Meggs: Changing Course on Immigration

Good long assessment by Meggs:

…So what can we expect as a result of these multiple announcements designed to convince us that the Liberals can bring order to the immigration system and get numbers under control?

I tend to agree with Tony Keller, who pointed out in an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail following the March 21 press conference that the target of 5 per cent of the population for temporary residents, if accomplished, would bring us back, in three years, to where we were in July 2023. Keller concluded, “What Miller served up should not be consumed without first adding many large grains of extra-coarse salt.” Henry Lotin, a research economist in this field, agrees that “given our immigration and entry laws, these targets will be almost impossible to achieve, certainly not by 2027.”

If we don’t notice much of a change by election time in 2025, whose fault will it be?

Miller provided the government’s answer in his March statement, identifying the culprits as well as the circumstances which were beyond the government’s control. Of course, there’s the pandemic: “Provinces and businesses needed us to bring more workers.” Also, “The chronic underfunding of post-secondary education and unscrupulous actors looking to profit off of vulnerable individuals – among others – led to exponential growth.” Not to be ignored, international conflicts are responsible: “Unprecedented levels of conflicts, economic and political upheaval, human rights abuses and climate change” left the government with no choice but to use temporary public policies to respond to these crises.

This government started out blindly inspired by Century Initiative siren calls that a bigger population is better for the economy and will set Canada up on the international scene, confident that Canadians would embrace the idea. Ignoring its own Advisory Council recommendations regarding highly skilled immigration, it responded willingly to “needs” expressed by the business community by providing cheap labour from foreign students and low-wage foreign workers and families. It has encouraged and accepted more applications than it can process for all types of visas and permits.

Instead of optimizing its permanent immigration system to respond more effectively to a rapidly evolving context, the government used temporary permits to entice people to the country, creating a vast class of residents who live here for years in precarious situations leading to exploitation and abuse by criminals, recruitment agencies, employers and landlords.

Had they known what was happening, Canadians would never have agreed to this kind of immigration structure. Have we really gotten to the point where our political system precludes, on issues as critical as how we welcome people into our society, a common political will to engage in a serious social dialogue for the benefit of all?

Source: Changing Course on Immigration