Quebec turns down federal funding for addressing systemic racism in justice system

2025/09/03 2 Comments

Willful blindness:

The Quebec government has turned down federal funding aimed at combatting systemic racism in the criminal justice system, saying it doesn’t agree with the program’s approach.

The federal government first offered $6.64-million in funding to provinces and territories in 2021 to improve fairness in the courts. Spread out over five years, the money was aimed at addressing the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system by promoting the use of race and cultural assessments before sentencing. 

These assessments – known as Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, or IRCAs – analyze how a convicted person’s experience of systemic racism contributed to their criminal charges.

While most provinces have accepted the federal funding aimed at supporting defendants or to cover the costs of assessments through their legal aid programs, Quebec has been opposed to providing this type of support.

“We are not party to any funding agreement involving Impact of Race and Culture Assessments, as Quebec doesn’t subscribe to the approach on which the funding program is based, namely systemic racism,” Marie-Hélène Mercier, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Justice Department, told The Canadian Press in an e-mail….

Source: Quebec turns down federal funding for addressing systemic racism in justice system

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Boisvert: La moronisation des États-Unis

2025/09/03 Leave a comment

Sadly accurate:

« Nous aurons une annonce en septembre tel que promis, a-t-il dit dans une séance publique du cabinet Trump. Nous avons découvert que des interventions, certaines interventions causent clairement presque certainement l’autisme. »

Ce n’est pas une mince déclaration. L’autisme fait l’objet de recherches depuis des dizaines d’années. Les causes, disent les chercheurs, sont multiples. Génétiques, environnementales…

Et voilà qu’en cinq mois, des « recherches » commandées par Kennedy seraient parvenues à une percée spectaculaire.

On sait que Kennedy a déjà comparé la vaccination des enfants aux expériences menées par les nazis. On l’a vu souvent prétendre faussement que l’autisme est causé par les vaccins. On peut donc parier que les « interventions » dont il parle, et qui causent « clairement presque certainement » l’autisme, seront… les vaccins.

Le « chercheur » à l’origine de la théorie des vaccins causant l’autisme, le médecin britannique Andrew Wakefield, a été radié de son ordre professionnel. Hélas, son « étude » frauduleuse a été publiée dans The Lancet, et continue à circuler chez les antivax.

La preuve a depuis été faite et refaite qu’il n’y a aucun lien entre la vaccination et l’autisme.

Quand RFK était une simple célébrité, il causait déjà beaucoup de tort en répandant des faussetés scientifiques, de la pseudoscience et des théories du complot.

Mais maintenant, le président a nommé ce « sceptique » des vaccins, pour ne pas dire cet antivax, à la tête de la Santé. Le Sénat a confirmé sa nomination. Ce ne sont plus des opinions, qu’il émet. Ce sont des décisions.

Et parmi celles-ci, il y a le congédiement mercredi de la Dre Susan Monarez, qui venait tout juste d’être confirmée dans ses fonctions de directrice de la Santé publique, à la tête des Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Le motif ? « Insubordination ». La Dre Monarez avait simplement rappelé à RFK que les nouvelles directives sur la vaccination ne correspondaient pas aux données scientifiques. Le secrétaire a en effet décidé qu’il n’y aurait de vaccination contre la COVID-19 que pour les personnes âgées. Basé sur quoi ? Ses propres avis. Car en juin, Kennedy a foutu à la porte tous les membres du comité de consultation sur la vaccination.

De fait, les CDC ont perdu « des milliers » d’employés et la moitié de leur budget. Certains de leurs meilleurs experts en matière de maladies contagieuses sont partis.

Les États-Unis ont aussi coupé les ponts avec l’Organisation mondiale de la santé. Annulé des contrats de recherche à hauteur de 500 millions sur la technologie de l’ARN messager. En plus de comprimer massivement les budgets de recherche et les fonds universitaires. Ce n’est pas pour rien que 75 % des chercheurs américains (sondage de Nature) disent vouloir trouver du boulot à l’étranger.

Ça ne change rien pour l’instant. Mais la capacité du pays à faire face à une épidémie, une pandémie, une crise sanitaire est sérieusement affectée. Comme les États-Unis ont été un leader mondial en la matière, cela touche le monde entier. Sans parler des risques de contagion idéologique et de contagion tout court.

Ça ne change rien pour l’instant, mais il y aura des morts.

Le démantèlement de la Santé publique américaine s’ajoute à toutes les attaques frontales contre la science. Et jusqu’à la collecte de données.

La destruction volontaire de deux satellites parfaitement fonctionnels qui mesurent le taux de CO2 dans l’atmosphère s’inscrit dans le même superbe projet de rendre aux États-Unis sa grandeur par l’accroissement de l’ignorance.

Quand il a écrit The Assault on Reason (La raison assiégée), en 2007, Al Gore se plaignait de la dégradation du débat public, dominé par des émotions aux dépens des faits. Il n’avait pas imaginé qu’un jour, un président congédierait la patronne du bureau des statistiques du travail parce qu’il n’aimait pas ses données.

Même les plus grands pourfendeurs républicains du « gros gouvernement » n’ont pas voulu éradiquer les données ou nommer volontairement des super-incompétents dans des postes clés.

Le plus consternant est évidemment l’aplaventrisme du Congrès. Le sénateur républicain Bill Cassidy a déclaré jeudi qu’il veut maintenant « superviser » les CDC, vu le bordel actuel.

Ce même sénateur, un médecin, avait fait semblant d’hésiter à confirmer la nomination de RFK à la santé, vu ses déclarations sur les vaccins. Il a longuement expliqué à quel point les vaccins sauvent des vies. Mais à la fin, bien entendu, il a voté pour sa confirmation. Si une personne aurait dû savoir ce qui se tramait, c’est bien lui. Et pourtant, il a ouvert toutes grandes les portes du labo aux idéologues de RFK pour qu’ils le saccagent.

Ce n’est même plus au nom d’une volonté de « réforme » des institutions scientifiques que tout cela est entrepris. Les CDC comme les universités comme tout le gouvernement méritent des réformes et des ménages périodiques, bien entendu.

Ce à quoi on assiste, c’est carrément la destruction de ces institutions qui ont été des références d’excellence en sciences de la santé, en sciences naturelles, en économie, etc.

On a déjà prétendu que John F. Kennedy s’était entouré des meilleurs. « The Best and the Brightest. »

Aujourd’hui, c’est à la moronisation de ce grand pays qu’on assiste.

Source: La moronisation des États-Unis

“We will have an announcement in September as promised,” he said in a public session of the Trump cabinet. We have discovered that interventions, certain interventions clearly almost certainly cause autism. ”

This is not a small statement. Autism has been the subject of research for decades. The causes, the researchers say, are multiple. Genetic, environmental…

And now in five months, “research” commissioned by Kennedy would have reached a spectacular breakthrough.

It is known that Kennedy has already compared the vaccination of children to the experiments conducted by the Nazis. We have often seen him falsely claim that autism is caused by vaccines. We can therefore bet that the “interventions” he is talking about, and which “clearly almost certainly” cause autism, will be… vaccines.

The “researcher” behind the theory of autism-causing vaccines, British physician Andrew Wakefield, has been removed from his professional order. Alas, his fraudulent “study” was published in The Lancet, and continues to circulate among anti-vax.

Proof has since been made and redone that there is no link between vaccination and autism.

When RFK was a simple celebrity, he was already causing a lot of harm by spreading scientific falsehoods, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

But now, the president has named this “skeptic” of vaccines, not to say this anti-vax, at the head of Health. The Senate confirmed his appointment. These are no longer opinions, which he expresses. These are decisions.

And among these is the dismissal on Wednesday of Dr. Susan Monarez, who had just been confirmed as Director of Public Health, at the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The reason? “Insubordination”. Dr. Monarez had simply reminded RFK that the new vaccination guidelines did not correspond to the scientific data. The secretary has indeed decided that there would only be vaccination against COVID-19 for the elderly. Based on what? His own opinions. Because in June, Kennedy kicked out all the members of the vaccination consultation committee.

In fact, the CDC has lost “thousands” of employees and half of their budget. Some of their best infectious disease experts are gone.

The United States has also cut ties with the World Health Organization. Cancelled 500 million research contracts on messenger RNA technology. In addition to massively compressing research budgets and university funds. It is not for nothing that 75% of American researchers (Nature survey) say they want to find a job abroad.

It doesn’t change anything for now. But the country’s ability to deal with an epidemic, a pandemic, a health crisis is seriously affected. As the United States has been a world leader in this area, it affects the whole world. Not to mention the risks of ideological contagion and contagion altogether.

It doesn’t change anything for now, but there will be deaths.

The dismantling of American Public Health is in addition to all the frontal attacks against science. And up to data collection.

The voluntary destruction of two perfectly functional satellites that measure the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is part of the same superb project to restore the greatness to the United States by increasing ignorance.

When he wrote The Assault on Reason, in 2007, Al Gore complained of the degradation of public debate, dominated by emotions at the expense of facts. He had not imagined that one day a president would fire the boss of the labor statistics office because he did not like her data.

Even the biggest Republican slitters of the “big government” did not want to eradicate the data or voluntarily appoint super-incompetents in key positions.

The most appalling thing is obviously the aplaventrism of the Congress. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy said Thursday that he now wants to “supervise” the CDC, given the current mess.

This same senator, a doctor, had pretended to be hesitant to confirm the appointment of RFK to health, given his statements on vaccines. He explained at length how vaccines save lives. But in the end, of course, he voted for his confirmation. If a person should have known what was brewing, it was him. And yet, he opened the doors of the laboratory wide to RFK ideologists so that they could vandalish him.

It is no longer even in the name of a desire to “reform” scientific institutions that all this is undertaken. The CDC as well as the universities as the whole government deserve reforms and periodic households, of course.

What we are witnessing is the destruction of these institutions that have been references of excellence in health sciences, natural sciences, economics, etc.

It has already been claimed that John F. Kennedy had surrounded himself with the best. “The Best and the Brightest. ”

Today, we are witnessing the moronization of this great country.

Filed under Government, Trump administration Tagged with ,

French:The Corporate Logo That Broke the Internet

2025/09/02 Leave a comment

The usual distraction and “flood the zone” tactics by the Trump administration and its enablers:

…The process of stoking outrage has another effect: It crowds out the news cycle. Most Democrats I know would be shocked at how little the average Republican knows about Trump’s actual conduct and his actual wrongdoing. Republicans can, however, cite chapter and verse about left-wing outrages and left-wing overreactions to Trump.

That creates a reality where they simply can’t conceive of how any reasonable, rational person would vote Democratic or oppose the president and his policies.

The Sweeney and Cracker Barrel stories highlight the new right’s theory of change. It sees the social liberalization of America as primarily an elite-driven phenomenon. According to this narrative, the left seized the most powerful institutions of American life and then imposed its delusional and unnatural ideas from the top down, in part through shaming, fear and bullying.

The solution, then, is obvious. Either seize or destroy left-dominated institutions, replace them with right-dominated institutions and elites and then impose conservative values on society, if necessary, through the same intolerant means.

This is why you see some figures on the right turning even to Marxists, such as Antonio Gramsci, to inspire them to “cultural hegemony.”

In this version of the right, cancel culture is only a problem if you’re not the one doing the canceling. The conservative argument for liberty for all is replaced by a populist will to power, one so all-consuming that it exercises veto power over corporate logo redesigns it does not like.

At the moment, MAGA’s cultural power is on the rise, but it’s ultimately on a fool’s errand. Can anyone look at the history of the last 10 years and say that bullying or intolerance helped the left? Or is it more accurate to say that the worst excesses of left-wing cancel culture helped trigger the public reaction that ushered MAGA back into power?

MAGA’s intolerance won’t fare any better. Constant outrage is energizing, at least for a while, for partisans and activists. It’s exhausting for everyone else. The more that MAGA tries to bully America, the more resentment it will build. Bullies only win for a while, and when the backlash to the backlash comes, MAGA will have only itself to blame.

Source: The Corporate Logo That Broke the Internet

Filed under Politics, Trump administration Tagged with , , ,

Polk: Canadian business needs to walk the walk on productivity

2025/09/02 1 Comment

Welcome commentary on the role and responsibilities of the private sector:

It is an annual rite of passage stretching back 30 years. Canadian business leaders sound a warning klaxon about the threat of Canada’s declining productivity. Then they will present a detailed list of policy asks to the federal government that, if implemented they say, will empower Canadian business to reverse our downward productivity trend. 

In many ways, federal governments — Conservative and Liberal — have answered the business call. Need free trade with the United States and Mexico? Done. Need to balance the federal budget to avoid national bankruptcy? Done. Need a low federal debt to GDP ratio? Done. Need corporate taxes rates that are competitive with the G-7? Done. Need business to be supported through the COVID-19 pandemic? Done.

Yet, year after year, Canadian productivity growth stagnates or declines. And year after year, the federal government is blamed by business and business media for failing to deliver a policy suite that will solve the productivity conundrum.

One could perhaps forgive a certain eye-rolling cynicism about business alarmism. And it sometimes seems to federal policymakers that businesses tend to shift the productivity policy goal posts for success in an effort to keep Ottawa the focus of criticism. 

On the flip side, there are quite legitimate business frustrations and complaints about how Ottawa operates. Canada’s inadequate depreciation rules, regulatory uncertainty, and slower project approvals can make capital projects less attractive. Programs like the SR&ED tax are rightly criticized as bureaucratic and more useful for tax planning than for encouraging real risk-taking.

Generational failure

At most, however, the federal government can create a pro-productivity framework. Improving productivity requires not just government policy shifts but also decisions made in boardrooms, shop floors, and offices across the country. On this score, while businesses have talked the talk on productivity for a generation, they have continually failed to walk the walk.

Canada has world-class researchers and scientists, yet business spending on research and development (R&D) is among the lowest in the OECD. Too often, Canadian companies rely on imported technologies rather than creating or adapting their own. This dependency leaves them vulnerable to foreign competitors and stifles the domestic innovation ecosystem.

A related difference between Canadian firms and their international peers lies in technology adoption. Businesses in Canada tend to delay or avoid major investments in automation, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and advanced analytics. This hesitancy often stems from cost concerns, risk aversion, or a “wait and see” mentality. But by holding back, firms are limiting their ability to produce more with the same resources.

Productivity is not only about machines — it is also about people. Workers equipped with up-to-date skills are far more likely to generate innovative ideas, master new technologies, and adapt to evolving markets. Unfortunately, Canadian businesses spend significantly less per employee on training and development than U.S. and European counterparts.

The point here is not to score governmental debating points against Canadian business in a seemingly endless passing of the productivity buck back and forth. The government-business productivity dialogue to which we have become accustomed is a luxury we can no longer afford in light of rising American economic nationalism.

Canada’s economic history has been defined by its privileged relationship with the two globally predominant economies of the last 150 years: the United Kingdom and the United States. Some may think that President Donald Trump’s assault on the global rules-based economic system will pass when he leaves the scene. However, it may also be the case that Trump has tapped into a political vein that has considerable staying power among Americans who feel dispossessed by globalization.

Profound shock

Prime Minister Mark Carnery has recognized this possibility and is trying to jolt Canadians into making big choices at a time when the nation may well be losing its privileged place under the American economic umbrella. This would be a profound shock to federal policy-making and to the way that Canadian companies do business.  

Carney has signalled what is coming federally by the breakneck speed with which he secured the Building Canada Bill Act, which seeks to remove the typical bureaucratic encumbrances that have held back major economy-building projects. His choice of Michael Sabia as a new Clerk of the Privy Council signals he will reward risk-taking and innovation above all else and penalize mere process management.  

Canadian businesses must meet this moment with equally bold thinking and action in a new, more uncertain economic reality. They must invest in a culture that rewards productive investment and upskills its workers. They must reward experimentation and tolerate calculated risk. They must uncover more efficient ways of doing things rather than copying existing models. Above all, they must adopt a true, globally competitive mindset beyond the comfortable habits ingrained during the now declining economic Pax Americana.

In other words, Canada is at an economic crossroads. The federal government seems to recognize this. 

But whether we travel the right road ahead will depend very much on whether Canadian businesses stop talking the talk on productivity and finally walk the walk.

Ken Polk is a public affairs counsellor at Compass Rose. Previously, Ken served as chief speechwriter, deputy director of communications and legislative assistant to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Source: Canadian business needs to walk the walk on productivity

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit

2025/09/02 Leave a comment

Not that surprising:

When President Trump started dismantling federal agencies and dismissing rank-and-file civil servants, Peggy Carr, the chief statistician at the Education Department, immediately started to make a calculation.

She was the first Black person and the first woman to hold the prestigious post of commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. As a political appointee, she knew there was a risk of becoming a target.

But her 35-career at the department spanned a half dozen administrations, including Mr. Trump’s first term, and she had earned the respect of officials from both parties. Surely, she thought, the office tasked with tracking the achievement of the nation’s students could not fall under the president’s definition of “divisive and harmful” or “woke.”

But for the first time in her career, Dr. Carr’s data points didn’t add up.

On a February afternoon, a security guard showed up to her office just as she was preparing to hold a staff meeting. Fifteen minutes later, the staff watched in tears and disbelief as she was escorted out of the building.

“It was like being prosecuted in front of my family — my work family,” Dr. Carr said in an interview. “It was like I was being taken out like the trash, the only difference is I was being taken out the front door rather than the back door.”

While tens of thousands of employees have lost their jobs in Mr. Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to shrinking the federal work force, experts say the cuts disproportionately affect Black employees — and Black women in particular. Black women make up 12 percent of the federal work force, nearly double their share of the labor force overall.

For generations, the federal government has served as a ladder to the middle class for Black Americans who were shut out of jobsbecause of discrimination. The federal government has historically offered the population more job stability, pay equity and career advancement than the private sector. Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal government aggressively enforced affirmative action in hiring and anti-discrimination rules that Mr. Trump has sought to roll back.

The White House has defended Mr. Trump’s overhaul of the federal government as an effort to right-size the work force and to restore a merit-based approach to advancement In July, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump could continue with mass firings across the federal government.

In a statement, Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, said that Mr. Trump was “ushering in an economy that will empower all Americans, just as it did during his first term.” He added that “the obsession with divisive D.E.I. initiatives reverses years of strides toward genuine equality.”…

Source: In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit

Filed under DEI, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Thousands in Australia march against immigration, government condemns rally

2025/09/02 Leave a comment

Of note. Hopefully will not be replicated in Canada:

Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country on Sunday that the centre-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis.

March for Australia rallies against immigration were held in Sydney and other state capitals and regional centres, according to the group’s website.

“Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the website says. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration”.

The group also says it is concerned about culture, wages, traffic, housing and water supply, environmental destruction, infrastructure, hospitals, crime and loss of community.

Australia – where one in two people is either born overseas or has a parent born overseas – has been grappling with a rise in right-wing extremism, including protests by neo-Nazis.

“We absolutely condemn the March for Australia rally that’s going on today. It is not about increasing social harmony,” Murray Watt, a senior minister in the Labor government, told Sky News television, when asked about the rally in Sydney, the country’s most-populous city.

“We don’t support rallies like this that are about spreading hate and that are about dividing our community,” Watt said, asserting they were “organised and promoted” by neo-Nazi groups.

March for Australia organisers did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the neo-Nazi claims.

Laws banning the Nazi salute and the display or sale of symbols associated with terror groups came into effect in Australia this year in response to a string of antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.

COUNTER-PROTESTERS EXPRESS ‘DISGUST, ANGER’

Some 5,000 to 8,000 people, many draped in Australian flags, had assembled for the Sydney rally, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported. It was held near the course of the Sydney Marathon, where 35,000 runners pounded the streets on Sunday, finishing at the city’s Opera House.

Also nearby, a counter-rally by the Refugee Action Coalition, a community activist organisation, took place.

“Our event shows the depth of disgust and anger about the far-right agenda of March For Australia,” a coalition spokesperson said in a statement. Organisers said hundreds attended that event.

Police said hundreds of officers were deployed across Sydney in an operation that ended “with no significant incidents”.

A large March for Australia rally was held in central Melbourne, the capital of Victoria state, according to aerial footage from the ABC, which reported that riot officers used pepper spray on demonstrators. Victoria Police did not confirm the report but said it would provide details on the protest later on Sunday.

Bob Katter, the leader of a small populist party, attended a March for Australia rally in Queensland, a party spokesperson said, three days after the veteran lawmaker threatened a reporter for mentioning Katter’s Lebanese heritage at a press conference when the topic of his attendance at a March for Australia event was being discussed.

Source: Thousands in Australia march against immigration, government condemns rally

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Canadian Immigration Tracker First Quarter 2025

2025/09/02 Leave a comment

My regular update on key immigration programs. Given the various articles on whether or not the government is meeting the reductions announced earlier, here is where we stand for January to June for the current and previous two years:

Permanent residents admissions: From 255,015 in 2024 to 207,510 in 2025, decline 18.6 percent, (from 2023, decline 21 percent), about 50 percent of 2025 target  

TR2PR (Those already in Canada): From 148,020 in 2024 to 126,365 in 2025, decline of 14.6 percent (from 2023, decline 13 percent). 

TRs-IMP: From 420,070 in 2024 to 295,505 in 2025, decline of 29.7 percent (from 2023, decline 23.4 percent), already exceeds 2025 target

TRs-TFWP: From 110,910 in 2024 to 106,105 in 2025, decline of 4.3 percent (from 2023, decline 7.2 percent), already exceeds 2025 target for both agriculture and non-agriculture workers

Students: From 248,820 in 2024 to 152,775 in 2025, decline of 38.6 percent (from 2023, increase 26.1 percent), about 50 percent of 2025 target (likely to overshoot given third quarter has highest number of admissions (between 40-45 percent for post-secondary albeit only 34 percent in 2024)

Asylum Claimants: From 93,315 in 2024 to 57,810 in 2025, decline of 38 percent (from 2023, decline 3.7 percent)

Citizenship: From 205,363 in 2024 to 151,804 in 2025, decline of 26.1 percent (from 2023, decline 14.2 percent)

Visitor Visas: From 868,234 in 2024 to 568,195, decline of 34.6 percent (from 2023, decline 40.5 percent)

Covid-19 Immigration Effects – Key Slides – June 2025Download

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with

May: The Functionary on PBO expenditure review recommendations

2025/08/30 Leave a comment

Good discussion of the PBO recommendations:

…WHY IT MATTERS
It’s about measurement and accountability

It introduces a methodology to track personnel spending using more frequent pay data. It separates projections for civilian and non-civilian staffing (military/RCMP included). It distinguishes head counts (actual people) from FTEs (work equivalent). This is critical because past cuts reduced head counts while FTEs actually rose.

It’s a baseline for expenditure review. It sets clear starting points for measuring cuts, which didn’t exist before. It allows tracking of whether the public service is truly shrinking under the expenditure review. It provides capacity for twice-yearly updates so parliamentarians can monitor progress.

It’s an operating split vs. a capital budget split. The government plans to balance the operating budget while splitting expenditures into operating and capital budgets.It creates an incentive to shift operating expenses into capital (childcare transfers, immigration programs, infrastructure) to make balancing easier. Without clear definitions, departments may label operating expenses as “productivity investments” and put them under capital.

There are risks for public-service managers. Operating budgets face greater restraint since balancing that budget is Carney’s fiscal anchor. There is uncertainty over what counts as operating vs. capital. There’s a need to deliver the same services with fewer resources. Previous cuts show departments often hire more permanent staff to maintain service despite headcount reductions.

POST-GIROUX
Whoever takes over, it will be temporary

Giroux’s term ends Sept. 2, five days after departments’ Aug. 28 deadline for proposed 15-per-cent spending reductions that will shape the next federal budget in October. He leaves with another 20 or so reports in the pipeline for his successor.

I wrote in July about the unknowns surrounding Giroux’s fate and the huge impacthe’s had on the office. At the time, the Privy Council Office said it was committed to appointing a “highly qualified individual” and noted the Parliament of Canada Actallows for an interim appointment in the event of a vacancy.

This week, it offered no timeline other than in to say “due course.” It didn’t say whether the position will be filled before the budget.

The only option now is a temporary appointment until the House and Senate return. A formal appointment requires approval from both chambers. Some suggest the government would prefer an interim watchdog rather than have its moves scrutinized by someone with Giroux’s experience and track record.

Source: The Functionary

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Geoff Russ: Immigration is how Poilievre will get back on top

2025/08/30 Leave a comment

Reasonable foreshadowing of likely Conservative attack lines, some more valid than others:

Expect the Conservatives to come out swinging on immigration like never before when the House of Commons reconvenes next month.

Donald Trump gave the Liberals a lifeline to eke out another term in government in the spring, but the Liberals’ failure to get immigration under control is negatively impacting Canadians across the country.

In a statement released on August 25, the Conservatives pointed out that the government set an annual cap of 82,000 temporary foreign workers (TFW), but 105,000 had already been issued.

As for applicants to the International Mobility Program, they wrote 302,000 had been admitted by the first six months of the year in June, despite a promised cap of 285,000 permits.

“Moreover, their so-called caps on permanent residents were already among the highest in our history, yet they’re on track to exceed their own reckless targets, welcoming the equivalent of twice the population of Guelph and four times the population of Abbotsford,” read the statement, credited to Poilievre and Shadow Immigration Critic Michelle Rempel Garner.

This month, Poilievre released a series of graphics on social media highlighting the disparity between the Carney government’s promised targets, and how they are on-track to be exceeded.

This is a taste of what to expect for the fall session of Parliament, and Canadians will be receptive.

Sixty-two per cent of respondents in a Leger poll conducted in July believe there are too many newcomers arriving in Canada, and just 42 percent think they can be trusted. The poll also found that there was little disagreement between immigrant and native-born citizens in this regard.

Last year, Abacus Data found that 53 per cent of those surveyed had a negative view of immigration, and 72 per cent thought that the government’s immigration targets were “too ambitious”.

Abacus published the results of another survey earlier this month, finding that 25 per cent of Canadians now consider immigration to be the top issue facing Canada, and the Conservatives lead the Liberals 56 per cent to 15 per cent when respondents were asked which party was best equipped to handle the issue.

During the last federal election, young Canadians swung heavily towards the Conservatives, 44 percent to 31.2 per cent among 18 to 34 year olds, and with good reason.

Youth unemployment is the highest it has been since the late 1990s, with almost 15 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 24 unable to find work before returning to school in the fall.

Employers have been greatly incentivized by the TFW program to hire foreigners instead of hiring and training their fellow Canadians.

The reliance on surplus foreign labour is dragging down productivity, while suppressing wages and per-capita GDP. There is no long-term upside to flooding the country with low-skill labour that pushes Canadians out of the job market, and the short-term effects have been socially and economically undesirable.

Investigations by the Toronto Star in 2024 found that government officials in Ottawa told their staff to skip fraud checks on TFW applications. Predictable wrongdoing ensued, such as no confirmation with employers to confirm that posted jobs actually existed, while migrant workers paid up to $70,000 for fake jobs.

As of now, it is estimated that there are somewhere between 600,000 and over 1 million undocumented people within Canada, and federal and provincial agencies seem incapable of remedying the issue.

Expelling people from the country is not a pleasant task when so many people have been duped by villainous immigration consultants who sold them fake dreams. The job must still be done.

You cannot have trust in a government that fails to meet its own immigration caps and enforce deportations.

It is unfair to Canadians, and unfair to newcomers who went through the proper channels.

One of the most infuriating aspects of it all is that Canada should not have an immigration crisis. Our geography gives us the privilege of being generous, and up until 2015 we were more selective about newcomers.

Stephen Harper’s government ran a very tight ship on immigration, and this should be the expectation of every Canadian government, not an exception.

This all started going downhill when Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, and the numbers started climbing sharply. For example, his government lowered the benchmark for Express Entry from 866 out of 1200 points, to just 75.

Nearly five million people have entered the country since 2014, and few can say this country is fairer, more prosperous or more hopeful for it. Those who want Canada to continue as a welcoming country for new arrivals would do well to push for reform.

We are bordered by three oceans and an undefended border with the world’s most powerful economy. Our admission of newcomers is something we can control, and there is no reason why Canada should not have one of the most well-run, careful immigration systems in the world.

The idea that Canadians have been almost unanimously in favour of immigration since the Second World War is a pervasive myth. It has always been controversial among the public, but rarely has it been debated with ferocity in the House of Commons.

Canadians want a debate on current immigration levels to happen, and they will get their wish this fall.

Mark Carney will need creative excuses for why his government blew past its own caps, did not release immigration data for months, and presented no plan to end the economy’s dependence on cheap foreign labour.

For the Conservatives, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to finally turn immigration into an issue our politicians can openly and honestly debate.

The Liberals got us into this avoidable mess, and they must be held accountable for it.

Source: Geoff Russ: Immigration is how Poilievre will get back on top

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada’s border agency plans to use AI to screen everyone entering the country — and single out ‘higher risk’ people

2025/08/30 Leave a comment

Inevitable given the numbers involved and the need to triage applications:

Canada Border Services Agency is planning to use AI to check everyone visiting or returning to the country to predict whether they are at risk of breaking the law. 

Anyone identified as “higher risk” could be singled out for further inspection.

The traveller compliance indicator (TCI), which has been tested at six land ports of entry, was developed using five years of CBSA travellers’ data. It assigns a “compliance score” for every person entering Canada. It will be used to enforce the Customs Act and related regulations.

The AI-assisted tool is expected to launch as early as 2027 and is meant to help border services officers at all land, air and marine ports of entry decide whether to refer travellers and the goods they are carrying for secondary examination, according to an assessment report obtained under an access to information request. 

“We use the obtained data to build predictive models in order to predict the likelihood of a traveller to be compliant,” said the report which was submitted by the border agency to the Treasury Board.

“TCI will improve the client experience by reducing processing time at the borders. The system will allow officers to spend less time on compliant travellers and reduce the number of unnecessary selective referrals.”

However, experts are alarmed by the lack of public engagement and input into the tool’s development. They worry that the system may reinforce human biases against certain types of travellers such as immigrants and visitors from certain countries because the quality of the analytics is only as good as what is inputted.

“If you’ve historically been very critical over a certain group, then that will be in the data and we’ll transfer that into the tool,” said Vancouver-based immigration lawyer Will Tao, who obtained the report.

“You look for the problems and you find problems where you’re looking, right?”

The government report said the border agency serves more than 96 million travellers a year, and trying to keep up with expected growth would require the addition of hundreds of border officers. In addition, physical limitations make it impossible to add extra booths at some points of entry.

The AI tool, the report said, will help keep border processing times at current levels even with an expected increase in the number of travellers. 

“No decisions are automated,” the report said. “Rather the current primary processing is being supported with a flag indicating whether a traveller’s information matches a compliance pattern.”

However, if an officer follows a mistaken recommendation from the tool, it could have impacts that could “last longer,” the report added.

“Once a risk score or indicator is presented to an officer, it can heavily influence their judgment, which in practice means the system is shaping outcomes even if the final authority is technically still human,” said University of Toronto professor Ebrahim Bagheri, who focuses on AI and the study of data and society.

“A false positive is when the system flags someone as risky or non-compliant even though they are in fact compliant. In the border context, that could mean a traveller is singled out for extra questioning or secondary examination even though they’ve done nothing wrong.”

The system is designed to display information of interest to an officer, such as a traveller’s means of transport and who accompanied them. 

It also captures “live determinants” which can include information such as whether the person is travelling alone, the type of identification they presented and the license plate of the vehicle they used, as well as any data from the traveller’s previous trips in CBSA’s records….

Source: Canada’s border agency plans to use AI to screen everyone entering the country — and single out ‘higher risk’ people

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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