Canada pays highly educated immigrants less money than the U.S., study finds

2025/10/20 Leave a comment

Highlighting retention issues, relative wage gaps between visible minorities and not visible minority remain a concern:

Canada is “relatively successful” at attracting highly educated immigrants, but their counterparts in the United States earn more and have access to better opportunities, a new study says.

The neighbouring countries that have been largely at odds since the Trump administration took over are not only competing when it comes to industries, like the steel and auto sectors. They are also competing for skilled and educated people, especially those in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

Researchers noted that now is the time for Canada to push for the “best and the brightest” to come to the country, as the U.S. adopts “a far less welcoming immigration policy.”

The study from the Fraser Institute published on Thursday is shedding light on how certain Canadian immigrants are not reaping as many benefits as their U.S. counterparts who “perform better in terms of both employment status and earnings.” Those two factors are compared to native-born Canadians and Americans, respectively, as benchmarks.

In Canada, highly educated immigrants earned 16 per cent less than native Canadians. In the U.S., immigrants had a higher employment rate (1.2 per cent) and higher compensation (8 per cent) than Americans born in the country.

In 2020, visible minority immigrants in Canada with a bachelor’s degree or higher earned a median of $57,200, whereas native Canadians with a bachelor’s degree earned $68,300 on average.

“The differences were even greater when focusing on cohorts with advanced degrees,” said researchers. “Specifically, the median income of visible minority immigrants with a master’s degree was $65,500. For those with an earned doctorate, it was $84,000.” Canadians born in the country with a master’s earned an average of $84,400, while those with a doctorate earned $100,000.

The wage gap was likely due to “difficulties around the recognition of foreign credentials (and perhaps non-Canadian work experience) for newcomers seeking opportunities in the Canadian labour market,” researchers noted.

In the United States, data from 2022 showed that highly educated American immigrants earned US$122,000, while those born in the U.S. in with the same qualifications earned US$113,000. Researchers said that immigrants out-earning their American counterparts could be due to their “superior performance.”…

Source: Canada pays highly educated immigrants less money than the U.S., study finds

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DEI is ‘illiberal, anti-merit,’ says analyst as Poilievre pushes to end government DEI programs

2025/10/20 2 Comments

The echo chambers reinforce each other. While some measures of merit are objective, character measures are more challenging. And of course the irony given that much of this discourse comes from South of the border, where merit and character are sorely lacking among many politicians and political appointees:

Bringing an end to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives within Canada’s government, as proposed by Pierre Poilievre, would allow people to be chosen for roles based on merit and character, says the founder of a Canadian think tank.

It goes to the basic question of what kind of society you want and what governments should be doing. Governments should not have bureaucracies whose job it is to discriminate based on skin colour, ethnicity, gender,” Mark Milke told National Post.

Milke is the president of Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, which is dedicated to renewing a common-sense approach to public discourse and policy.

He said diversity, in general, within Canada “adds to the potential for greater understanding, for greater economic growth.” But used within the context of DEI, it can lead to restrictions of Canadian identity based on skin colour.

Milke’s comments come after the Conservative leader urged Canadians to show support in shuttering such programs within the government by signing a petition. Poilievre said he wants to “restore the merit principle” in a post on X….

Source: DEI is ‘illiberal, anti-merit,’ says analyst as Poilievre pushes to end government DEI programs

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Focus Canada: More than half of Canadians think there is too much immigration, poll finds

2025/10/17 Leave a comment

The good news is that for most questions, the decline in support has largely bottomed out. Encouraging that concerns revolve more around immigration program mismanagement and impact on housing, healthcare etc rather than values albeit latter along with refugees and crime remain issues. Partisan differences have increased significantly, likely reflecting Conservative highlighting immigration and citizenship issues and possible influence of USA debates:

A majority of Canadians say there is too much immigration to this country, a new poll suggests, but the percentage of people who believe this has remained stable after a sharp rise over two previous years.

The poll, which was conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research in partnership with other groups, also found a widening partisan divide among respondents. Supporters of the federal Conservatives are much more likely to be critical of immigration levels compared with people who support the Liberals or New Democrats.

The survey interviewed 2,004 Canadians via telephone (landline and cellphone) between Sept. 8 and 21. The margin of error for this sample size is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The survey has been conducted over decades using broad questions to track Canadians’ feelings about immigration.

Fifty-six per cent of respondents said they agreed with the statement, “Overall, there is too much immigration to Canada,” while 38 per cent said they disagreed with it. …

Source: More than half of Canadians think there is too much immigration, poll finds

Survey link: Canadian public opinion about the Immigration & Refugees

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Chris Selley: What Canada can learn from two years of anti-Israel protests

2025/10/17 Leave a comment

Fair points. The citizenship guide does have a reference to imported conflicts: “Some Canadians immigrate from places where they have experienced warfare or conflict. Such experiences do not justify bringing to Canada violent, extreme or hateful prejudices.:

…But we still can lay down some markers about what’s acceptable protest and what isn’t — maybe in the citizenship guide, which is supposed to apply to everyone (not just immigrants). Two principles we could articulate:

Canada is, by design, a land of free expression, including protest, which we treat generously. But at some juncture, having made your point, you have to bugger off from the middle of the road and let people go about their lives. Blocking the road is, after all, illegal. Letting you do it for your cause is a courtesy, not a right. 

If people want to leave homeland conflicts behind, it’s none of your business, even if you share a homeland and think they’re letting the home side down. 

If you target a business for protest because it’s owned by someone who has a different opinion about your homeland, you will be shunned and hooted at unapologetically. 

Meanwhile, Canadian politicians need to take a very long, very hard look at how our police forces conduct their business. Like the Ottawa occupiers before them, the anti-Israel mob has taken outrageous advantage of Canadian police forces’ slavish dedication to de-escalation as the only goal that matters

Source: Chris Selley: What Canada can learn from two years of anti-Israel protests

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Delacourt: Pierre Poilievre says he’d stand up to Donald Trump while taking a page from his playbook

2025/10/17 Leave a comment

Along with the anti-DEI petition:

…On the Friday before the long weekend, Poilievre also endorsed what another Conservative MP, Michelle Rempel Garner, was preaching — an end to birthright citizenship. Or, as Poilievre called it in another post, “birth tourism.”

Again, there’s an echo from one of Trump’s first executive orders on taking office.

“The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift,” the order states, going on to explain that citizenship would not be conferred to any child born in that country to a mother or father not lawfully present in the U.S. or there on a temporary basis.

“Canadian citizenship is a honour and privilege, and it must always be treated as such,” Poilievre said in an Oct. 10 post on X, formerly Twitter.

Neither of these seemingly Trump-inspired initiatives by the Conservatives are scourges in Canada. Fewer than 1,500 of the nearly 400,000 children born in Canada in 2024 were born to mothers whose residence was outside Canada. Railing against diversity, equity and inclusion may get some politicians votes, but it can also play into backlash against immigrants — which the Conservatives always hasten to point out, they’d never do….

Source: Pierre Poilievre says he’d stand up to Donald Trump while taking a page from his playbook

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship, DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Atlantic Canada sees sharp decline in international student enrolment

2025/10/17 Leave a comment

As largely expected, as is the sharpest drop at Cape Breton University where the majority of all students were international:

International student enrolment is down sharply at universities in Atlantic Canada this year as the federal government’s cap on the number of study permits it will process takes a toll on the postsecondary sector.

International enrolment is down nearly 28 per cent at universities in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, according to a preliminary survey of enrolment released Wednesday by the Association of Atlantic Universities.

The AAU said in a release that the international student numbers have been “badly eroded” by federal policies that have affected the recruitment of students. 

International student tuition became an important source of funding to universities and colleges across the country over the past decade. The reduction in international students is having a financial impact at individual schools, in some cases resulting in revenue losses of millions of dollars….

Source: Atlantic Canada sees sharp decline in international student enrolment

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Coyne: If birth tourism is such a big scam, why do so few immigrants take advantage?

2025/10/16 Leave a comment

Tellingly, Coyne does not cite the example of Australia, which does require one of the parents to be either a Permanent Resident or citizen along with some residency requirements. Agree as the author of the study cited that the numbers are relatively small but they do have an impact on some hospitals in urban areas and overall undermine the meaningfulness of Canadian citizenship.

Classic case, to use former immigration minister Kenney’s phrase, “Canadians of convenience:”

…It’s often argued StatsCan’s numbers are an undercount. Hospital discharge data maintained by the Canadian Institute for Health Information appear to show the number of births to non-residents at three to four times that number: peaking at more than 5,200 in 2024, or (gasp) 1.4 per cent of all births. But still: 3 million temporary residents, and only a measly 5,200 babies? A ticket to citizenship, if not for themselves then at least for their kids, that 99.8 per cent of them pass up? 

If that suggests the problem of “birth tourism” is more rhetorical than real, there is still the principle: doesn’t it “devalue” Canadian citizenship to hand it out to the children of non-citizens? Let’s follow that line of thought. So we deny them citizenship. What happens then?

The critics are right to suggest that a good many of those 3 million “temporary” residents, perhaps as many as half, are likely to remain in Canada, more or less permanently. And yet their children born here would be denied citizenship? A permanent underclass with no legal connection to the country they’ve lived in their whole lives? Is that likely to encourage a sense of belonging, or the contrary?

There are countries that have adopted this rule, but they’re not particularly happy examples. Would anyone claim that Britain or France has a superior record when it comes to integrating immigrants? Or Germany, which, before the law was changed in 2000, denied citizenship to people who had been living there for generations? If we’re talking about “peer countries,” why talk about Old World countries, and not about most of the New World, immigrant-based countries like us, where jus soli is the norm?

I’d say this is a solution in search of a problem, but it’s more like an accelerant in search of a flame. Birthright citizenship works fine. Leave it alone.

Source: If birth tourism is such a big scam, why do so few immigrants take advantage?

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with

Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People

2025/10/16 Leave a comment

“Give me your privileged, your rich, / Your huddled elite yearning to breathe free…”,

The Trump administration is considering a radical overhaul of the U.S. refugee system that would slash the program to its bare bones while giving preference to English speakers, white South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.

The proposals, some of which already have gone into effect, would transform a decades-old program aimed at helping the world’s most desperate people into one that conforms to Mr. Trump’s vision of immigration — which is to help mostly white people who say they are being persecuted while keeping the vast majority of other people out.

The plans were presented to the White House in April and July by officials in the State and Homeland Security Departments after President Trump directed federal agencies to study whether refugee resettlement was in the interest of the United States. Mr. Trump had suspended refugee admissions on his first day in office and solicited the proposals about how and whether the administration should continue the program.

Trump administration officials have not ruled out any of the ideas, according to people familiar with the planning, although there is no set timetable for approving or rejecting the ideas. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential plans….

Source: Trump Considers Overhaul of Refugee System That Would Favor White People

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism, Trump administration Tagged with ,

CPC Petition: DEI spending and government waste needs to DIE

2025/10/16 Leave a comment

Virtue signalling for their base and fundraising as a party petition, not one to be tabled in the House of Commons:

Whereas the Liberals are wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on bloated Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs;

Whereas the Liberal government has wasted $1.049 billion on DEI bureaucracy while Canadians struggle to make ends meet;

Whereas research funding must reward the best ideas – not identity checkboxes;

Whereas by tying research funding to identity politics, the Liberals are undermining academic freedom, silencing dissenting voices, and eroding trust in Canadian institutions;

Whereas this Liberal government is out of touch, wasting billions on bureaucracy and ideological projects while Canadians face the highest cost of living in decades.

Therefore, we the undersigned support the Conservative plan to restore fiscal discipline, end the billion-dollar DEI bureaucracies, and put taxpayer dollars into services Canadians actually need.

    Source: DEI spending and government waste needs to DIE, Star article Diversity, equity and inclusion are coming under scrutiny — and Pierre Poilievre is ready to push the conversation

    Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

    Picard: Does it matter where our future doctors attended high school? Doug Ford seems to think so

    2025/10/15 Leave a comment

    Good analysis on the substance although suspect this works politically:

    …The new residency-application criterium is a whole different kettle of fish. Requiring the completion of two years of high school in the province is a ridiculous metric. Many Ontarians who did not study high school in the province still have deep and meaningful ties to Ontario and to Canada. They should not be treated as second-class citizens.

    Besides, IMGs are a cornerstone of medicine in Canada. Almost one-quarter of our doctors were born elsewhere, and they are the only thing keeping the health system from collapsing entirely in rural and remote regions. It makes no sense to have immigration policies that actively invite medical professionals, only to see provinces like Ontario put up discriminatory barriers once they’ve arrived. 

    Positions in medical residency, and medicine more generally, should be allocated based on merit, not postal code. Who cares where a doctor did high school? 

    Mr. Ford should be ashamed. In an apparent bid to satisfy a small cadre of well-connected medical students wealthy enough to study abroad, Ontario is leaving thousands of other internationally trained physicians by the side of the road. 

    Source: Does it matter where our future doctors attended high school? Doug Ford seems to think so

    Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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