immigration group, the Dominion Society, this guy named Daniel Tyrie, did an interview with the online news outlet Juno News. And in it, he advocated for re-migration, which is defined as the forced removal of immigrants and refugees based on race or ethnicity. Here in Canada, it’s pushed forward by a range of groups that have been classified by the Canadian anti-hate network, for example, as part of the country’s white nationalist movement. And Candice Malcolm, who did that interview, also made clear that she does not endorse what he says, and she did push back on his views during the interview. But she argued that Tyrie’s views should be part of civic debate, that it’s crucial to widen the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable to debate. 

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CANDICE MALCOLM: I want to hear more voices. I want to hear from more Canadians. I want to hear what real Canadians think. And I’m trying to open the window so that it’s wider. So there’s a wider range of what is acceptable to talk about. As a conservative, I’m also trying to shift the window to the right, because I think part of the biggest problem in this country is that it leans too far left. It has been for a long time. 

JP: Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable and helpful debate about immigration and what’s not, and what are the consequences of not drawing a line? 

JASON KENNEY: Well, the consequence of not drawing, of not drawing the line is mainstreaming or destigmatizing, outright racist sentiments, which I think thankfully are pretty marginal in Canada but they are real and they exist. This guy is advocating to take immigration to zero for at least 10 years, to have the forcible deportation of every legal permanent resident in Canada, which means all these people we invited to come here, who followed the laws, are paying their taxes, where most of them settled here for some years. And he’s also calling for the deportation of many citizens who are not quotes “heritage Canadians”, which I can only take to understand the descendants of white European Canadians. I don’t know if he includes Indigenous Canadians whose ancestors have been here for millennia as “heritage Canadians”. This stuff is obviously toxic. It’s crazy. And I have a more particular concern as a lifetime conservative activist that if, if and when this stuff comes from the right, it has to be called out on the right, it has to, there has to be a function of political hygiene in every party and every movement. And I’m in a position where I can, where I am doing that very vigorously, because I’ve seen where that kind of sentiment has taken us in other parts of the Western world. I will just add, as I’ve said before, I think it’s important that that the Daniel Tyrie’s of the world have more sway and purchase in a potential constituency because of the catastrophic mismanagement of immigration in the past few years. And this is something I predicted for years, for 10 years as Minister of Multiculturalism for Canada, 5 years as immigration minister, that if we want to maintain Canada’s broad public support for immigration, we have to maintain a system with which, with realistic, manageable levels, successful integration outcomes focus on social cohesion as opposed to ethnic enclaves and division. Focus on high human capital in our economic immigration. And the consistent application of fair rules, even if sometimes it seems hard headed. If you don’t have a system like that, you create space for Nigel Farage, Marie Le Pen, the AFT, for Pauline Hanson in Australia, for Daniel Tyrie and Maxime Bernier in Canada. 

JP: Okay. Jason Kenney, thank you very much for this. 

JASON KENNEY: Thank you. 

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JP: All right, that is all for today. I’m Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. 

Source: Jason Kenney on Canadian immigration – Transcript