Douglas Todd: What Canada can learn from the U.S. migration crisis

In Canada the big migration issues are different. Because of our relatively secure sea and land borders we’re not overwhelmed by would-be refugees, even though increasing numbers, now about 140,000, are showing up annually.Unlike in the U.S., Canada’s worst example of policy failure is entirely self-made.

It relates to how a record number of new permanent and non-permanent residents, 1.25 million, were brought into Canada in a recent one-year period. And to how the average Canadian is realizing the heightened demand is placing intense pressure on home prices and rents.

Newcomers themselves are among those suffering, especially the record number of almost one million international students admitted in 2023, who arrived in Canada at a per capita rate six times higher than in the U.S.

Many are squeezing into overpriced apartments. A story emerged out of Brampton this week of 25 foreign students living in one basement. Many are also paying exorbitant fees to often marginal private schools, while being exploited by employers seeking not only low-wage employees, but meek ones. A report this week found 91 students from India had died in the past five years in Canada, some by suicide.

And while nine of 10 foreign students arrive with the dream of becoming permanent residents, according to Statistics Canada, experts say most will never win the immigration prize, which ends up being a kind of lottery.

It is only last month that the Liberal government said it would put a cap on study visas.

There are huge political implications to migration policy. And, for different reasons, Canada’s Liberals and America’s Democrats are losing votes over it.

In Canada it’s looking like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which since 2015 has championed ever-rising migration levels as the key to national prosperity, is finally realizing their ways are hurting them electorally. Trudeau’s Liberals have welcomed a record number of migrants and pushed the narrative that Canada’s French and English populations are rife with bigotry.

Within the span of just eight months last year the number of Canadians saying there are too many refugees coming to the country almost doubled, to 46 per cent, according to surveys by Jack Jedwab of the Metropolis Institute. Half of Canadians also now think there are too many immigrants, with that figure rising to 61 per cent among those with lower incomes.

The Liberals, as a result, are scrambling to turn around a decade of messaging.

This week immigration minister Marc Miller said he would curb the country’s dependence on the “cheap labour” supplied by foreign workers and international students. Last month he introduced a limit on foreign student visas, cutting them by 35 per cent for this year.

Miller will announce further changes soon to restrict students’ off-campus work hours and he’s also reviewing the country’s temporary foreign worker program. That’s on top of the Liberals this month declaring they would extend their ban — which is full of loopholes — on foreign home ownership.

It remains to be seen if anything actually comes of Ottawa’s announcements. But the hard reality is the polls are making the Liberals, and the Democrats, open their eyes to how more balanced migration policy, and a more orderly system, are key to electoral success.

What does that mean for the U.S.? It points to the need for Biden to move to the middle — to tighten border security, and streamline the official immigration process.For Canada it means the minority Liberal government, propped up by the NDP, has to learn, as economists have long warned, to stop claiming that having the highest migration rates in the world will be an economic panacea.

Achieving prosperity for all, including newcomers, is far more complex than that.

Source: Douglas Todd: What Canada can learn from the U.S. migration crisis