Meggs and Fortin: Are We Heading for 100 Million Canadians?

Excerpt from good long and thoughtful conversation between a former senior Quebec immigration official and prominent economist, highlighting the weaknesses of the arguments used by governments, Century Initiative and the business community in favour of current levels and approach:

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Meggs: In fact, Ottawa needs to base targets on the total number of arrivals, whatever the immigration status, to be able to welcome newcomers properly. The increased arrival numbers should not be so large that the host communities feel overburdened by inclusion and integration. Accommodation of the newcomers means ensuring that they have a roof over their heads, that they can integrate rapidly into the labour force, that they have access to language training, that they can obtain financial services, and that government services such as public transit, child care, education and health care are available and affordable for them. Canada’s recent immigration policy proposes huge increases in permanent immigration targets while refusing to set targets for the even higher levels of temporary immigrants.

This cavalier policy is in great danger of transforming immigration to Canada from a successful operation to a painful breakdown. To answer your question, nobody really knows the right target because planning in line with welcoming and settlement capacity has never been properly undertaken. Canada needs to set guidelines and targets for both permanent and temporary immigration, looking at the number and pace of arrivals rather than the type of permit. Otherwise, the newcomers will not be able to participate adequately in their new communities, and Canadians will lose confidence in immigration policy.

Fortin: I agree that optimal immigration is not maximal immigration. First, the expansive immigration policy inspired by the Century Initiative is generating chaos at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. More than 1.7 million temporary and permanent applications are waiting in the pipeline, which doesn’t include asylum seekers and their applications for a work permit.

Second, as I said above, the increased inflow of immigrants is likely to have a zero or negative impact on the average living standard of Canadians; it will not attenuate the pace of population aging, and it will not reduce global labour shortages. It may make them worse.

Third, I add to your last observation, Anne, that overly expansive immigration targets risk not only producing some “loss of confidence” in immigration but fuelling an anti-immigration movement as has exploded in the United States and Europe. Canadians in general like to vaunt the good performance of their immigration system and their generosity toward immigrants. Unfortunately, this is a vision of the past. A recent online Environics survey (in which respondents are more likely to express their true feelings than in an interactive telephone survey) found that about half of Canadians think that there is too much immigration to Canada.¹⁰ It would not take much to metamorphose Canada’s proverbial generosity into generalized xenophobia. This has recently occurred in one of the world’s most progressive societies, Sweden. In the 2022 election, the Social Democrats there were defeated and the anti-immigration vote exploded. We must avoid slipping into this kind of political quagmire.

My bottom line is that immigration is an imperative work of civilization. It must increase over time, but going too fast is a dangerous course to follow. We should do it “allegro ma non troppo,” as in Italian classical music.

Source: Are We Heading for 100 Million Canadians?