Aaron Wudrick: It’s time for a grown-up conversation on immigration

2024/01/11 Leave a comment

Wudrick weighs into the question of values even if to date, most critics have focussed on the practicalities (housing, healthcare, infrastructure etc) with little substantiation. However, the influx of 1,000 or so Gaza’s, fleeing the destruction, combined with the range of anti-semitic language and actions, provides a high profile example. Doesn’t appear to be an accident that applicants have to provide their social media links:

Canada has been shaped by large-scale immigration. With the exception of Indigenous Peoples, the vast majority of Canadians today are either immigrants or descendants thereof. Our nation has thrived as a pluralistic and multiethnic society, built through the gradual integration of people from around the world. 

While this is largely a good news story it should not obscure a hard truth: in the 21st century, the challenges associated with immigration are vastly different from those of 50 or 100 years ago, and until recently policymakers have been unwilling to discuss immigration policy accordingly. These challenges can be broadly categorized into three areas: economic impact; infrastructure capacity; and cultural friction.

When it comes to economic impact, immigration has historically, on balance, been beneficial to Canada’s economy and standard of living. But in recent years the evidence has become more mixed. In particular, the sheer number of new arrivals—over one million in 2022 alone—especially in the form of temporary and lower-skilled migrants, is increasingly being used as a substitute for Canadian labour, driving down wages. This downward pressure, while good news for employers trying to contain costs, has the dual effect of dragging down per-capita GDP, while disincentivizing business investment in labour-productivity-enhancing innovations. 

The cause of the jump in total migrants per year is also no secret: there has been an explosion in the number of international postsecondary students studying in Canada over the last decade—jumping from 248,000 in 2012 to 807,000 in 2022—largely as a result of postsecondary institutions seeking a more lucrative income stream since they are able to charge international students much higher fees. With no annual cap on foreign student visas, this has effectively become a massive back-door entry loophole to get into the country. Many of these students arrive with the hope of becoming permanent residents, which also entitles them to sponsor family members to come to Canada, further boosting migration levels.

Equally concerning has been the effect of this population growth on housing prices, which is a straightforward arithmetic function of supply and demand. Canada has some of the most expensive housing in the world, overwhelmingly a result of insufficient housing supply, especially in major cities. High levels of immigration, also concentrated in these cities, exacerbate the problem from the demand side. Both Canadians and newcomers suffer if they cannot afford a place to live. Similarly, many Canadians are unable to find a family doctor and face crowded schools, transit, hospitals, or other crumbling infrastructure. Rapid population growth makes these challenges harder to manage.

But, while concerns about immigration’s impact on our economy and infrastructure have slowly begun to attract more attention and public discussion, the issue of cultural friction remains largely taboo. 

It should be said that historically, Canada has been fairly successful at integrating people from diverse religious, linguistic, and racial backgrounds, and even today there is a strong case that Canada manages these challenges better than most other countries. What was once a fairly organic process that allowed for integration over years, if not generations, has been supplanted by activist government policy that preaches an official doctrine of big-M Multiculturalism, which fetishizes and subsidizes cultural differences while simultaneously erasing and downplaying Canadian history. In effect, the implicit social contract between Canada and newcomers has become unbalanced. Canada is and should remain a place where newcomers are free to retain their religion, language, and culture. But we must also actively invite all Canadians, new and old, to join a shared national project to ensure we are working towards living together rather than simply side by side.

In addition to counterproductive government policies, few have noted that the integration process has been dramatically changed by technological advance which now allows for immigrants to retain permanent, real-time cultural ties to their native countries. This phenomenon—where people can be physically present in one place but maintain daily cultural and social ties to their homeland—presents a special challenge to a country with a relatively weak national identity. This is particularly true of Canada’s large diaspora communities, including those from China, India, and Iran, which have increasingly impacted Canada’s international relationships and given rise to interference (alleged or proven) by these countries on Canadian soil.

Canada has historically enjoyed strong support for immigration across the political spectrum, a consensus that is not common in other countries. Recent opinion polling suggests that this consensus is rapidly eroding, if not already gone. We are long overdue for an honest, constructive, and robust debate about the way forward on immigration. We owe it to Canadians—both present and future.

Aaron Wudrick is the domestic policy director at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Source: Aaron Wudrick: It’s time for a grown-up conversation on immigration

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism, Refugees Tagged with ,

Canada backtracks on citizenship review for Russian antiwar activist

2024/01/11 Leave a comment

Expected and good quick correction (following media coverage). Hopefully others aren’t in similar situations:

A Russian antiwar activist living in Ottawa has been granted Canadian citizenship after all, despite a conviction in Russia that threatened to disqualify her.

Maria Kartasheva, 30, has lived in Ottawa since 2019.

She was convicted under a Russian law passed shortly after the full-scale invasion in of Ukraine in February 2022. The law prohibits “public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

….

On Tuesday afternoon, Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller said in a social media post that Kartasheva “will not face deportation and has been invited to become a Canadian citizen.”

“Canada’s citizenship eligibility rules are designed to catch criminals, not to suppress or punish legitimate political dissent,” wrote a post from his account on X.

Source: Canada backtracks on citizenship review for Russian antiwar activist

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RCMP to begin collecting, analyzing race-based data in pilot project

2024/01/11 Leave a comment

Overdue:

The RCMP says it will begin collecting race-based data in select locations this month to better understand interactions between police and people in various communities.

The pilot project follows two years of consultations across Canada.

The national police force said Tuesday the data about use of force, arrests and routine checks will provide evidence-based information to help improve how officers serve a diverse population.

The Mounties plan to collect, analyze and report the data to gain insight into the experiences of Indigenous Peoples, as well as Black and other racialized individuals, in dealing with officers.

The pilot project comes more than three years after Brenda Lucki, RCMP commissioner at the time, acknowledged that systemic racism exists in the police force.

The May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by Minnesota police fanned the flames of fury over racism in the United States and sparked anger and concern in Canada.

Growing outrage about police brutality and discrimination sparked rallies and calls for change.

The pilot project will help the RCMP better understand the nature, extent and effect of systemic racial disparities, the force said in a news release.

The project will enable data-driven decision-making and policy development, build trust with communities and ultimately improve safety, the force added.

Source: RCMP to begin collecting, analyzing race-based data in pilot project

Filed under Data, Multiculturalism

Beck: Canada is haunted by problematic place names, but we have the power to change that

2024/01/11 Leave a comment

Haunted? Really? Virtually any other issue is far more important to the day to day lives of Canadians, whatever their origins or ancestry:

What’s next is in our hands. As citizens, we must demand that our municipalities implement more inclusive naming policies. If there are names in your community that you find objectionable, search for your municipality’s place-name policy in our database. If there is no policy, send your councillor or alderperson a link to our report and ask them to lobby for the adoption of one. Reach out to your child’s teacher and suggest they undertake a class project through which more inclusive names can be researched and proposed to your municipality.

Municipalities have significant latitude when it comes to implementing policy and determining how places within their jurisdictions are named. The Dundases, Ryersons and Macdonalds of Canada are rightfully becoming unmoored from the landscape. For those who worry we will forget lessons from the past, look to Germany and Spain – their landscapes have been cleansed of names associated with past dictators, yet the history of what happened there has not vanished from public consciousness.

Source: Canada is haunted by problematic place names, but we have the power to change that

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What a recent court ruling on Canada’s Citizenship Act means for ‘lost Canadians’

2024/01/11 Leave a comment

Useful and reasonable analysis and we will see if the government chooses to appeal or not on the basis of the reasoning used:

In December 2023, Ontario’s Superior Court determined that what’s known as the “second-generation cut-off rule” in the federal Citizenship Act violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by discriminating on the basis of national origin and sex. 

The second-generation rule was adopted in 2009 under Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. 

It limited Canadian citizenship to the first generation born abroad in an effort to create a clear and simple rule, and, according to Diane Finley, the minister of citizenship and immigration at the time, to “protect the value of Canadian citizenship by ensuring that our citizens have a real connection to this country.”

The concern with connection makes sense. Members of a political community — citizens — should have a relationship to that community. But what does connection mean, and how do we know when it exists? 

Secure claim to citizenship?

Canada, like many other countries in the world, uses birth as a proxy for connection. If you’re born in Canada or you’re born abroad to a parent who’s a Canadian citizen, you too are a citizen. 

In many cases, birth appears to offer a secure claim to citizenship since the facts of someone’s birth are generally unassailable. But as the second-generation cut-off rule demonstrates, governments can shift the legal meaning of those circumstances with significant repercussions.

The Bjorkquist et al. v. Attorney General of Canada case heard in Ontario in December involves seven families. Their children were born abroad and denied Canadian citizenship because their Canadian parent or parents were also born abroad. 

In each family, the parent has lived in Canada for many years, views Canada as their home and/or intends to return to Canada if they aren’t currently living here. The parents, all Canadian citizens, argued their inability to pass on their citizenship to their children, despite their connection to Canada, imposed second-class citizenship status upon them. The court agreed. 

Back when the law was changed, the House of Commons Committee on Citizenship and Immigration unanimously endorsed the second-generation cut-off. Effectively, the clause was the cost for passing a larger package of reforms to the Citizenship Act.

For several years, people known as the “lost Canadians” — those who have fallen through the cracks of complex citizenship law — had been advocating for changes that would address discriminatory provisions in the act. 

These people considered themselves Canadians, but had been denied citizenship because of their age, and/or the sex and marital status of their Canadian parent at the time of their birth. 

For example, prior to 2009, a child born abroad before Feb. 15, 1977, to a Canadian woman married to a non-Canadian would not be entitled to Canadian citizenship. The reform package removed the sex and wedlock status of the Canadian parent as conditions for citizenship for children born abroad after Jan. 1, 1947, when Canada’s first Citizenship Act came into force. 

Inconsistently enforced

Another challenge leading to those reforms was a requirement that second-generation children born abroad affirm their citizenship by the age of 28. They also had to demonstrate one year of residency in Canada immediately prior to applying or some other substantial connection to the country.

In practice, though, many Canadians born abroad were unaware of this provision, and it was inconsistently enforced.

Limiting citizenship to the first generation born abroad offered a simple, if blunt, solution to this problem. Parliamentarians were also assured that an expedited immigration sponsorship processwould address situations like those faced by the Bjorkquist et al.families. 

Unfortunately, that process has proven unreliable — so much so, in fact, that the judge in the Bjorkquist case described it as “error-riddled, highly discretionary, and inequitable in …application, and as such … unsatisfactory.”

It’s clear that the second-generation cut-off rule excludes children whose parents have a demonstrable connection to Canada, and who have a high likelihood of being connected to Canada as well. So how might that connection be established? 

Parliament is currently considering Bill S-245, that would amend the Citizenship Act. Its original draft proposed reinstating the second-generation affirmation and one-year residency requirement. 

It now includes an amendment requiring a more rigorous connection test, drawing from Canada’s requirements for permanent residency. The Canadian parent of a child born abroad would need to have lived in Canada for 1,095 days (three years) in total prior to the birth of their child. 

Relying on proxies

In this way, the Citizenship Act could address concerns about what Finley referred to as “endless generations living abroad”that spurred the creation of the second-generation cut-off rule in the first place. As well, Canadians would be able to pursue opportunities around the world while maintaining their connection to Canada.

Ultimately, what’s at issue is what’s considered the threshold for citizenship. Canada doesn’t require citizens or those claiming citizenship to pass civics tests or commit to substantive engagement in governing. Instead, it relies on proxies like birth, residency and time since they appear less vulnerable to political manipulation.

These proxies may be imperfect. Yet the Bjorkquist case suggests that when thoughtfully constructed, they can ensure Canadian citizenship is bestowed upon those whose attachment and contributions to Canada are real.

Source: What a recent court ruling on Canada’s Citizenship Act means for ‘lost Canadians’

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Steve Lafleur: It’s time to stop importing American debates, Canada. We’ve got our own country to run

2024/01/10 Leave a comment

Amen… Captures many of my pet peeves, reflecting a colonial mentality, although his comments on immigration oversimplify:

For the love of God, stop uncritically importing American political debates

Well, it’s here. 2024. U.S. election year. Which means that, regrettably, we’re going to be talking a lot more about Donald Trump—whether it’s because his legal troubles get the better of him, or he finds his way back into the White House. Maybe both. It’s almost too depressing to contemplate, but here we are. 

This has wide-ranging implications for Canada, and the world at large. The world will be watching—particularly America’s adversaries. Canada, Europe, and our allies need contingency plans in case America turns its back on the world.

I’m not here to talk about the geopolitical implications of letting Vladimir Putin walk through Europe, or the prospect of our closest ally potentially tearing itself apart over a geriatric nepo baby with a severe allergy to the law. I’m getting off track here.

Let’s try this again. Canadians will be rightly fixated on the American election. Who can blame us? But our cultural commonalities with the United States often make it tempting to uncritically import American debate. We’ll need to try even harder than usual to avoid that. No good comes of it. 

Canada is, in many respects, a collection of bi-national regional political cultures overlayed by a loose national culture. Vancouver is basically Seattle with Canadian characteristics, for instance. We often have as much in common with our regional neighbours south of the border as we do with Canadians on the other side of the country. 

With a population largely strewn across the American border, an economy oriented towards southern exports, and a media ecosystem filled with American content, it’s easy to forget that Canada is its own country with distinct challenges, opportunities, and history. There isn’t always an off-the-shelf American policy solution that we can just slap a maple leaf on.

This may seem painfully obvious, but Canadian politicians have a long history of seemingly forgetting which side of the border we’re on. And it’s not getting any better. Whether it’s Danielle Smith fawning over Ron DeSantis or Justin Trudeau conflating Pierre Poilievre and Donald Trump, all indications are that our political class wants to keep cosplaying American politics. 

Canadians should demand better. We deserve our own policy debates focused on actual Canadian issues. It’s up to us to ask for it.

Take immigration, for instance. It’s hard to think of two immigration systems as different as Canada’s and the United States’. Canada has very high levels of legal immigration focused on highly skilled immigrants. Our biggest immigration problem is that we haven’t built enough houses to accommodate people. By contrast, America has relatively low levels of legal immigration, but a porous southern border that people cross through for a chance to pick crops or clean hotel rooms. 

Canada has high but selective immigration; America has low but chaotic immigration. It’s understandable that irregular crossing sucks up a lot of the political oxygen stateside, but it’s a relatively niche topic here. Frankly, temporary foreign workers are a bigger political challenge in Canada than illegal immigration (specifically, housing them). Different countries, different issues.

Let’s take another thorny example: diversity. Canada is a far more multicultural country than the United States. While large American cities like New York or even Houston have very diverse populations, there are vast swaths of the country that are largely white and Black, with a smattering of Latinos. This has an enormous impact on discussions of diversity—particularly when it comes to religion. If you encounter Muslims on a regular basis, it’s hard to fearmonger about them. There’s a reason why the “Muslim ban” happened in America, not Canada. 

The fact that diversity in Canada looks different than in the United States isn’t merely a statistical curiosity. It has implications for some of the cultural debates that are increasingly monopolizing our political discourse. 

Take the term BIPOC, for instance. It’s a term often used in American progressive circles that has managed to seep through the border. BIPOC—Black, Indigenous, People of Color—is a very specific American term. Note the order of the terms. Slavery was America’s greatest sin. Racial segregation persisted until the 1960s. Discrimination continues to this day. Of course, the historical treatment of American Indigenous People wasn’t much better. But sharing an acronym isn’t entirely unreasonable. 

In Canada, it’s not reasonable. The frequency, severity, and persistence of mistreatment of Indigenous Peoples is Canada’s most shameful legacy. Lumping Indigenous issues in with broader racial issues in Canada isn’t just silly, but insulting. Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples is one of the most important tasks facing the country. Indigenous issues deserve a more prominent role than the second letter of an acronym. 

Finally, there’s guns. A lot of them if you’re on the American side, but not so much here (unless you’re talking about farm rifles). Canada’s cities, contrary to the rhetoric, are much safer than American cities. The fact that we don’t have yahoos walking around with semi-automatic weapons probably helps. Nevertheless, firearms policy gets a surprising amount of oxygen on both sides of the political spectrum, even if it isn’t kitchen table talk. Conservatives take up gun rights issues to appease rural elements of their base, and Liberals use guns as a wedge issue. Despite the very different realities of firearms policy in Canada and America, sometimes it sounds like our politicians live a few hundred miles south. That isn’t to say there isn’t room for debate about firearms policy. But Canadian politicians should not make policy decisions based on American news stories, nor should they adopt gun rights rhetoric. Uncritically importing American gun debates isn’t going to make our policies smarter. It will almost certainly make them dumber.

Look, I’m not trying to dump on Americans here. For all its faults, America is one of the greatest countries on earth. They’ve led the peaceful post-war international order since the end of the Second World War. I desperately want America to continue doing so. But America is a unique country with a very different political, social, and historical context. Uncritically echoing American talking points doesn’t enrich our political discourse. Quite the opposite. We can, and should, think for ourselves. 

So, now that we’re in the backstretch of the white-knuckle ride to the 2024 election, Canadians need to be especially on guard against allowing the increasingly poisonous American political discourse to pollute our debates. By all means, tune in to the most bewildering show on earth. But, please, remember that we’re just viewers. We’ve got our own country to run. Let’s try to focus on that.

Steve Lafleur is a public policy analyst and columnist based in Toronto.

Source: Steve Lafleur: It’s time to stop importing American debates, Canada. We’ve got our own country to run

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Most Canadians support bringing in temporary foreign workers to fill jobs, says poll

2024/01/10 Leave a comment

Bit surprising that the housing impact, which factors into recent declines in support for current levels, has not impacted the support for temporary workers and students, which also has an impact:

Most Canadians support employers bringing in temporary foreign workers to fill jobs they can’t find Canadians to do, according to a poll for The Globe and Mail, despite growing numbers opposed to increased immigration.

The survey also found that more than eight in 10 Canadians feel that temporary foreign workers are important to the country’s economy.

And over two-thirds show support for temporary foreign workers who wish to remain in Canada becoming citizens, according to the Nanos Research poll.

The findings are released as a growing proportion of Canadians say they want the country to accept fewer immigrants in 2024 compared to 2023, with opposition to more immigration growing since September, according to other Nanos polling.

Nik Nanos, chairman of Nanos Research, said Canadians are increasingly against more immigration, but are more supportive of migrants coming to do specific jobs….

Source: Most Canadians support bringing in temporary foreign workers to fill jobs, says poll

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Migrant farm workers pay into EI, but can’t access it. Now they’re suing the federal government

2024/01/10 Leave a comment

Yet another possible class action suit. Another to watch:

Migrant agricultural workers in Canada pay into employment insurance (EI), but they are not able to access it when their contracts expire and they return to their home country.

They also have employment contracts that are tied to one employer, preventing them from changing their employer while they’re in Canada.

A proposed $500-million class action lawsuit is aiming to challenge those regulations.

“It’s an issue that has been around for some time now,” said Jody Brown, a partner at Goldblatt Partners LLP, the law firm that filed the statement of claim. “The time is now for workers to come forward and try and make a change to this program.”

Kevin Palmer and Andrel Peters, seasonal migrant workers from the Caribbean who worked for companies in Leamington, Ont., are the lead plaintiffs in the suit, filed last month at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto.

It was filed on behalf of workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and the Temporary Foreign Workers Program-Agricultural Stream for the last 15 years.

“They’re seeking to bring a case not just on their own behalf, but on behalf of 10s of thousands of other workers who have been in a similar situation,” said Brown.

Class action lawsuits have to be certified by a judge in order to proceed. The allegations in the proposed lawsuit have not been proven in court.

A 2022 report from Statistics Canada stated that Canada is “increasingly reliant on TFWs to fill labour shortage gaps” and that the number of TFWs in Canada increased by 600 per cent from 2000 to 777,000 in 2021.

An advocate for migrant workers says the suit is important in the fight to get more rights for migrant workers.

“The feedback from workers has been quite positive,” said Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers. “The biggest concerns that they’ve got are around immigration and around employment insurance and that in their time of need, they can’t claim or access this benefit.”

In an emailed statement to CBC News, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada says the government does not comment on ongoing cases or “an individual’s personal circumstances,” but said that it takes “its responsibilities with respect to the protection of temporary foreign workers very seriously and the safety and protection of workers is paramount…

Source: Migrant farm workers pay into EI, but can’t access it. Now they’re suing the federal government

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Les femmes et minorités, encore souvent des candidatures «poteaux» au Canada

2024/01/10 Leave a comment

Of note (my previous analyses have focused on growth in minority candidates and MPs but this reinforces other studies showing similar overall pattern):

….Le parcours de Nathanielle Morin fait partie des données compilées dans un article rédigé par des chercheurs de l’Université d’Ottawa à paraître dans la prochaine édition de la revue Electoral Studies, et consulté par Le Devoir.

L’analyse du parcours de 3966 candidats qui se sont présentés lors des trois dernières élections générales montre que les lesbiennes, les gais, les bisexuels, les transgenres ou les queers (LGBTQ+) autodéclarés et les femmes sont nettement surreprésentés (de 17 et de 6 points de pourcentage respectivement) dans les défaites écrasantes — celles dans lesquelles ils sont arrivés plus de 15 points derrière. Les candidats autochtones ou issus des minorités visibles sont aussi désavantagés, quoique d’une moins grande ampleur.

À la surprise des chercheurs, le Parti libéral ne fait pas meilleure figure que le Parti conservateur à ce chapitre : les candidats issus de minorités sont plus souvent nommés là où les deux formations s’attendent à perdre.

« On n’a pas trouvé de grandes différences entre les libéraux et les conservateurs, même si les libéraux ont tendance à souligner qu’ils ont la parité et la question de diversité plus à coeur que le Parti conservateur », souligne Valérie Lapointe, chercheuse postdoctorale en études politiques à l’Université d’Édimbourg et coautrice de l’étude.

En fait, ces deux partis présentent surtout des hommes hétérosexuels dans les circonscriptions réputées « prenables », une tendance aggravée par le fait que les députés sortants conservent généralement leur place comme candidats. À l’issue des dernières élections fédérales, la Chambre des communes était constituée à 69,5 % d’hommes….

Source: Les femmes et minorités, encore souvent des candidatures «poteaux» au Canada

Filed under gender, LGBTQ, Multiculturalism, Politics Tagged with ,

‘Nil’ research done on impact of foreign students working unlimited hours: Report

2024/01/10 Leave a comment

Disheartening….

Access-to-information records showed that federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign students to work unlimited hours without researching the impact on unemployed Canadians.

The minister said foreign students were not “taking jobs away from other people,” but never asked his department for data, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

Both departments were asked under access-to-information requests to disclose “all research, studies, literature reviews or other data regarding the impact on the repeal of the 20-hour work cap on foreign students on labour markets, youth unemployment or hiring of Canadian post-secondary students.”

No data was found and Miller’s office did not comment.

“The information you are seeking does not exist,” said the Labour Department.

“Right now we have nil response on the information you are requesting,” the Department of Immigration said in statement.

On Dec. 7, the minister told reporters: “I don’t think students are taking jobs away from other people, given the labour shortages that are happening in Canada.”

Back then, he estimated 80% of the 807,000 foreign students in Canada — which is about 646,000 students — were working more than 20 hours weekly.

Previously, foreign students had been limited to a 20-hour work week, but then cabinet temporarily suspended the cap on Nov. 15, 2022, and Miller extended it past a Dec. 31 expiry to April 30.

“There’s labour shortages across the country,” said Miller. “It is costly to be a student in Canada. My focus primarily is to make sure that the public policy that we have in place is one that reflects the ability of the student to actually do what they’re supposed to be doing, which is study without bankrupting themselves.”

The Immigration Department estimated 500,000 foreign students were working under the cap in 2022 and that lifting it increased those numbers by 29%.

Source: ‘Nil’ research done on impact of foreign students working unlimited hours: Report

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

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