Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2023/11/04 Leave a comment
Another good column by Keller. Money quote:
If the decision matrix had been good economic policy, the government would have U-turned on immigration, while holding firm on carbon pricing.
Source: The Liberals are lowering carbon taxes and raising immigration. They should do the opposite
2023/11/04 Leave a comment
Of note. Many air travellers arrive in Montreal but still surprising so much less than Toronto. May reflect the presence or absence of direct flight connections or other factors.
She is correct, of course, in her critique of federal visa policies being too loose given the removal of the need to demonstrate sufficient funds and intent to return to their country of origin:
Quebec’s immigration minister says the number of asylum seekers entering the province is “abnormal.”
Christine Fréchette told reporters today that the federal government needs to do more to distribute would-be refugees across the country.
She says that since the closure of Roxham Road — the irregular land border crossing between Quebec and New York state — there are now too many asylum seekers showing up at the province’s airports.
Federal government statistics show that 17,080 people claimed asylum at Quebec airports between January and September of this year, more than double the second-highest province for airport claimants, Ontario.
Fréchette says Quebec has welcomed more asylum seekers so far this year than all other provinces combined, which was also true in 2022.
The minister also says Ottawa is too “loose” with the way it gives travel visas, saying many migrants are taking advantage of that pathway to claim asylum in the country.
Source: ‘Abnormal’: Quebec says there are still too many asylum seekers entering the province
2023/11/04 Leave a comment
Valid caution:
In 2019, the Pew Research Center polled Americans on their knowledge of the Holocaust and their attitudes toward Jews. The results were intuitive: The more people knew about Hitler’s rise to power, and about how many millions of Jews were murdered, the “warmer” their feelings were.
“Warmer feelings” seems to be the basic goal British Columbia and Ontario have in mind in beefing up Holocaust education in elementary and secondary schools, after Hamas’s Oct. 7 pogrom in southern Israel led to celebrations on the streets of Canadian cities, and later the targeting of Jewish-owned businesses for protests and various other antisemitic acts.
“If we really want to fight hate in this province, if we really want to stand up to antisemitism, it is critical that we learn from the past,” B.C. Premier David Eby said this week. “We know how threats and hate can accelerate into violent acts and into horrific outcomes. We must ensure that the same horrors are not repeated.”
“By including new mandatory learning in Holocaust education in elementary and secondary schools, we are ensuring students are never bystanders in the face of hate and division,” Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce averred.
It would be very difficult to argue against Holocaust education, unless you think students needn’t know about seminal events in human history. (Astonishingly, only Ontario and B.C. mandate any at all. Expect that to change.) But as a means to a greater social end, Holocaust education isn’t necessarily as effective as people might hope.
A cautionary note from the Pew survey: The “warm feelings” gap between the informed and uninformed really wasn’t very big. The people who were most informed about the Holocaust measured 67 out of 100 on Pew’s “feeling thermometer.” The least informed were at 58.
And another cautionary note from the British Centre for Holocaust Information: Just because you teach kids something doesn’t mean they’ll believe it or remember it. In a 2016 survey of nearly 10,000 English secondary-school students, the centre found that “despite the Holocaust being a staple in the curriculum for almost 25 years, student knowledge and conceptual understanding is often limited and based on inaccuracies and misconceptions.”
Just over 10 per cent of students believed “no more than 100,000 lives were lost (in the Holocaust),” the study reported. “Most (students) had little understanding of why (the Jews) were persecuted and murdered,” with most assuming it was simply a matter of Nazis abhorring “difference” of all kinds. The understanding of antisemitism specifically — past and present — was so weak that “68 per cent of students (were) unaware of what ‘antisemitism’ meant.”
Teaching about the Holocaust in isolation from antisemitism, from Jewish history, and from Jews in the modern world, is one of the key pedagogical pitfalls American essayist Dara Horn identified in a fascinating recent piece at The Atlantic. Horn quoted Charlotte Decoster of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum: “Students are going to see Nazis as aliens who bring with them anti-Semitism when they come to power in ’33, and they take it back away at the end of the Holocaust in 1945.”
“When anti-Semitism is reduced to the Holocaust, anything short of murdering six million Jews — like … taunting kids at school, or shooting up a Jewish nonprofit, or hounding Jews out of entire countries — seems minor by comparison,” Horn argues.
“Holocaust education remains essential for teaching historical facts in the face of denial and distortions,” she concludes. “Yet over the past year, as I’ve visited Holocaust museums and spoken with educators around the country, I have come to the disturbing conclusion that Holocaust education is incapable of addressing contemporary anti-Semitism.”
Indeed, it strikes me that the worst things I’ve heard Canadians says since Oct. 7 have come from conspicuously educated people who surely know what the Holocaust was. “How beautiful is the spirit to get free that Palestinians literally learned how to fly on hang gliders,” Harsha Walia jaw-droppingly effused on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery. She has a law degree from UBC. She was director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, for heaven’s sake, until she cheered the burning of churches on First Nations.
It seems safe to say, knock wood, that Canada isn’t quite as deep into this problem as some of our peer nations. By the Anti-Defamation League’s definition, eight per cent of Canadian adults harbour antisemitic views. In France it’s 15 per cent, in Belgium 22 per cent, in Spain 26 per cent. We don’t have France’s soul-crushing banlieues — ghettoes fine-tuned to turn bitter, unemployed young Muslim men into extremists. We have freedom of speech: We let pro-Palestinian activists say their piece, disturbing as it might be, rather than turning the water cannons on them.
Pew found that simply knowing something of another faith (or none) significantly warmed feelings toward that faith: Atheists scored just 38 degrees on the “feeling thermometer” among Americans who don’t know any, and 51 degrees among Americans who do. Catholics enjoyed the same 13-per-cent jump. Those with personal connections were 10 degrees warmer to Hindus, Jews and Mainline Protestants. Canada is a country where people of many faiths and of no faith work and socialize together — even those who might have been raised with prejudicial attitudes toward others. That ought to help.
But of course, it only takes one pathetic, bigoted freak to lose the plot before something horrific happens. Sticking to our values is all we can do, in my view, and that should absolutely include well-designed Holocaust and antisemitism curricula. But no one should assume it’ll be enough. This problem didn’t emerge on Oct. 7, after all. Oct. 7 simply shined a blinding light on it
Source: Chris Selley: Teaching kids about the Holocaust won’t cure us of our antisemites
2023/11/04 Leave a comment
Unfortunately true:
While Canadians continue to worry about the availability of affordable housing, the Trudeau government announced Wednesday it will continue its current policy of boosting immigration levels to record highs through 2026.
Its existing plan, announced a year ago, of admitting 465,000 new permanent residents to Canada this year, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025, will now be extended to another 500,000 admissions in 2026.
Next year’s target of 485,000 new permanent residents will consist of 281,135 economic immigrants, 114,000 in family class, 76,115 refugees and 13,750 humanitarian admissions.
For 2025 and 2026, 500,000 new permanent residents will be admitted annually — 301,250 economic immigrants, 118,000 in family class, 72,750 refugees and 8,000 humanitarian admissions.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has long argued higher immigration levels are needed to boost economic growth because of Canada’s low birth rate, its pursuit of high immigration policies flies in the face of growing public concerns about the lack of affordable housing.
A Nanos poll in September showed most Canadians surveyed — 53% — believe Canada’s current immigration levels are too high, compared to 34% who approve of them and 8% who think they should be higher. The remaining 6% were unsure.
An Environics poll released this week found stronger support for immigration — with 51% of those surveyed disagreeing with the statement “there’s too much immigration to Canada” compared to 44% who agreed.
But opposition to current immigration levels rose dramatically by 17 percentage points in one year, while support dropped by 18 percentage points — both huge reversals.
In recent months the TD Bank, BMO and National Bank of Canada, among others, have all warned the federal government that its policy of high immigration is exacerbating Canada’s housing shortage.
As the National Bank put it:
“The federal government’s decision to open the immigration floodgates during the most aggressive monetary tightening cycle in a generation has created a record imbalance between housing and demand … As housing affordability pressures continue to mount across the country, we believe Ottawa should consider revising its immigration targets to allow supply to catch up with demand.”
While Canadians have always welcomed immigration, there are clearly growing public concerns about federal immigration policy.
But on this issue, as on so many others, the Trudeau Liberals just aren’t listening.
Source: EDITORIAL: High immigration fuels Canada’s housing crisis
2023/11/03 Leave a comment
Reviewing the plan and the coverage to date, my initial reflections are as follows:
The approach of stabilizing levels at 500,000 in 2025 resulted in the headlines the government likely wanted, with words like “plafonnent,” “hold back,” “capping,” “level out” and”stabilize.”
However, given that means an increase from 2023 levels of 465,000 to 500,000 in 2025, this “stabilizing” is more virtue signalling that they are listening to public concerns than actually taking action. The fact that any further adjustment would happen after the 2025 election makes is likely meaningless for the current government.
Moreover, given timelines to increase housing and healthcare capacity, continued increases in immigration levels will simply exacerbate the gap between levels and absorptive capacity. Hard to see this as a winning strategy…
However, should, as appears likely, the Conservatives form the next government, they would be faced with a high baseline level that may or may not be politically difficult to undo. And of course, the Liberals may have thoughts of this being a potential wedge issue for immigrant origin voters, a dubious strategy given that immigrant voters are more concerned about high immigration levels than Canadian-born (Environics Focus Canada 2023).
The plan, as is common in government documents, fails to acknowledge the negative impacts of some policy changes:
On the positive side, the government belatedly notes the impact of high levels of immigration on housing, healthcare and infrastructure and notes the need for a “whole of government” approach to improve the absorptive capacity:
While immigration contributes to the supply of labour, alleviates demographic pressures, and provides social and cultural benefits, it also creates demand for infrastructure and services. With significant and sustained growth in planned notional immigration levels, success for newcomers and all Canadians means working collaboratively with other federal departments, provinces and territories, communities and municipalities, Indigenous communities, the private sector, and stakeholders.
While there is more discussion on the role and importance of temporary foreign workers but no details on possible actions resulting from his media comment that “Canada has become “addicted” to temporary foreign workers, which has created what he called “perverse incentives” and, in some cases, led to abuse of the workers.” Minister Miller has started to address the abuse of the international student program but still too early to tell how effective these changes will be given implementation issues.
2023/11/03 Leave a comment
One of the better assessments, particularly on the lack of action on temporary residents, whose numbers have ballooned over the last 10 years:
Don’t look too closely at the immigration targets the federal government set Wednesday. They’re not the numbers that matter right now.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller kept the already-planned target of 500,000 in 2025, but said there’d be no increase in 2026. But that isn’t Canada’simmigration number.
The figure that matters more is the 2.2 million in temporary residents who are in Canada. That number has surged for reasons that have nothing to do with immigration planning. And the Liberal government should be screwing up their courage to do something about that, right away….
Source: Time to address the immigration number that matters now
2023/11/03 Leave a comment
Parallel approach but Quebec maintaining the current ceiling while the federal government does so in 2025.
Bloc leader Blanchet argues that levels are not fixed given that Parliament passed the Bloc motion that « de revoir ses cibles d’immigration dès 2024 après consultation du Québec, des provinces et des territoires en fonction de leur capacité d’accueil, notamment en matière de logement, de soins de santé, d’éducation, de francisation et d’infrastructures de transport, le tout dans l’objectif d’une immigration réussie ».
Translation: “To review its immigration targets as early as 2024 after consulting Quebec, the provinces and territories according to their reception capacity, particularly in terms of housing, health care, education, francization and transport infrastructure, all with the objective of successful immigration.”
La hausse constante du nombre d’immigrants temporaires force Ottawa et Québec à plafonner leurs seuils d’immigration pour les prochaines années. C’est ce qu’ont annoncé les deux ordres de gouvernement mercredi.
En plus du nombre record d’immigrants temporaires, la situation « volatile » du français contraint le gouvernement du Québec à limiter sa planification de l’immigration aux deux prochaines années. D’ici 2025, il choisit de maintenir ses seuils « réguliers » à 50 000 nouveaux arrivants par année, mais exclut les « diplômés » du Programme de l’expérience québécoise de son calcul.
Le premier ministre québécois, François Legault, et sa ministre de l’Immigration, Christine Fréchette, ont présenté en conférence de presse le plan gouvernemental en matière d’immigration pour la période 2024-2025. Contrairement à ce qui était prévu, le document, qui est le fruit de consultations menées en septembre à l’Assemblée nationale, ne contient pas de cibles pour 2026 et 2027.
« On va, pendant deux ans, regarder l’impact [de nos mesures]. En fonction de ces résultats-là, on prendra des décisions pour les années suivantes », a expliqué M. Legault. « La situation est volatile, a ajouté Mme Fréchette. On voit le nombre de résidents non permanents monter encore et encore. »
Même approche du côté d’Ottawa, qui a aussi annoncé un plafonnement de ses cibles d’immigration pour 2026. Le ministre de l’Immigration, des Réfugiés et de la Citoyenneté, Marc Miller, a confirmé que le Canada accueillerait 500 000 nouveaux résidents permanents en 2026, soit la même cible que l’année précédente.
Il s’agit d’une première pause dans la tendance à la hausse des objectifs d’immigration des dernières années. Les cibles du gouvernement canadien annoncées l’an dernier prévoyaient l’accueil de 465 000 résidents permanents cette année, 485 000 en 2024 et 500 000 en 2025.
« En stabilisant le nombre de nouveaux arrivants, nous reconnaissons que le logement, la planification des infrastructures et la croissance durable de la population doivent être correctement pris en compte », a déclaré le ministre Miller lors de son annonce.
Le gouvernement canadien vise également une immigration francophone hors Québec de 6 % en 2024, 7 % en 2025 et 8 % en 2026 — des cibles beaucoup plus modestes que ce que plusieurs organisations réclament.
Le statu quo semblait se dessiner depuis quelques jours à Ottawa. Mardi, le ministre Miller affirmait déjà qu’il ne « voyait pas un scénario où on diminuerait les niveaux [d’immigration] » et que « le mot d’ordre, c’est une certaine stabilisation ».
Le français sous la loupe
Pour deux ans, et pour agir dans le dossier « déterminant » de la protection du français, le gouvernement Legault maintiendra pour sa part ses cibles « régulières » d’immigration permanente aux niveaux actuels. « C’est important, pour nous, pour arrêter, pour inverser le déclin du français, de se limiter à 50 000 », a dit le premier ministre mercredi.
À ce seuil de base s’ajoutera toutefois une dizaine de milliers d’immigrants non comptabilisés dans les seuils de Québec. En mai, la ministre de l’Immigration avait proposé que les immigrants issus du volet « diplômés du Québec » du Programme de l’expérience québécoise soient exclus du calcul des cibles. Elle ira de l’avant avec cette mesure. Selon les estimations du ministère, ces nouveaux arrivants seront environ 6500 en 2024. Un arriéré de 6600 personnes du milieu des affaires doit également être « écoulé » l’an prochain, ce qui porterait le nombre d’immigrants permanents à quelque 63 000 en 2024.
M. Legault assure que la montée en force dans les sondages du Parti québécois — qui propose une baisse des seuils — n’explique pas sa décision de maintenir la cible migratoire de base à 50 000 nouveaux arrivants. Le gouvernement a aussi dû prendre en compte la capacité d’accueil du Québec, a précisé Mme Fréchette.
Comme il l’avait laissé entendre au printemps, Québec soumettra les immigrants issus du Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires, à l’exception des travailleurs agricoles, à des exigences en français. Au renouvellement de leur permis de travail, ils devront démontrer une maîtrise du français de niveau quatre, c’est-à-dire être capables de « discuter avec leur entourage » de « sujets familiers », a précisé la ministre Fréchette.
Cette « avancée historique » n’est qu’une première étape, a assuré l’élue de la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ). « Autour de 35 000 » résidents non permanents seront soumis à cette mesure, soit moins de 8 % des 470 000 temporaires recensés au Québec en juillet.
Le gouvernement Legault souhaite donc convaincre Ottawa d’exiger les mêmes connaissances aux immigrants de son Programme de mobilité internationale — ils sont 119 000 au Québec.
Dialogue vague avec Québec
La ministre Fréchette s’attendait à une réduction des cibles fédérales d’immigration. En conférence de presse, mercredi, elle a reproché à Ottawa de ne pas avoir considéré « la situation qui prévaut au Québec » en fixant ses propres seuils.
« Au niveau politique, il n’y a pas eu de consultation. Et, normalement, le gouvernement fédéral doit tenir compte des cibles d’immigration du Québec avant de s’avancer sur ses propres cibles », a-t-elle relevé.
Questionné à ce sujet, le ministre Miller a affirmé avoir parlé à deux reprises avec Mme Fréchette à propos de l’accueil des réfugiés, des travailleurs étrangers temporaires et des étudiants étrangers. « Oui, j’ai aussi parlé de nos attentes pour l’accueil des familles. […] Est-ce que je dis [la cible de] 500 000 à tout le monde ? Non, ce serait violer le privilège du Parlement », s’est-il défendu.
« Est-ce que c’était à la hauteur [des] attentes [de Québec] ? Je ne peux pas y répondre. On s’était parlé sachant la position publique de la CAQ sur les cibles du Canada », a-t-il ajouté.
En vertu de l’accord Canada-Québec, le Québec fixe ses propres niveaux d’immigration. Le printemps dernier, Christine Fréchette avait annoncé qu’elle mettrait deux scénarios à l’étude. L’un d’eux, qui augmenterait la cible en 2027 à 60 000 immigrants, rompt avec l’affirmation faite par François Legault durant la campagne électorale selon laquelle rehausser les seuils serait « un peu suicidaire » pour le statut du français au Québec. Le second scénario vise un maintien du statu quo à 50 000 immigrants permanents par année.
Toutefois, pour le chef du Bloc québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, les cibles annoncées mercredi ne peuvent pas être finales.
Mardi, M. Blanchet a notamment mis en avant une motion demandant au gouvernement « de revoir ses cibles d’immigration dès 2024 après consultation du Québec, des provinces et des territoires en fonction de leur capacité d’accueil, notamment en matière de logement, de soins de santé, d’éducation, de francisation et d’infrastructures de transport, le tout dans l’objectif d’une immigration réussie ».
La motion a été adoptée à l’unanimité à la Chambre mercredi, juste avant l’annonce du ministre Miller.
« [Le gouvernement] a voté pour [la motion], donc il est d’accord avec moi. […] Ses cibles actuelles ne peuvent pas être finales et permanentes, c’est lui qui l’a dit ! » s’est exclamé M. Blanchet.
Source: Ottawa et Québec plafonnent leurs seuils d’immigration
2023/11/03 Leave a comment
Of interest and for Canadian policy makers to consider impact on Canada if not already doing so:
President Biden signed an artificial intelligence executive order Monday to make it easier for the U.S. to attract foreign AI talent and increase American competitiveness.
Here is a summary of the key proposals to reduce barriers to highly-skilled immigration, with insights from the Federation for American Scientists, a nonprofit think tank.
GLOBAL AI TALENT ATTRACTION PROGRAM
The order instructs the State Department to establish a “Global AI Talent Attraction Program” to meet the surging demand for top-tier AI researchers.
UPDATED J-1 EXCHANGE VISITOR SKILLS LIST
Updating and expanding the skills list for J-1 exchange visitors to keep pace with the evolving global labor market and bridge skill gaps in fields like artificial intelligence.
STREAMLINED VISA RENEWAL
The executive order will allow J-1 research scholars and F-1 STEM visa students to renew their visas from within the U.S., simplifying the process and reducing processing times for around 450,000 international students.
MODERNIZED H-1B VISA RULES
The order seeks to modernize H-1B visa rules, benefiting over 500,000 H-1B visa holders by making it easier for foreign workers to change jobs and simplifying the renewal process.
POLICY MANUAL UPDATES
The order modernizes pathways for experts in AI and emerging technologies, making criteria for visas more inclusive and easing the entry of startup founders.
“SCHEDULE A” UPDATE
“Schedule A” is a list of occupations for which the Department of Labor (DOL) has determined there aren’t enough U.S. workers to fill open positions. The executive order seeks to update the list, adding or removing occupations to reflect the changing job market.
STREAMLINING VISA SERVICES
The order makes it easier for workers in emerging tech fields to enter the U.S. by reducing processing times and ensuring the continued availability of visa appointments.
For more info, the Federation of American Scientists has put together a detailed analysis
Source: What Biden’s AI Executive Order Says About Immigration – Boundless
2023/11/03 Leave a comment
One of the general articles covering the plan with Phil Triadafilopoulos stating the obvious that housing pressures will continue with these high levels give the time it takes for housing to be built:
After increasing its immigration targets several times in recent years, the federal government announced Wednesday it’s aiming to maintain its target of welcoming 500,000 new permanent residents in 2026.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the target is meant to support the labour supply while easing pressures on housing and health care.
“What Canadians are telling us, what economists are telling us, is that we have to dive into the micro-economic impacts of immigration,” Miller told a press conference.
The government has steadily increased its immigration targets in recent years to boost the workforce and support an aging population.
Last year, the government released a plan to grant permanent residency to 465,000 people in 2023, a figure that’s set to rise to 500,000 by 2025. The immigration target for 2015 was under 300,000.
Miller said Wednesday the government is now levelling off its planned immigration intake to see what sorts of adjustments can be made to Canada’s immigration programs.
“Those numbers were needed but now we have to take a look at them, where we feel they’re reasonable and plateauing in a space where we think it makes sense,” he said.
“We have a lot of complex calculations that we need to make and measures we need to adjust. I think it’s sometimes politically convenient to come out with a hammer-type approach… It’s more on the level of finer surgery that we need to adjust.”
Canada’s population grew by a record 1 million people in 2022. The population also surpassed the 40 million mark earlier this year.
That population growth is coming at a time when the country is also facing a housing shortage. Almost 5.8 million new units will have to be built by the end of the decade in order to fix the housing supply, said a report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released in September.
Miller admitted the housing shortage was a factor in the decision to level off immigration targets. He said it was not the main factor.
“If that were the sole reason, it would totally be misunderstanding the challenges I think we’re facing as a country,” he said.
Many experts have said that the root causes of this housing shortage are not related to immigration. Red tape and anti-development sentiment at the municipal level, for example, can lead to major delays in housing projects.
The federal government is pushing municipalities to adjust their zoning bylaws through its housing accelerator program.
Miller maintained that Canada will need to maintain immigration levels in order to provide the workers who can build houses.
Earlier this year, the government announced changes to the express entry system that would prioritize tradespeople for permanent residency. Miller said those changes have attracted roughly 1,500 tradespeople from abroad.
But Phil Triadafilopoulos, a political science professor who specializes in immigration at the University of Toronto, said high levels of immigration will still put pressure on the housing market.
“I don’t know whether pausing at a historically high level of immigration is really going to do much to ease affordability issues around housing,” he told CBC News. “Those pressures are going to persist, I think.”
The government’s target for economic immigrants is holding steady at 60 per cent of total immigration, according to the new plan
Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, said the government should boost that portion to 65 per cent.
“Unfilled job openings for highly skilled and educated professionals remain stubbornly high. If not addressed with urgency and ambition, this shortage of leading talent will have a large and lasting impact on Canadian technological innovation, labour productivity and capital investment,” he said in a media statement.
Jenny Kwan, the NDP’s immigration critic, said the Liberals’ plan lacks transparency.
‘While the government’s immigration levels plan document talks about ensuring newcomers can successfully resettle in Canada, there are no plans attached to make that happen. Once again, it’s all talk and not action,” she said in a media statement.
Source: Canada looking to stabilize immigration levels at 500,000 per year in 2026
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Multicultural Meanderings 