ICYMI: Tying immigration to homes a ‘good’ idea but not a fix-all: Housing minister – Global News

2024/01/18 Leave a comment

Apart from the irony of the former immigration minister waking up to the fact that his policies contributed to housing availability/affordability problems, it is valid to say it is not a “fix-all.” But it is an essential part of the mix, particularly in the short-to-medium term:

Fraser says temporary immigration programs are putting pressure on the housing system and creating a “serious issue we need to address.”

He pointed to the temporary foreign worker and international student programs. The federal government has said they are considering a cap on international student, but want to take a year to work with provinces first to try to find solutions.

“Enough is enough,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in announcing changes to the international student program last year. “If provinces and territories cannot do this, we will do it for them and they will not like the bluntness of the instruments that we use.”

Miller previously described the idea of a cap on international students as akin to “surgery with a hammer” during an interview with Global News

Fraser said the program has grown “by hundreds of thousands of people each year” in the last couple of years.

“There are some institutions in parts of this country, I have the sincerely held belief, have come to exist just to exploit the program for the personal financial gains of the people behind some of these schools, if we can call them that,” he said.

Source: Tying immigration to homes a ‘good’ idea but not a fix-all: Housing minister – Global News

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Clark: When will Doug Ford rein in Ontario’s foreign-student industry?

2024/01/17 Leave a comment

Nails it:

So what will happen if Mr. Ford continues to do nothing, and Mr. Miller caps the number of student visas? It will likely affect Ontario the most.

The feds won’t dramatically cut the number of study visas, instead probably capping the total at or around current levels. But they would have to divide the quota between provinces, and that might mean Ontario will no longer receive a disproportionate share. After all, it would be unfair to restrict foreign students in Manitoba or Quebec to deal with Ontario’s excesses.

That would compel Mr. Ford’s government to squeeze a federal cap onto the motley list of hundreds of postsecondary institutions in Ontario, when it should have fixed its own broken policies long ago.

Source: When will Doug Ford rein in Ontario’s foreign-student industry?

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Invasive or not enough? Lawyers raise concerns over screening of Gaza visa applicants

2024/01/17 Leave a comment

Understandable that the government is being extremely cautious, both for domestic reasons and possibly coordination reasons with Egypt and Israel given their role in authorizing travel out of Gaza, but likely first time social media posts have been part of the formal vetting process (let me know if any other cases):
The security screening the federal government has brought in for people applying to flee the Gaza Strip is facing criticism from both lawyers who feel its questions are too invasive and others who think it should dig even deeper.
A special program that would allow up to 1,000 people in Gaza with relatives in Canada to apply for visas opened for applications last week, with the federal government seeking an extraordinary level of detail.
People are being asked to supply their social media accounts, details about scars and other marks on their bodies, information on everyone they are related to — including through marriage — and every passport they have ever hadThe questions are creating anxiety for families who worry their loved ones might have trouble answering after three months largely without internet access, electricity, or even adequate food or drinking water, said Calgary immigration lawyer Yameena Ansari. She lobbied for the program as a member of the Gaza Family Reunification Project.

“It’s almost impossible to get these answers when you’re talking about people that are running away from their homes,” she said in an interview.The questions are also extremely painful because they suggest that families desperate to flee the violence in Gaza are suspected terrorists, she said.

“This is not a list that we would ask somebody who was coming to Canada on a humanitarian basis,” Ansari said.

“To me, these are the questions I would ask somebody if I thought that they were terrorists or a combatant.”

Meanwhile, Lawyers for Secure Immigration, a group that formed at the outset of the latest Israel-Hamas war, urged the government in a letter last week to ask more pointed questions related to Hamas and terrorist activities to ensure none of the armed militant group’s supporters are allowed into Canada.

Richard Kurland, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer and member of the newly formed group, called the background questions “grossly insufficient” because they don’t probe for possible connections with Hamas and the events of Oct. 7.Kurland said he understands it’s important for Palestinian Canadians to get their family to Canada safely, but said it’s not something that can be done “blindly.”

Once a bad actor gets into Canada, it is a very long and difficult process to remove them, he said.

This past weekend marked the 100th day of the war, which broke out on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 240 others as hostages.

The military response from Israel was almost immediate as it lay siege to the territory, restricting access to clean water, food, internet and electricity, and subjecting the strip to a near-constant barrage of bombs in its pursuit of Hamas.

The humanitarian catastrophe has displaced most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people. The Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory says 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, though it does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said Palestinians are not considered a greater threat to Canada’s security than people from elsewhere in the world, but the “enhanced biographic information” is part of a standard practice in cases where IRCC is not able to do initial screening on the ground.

The background questions are similar to the ones asked of Afghans who were still in Afghanistan when they applied to come to Canada after the fall of Kabul in 2021, the department said.

“As we did with Afghanistan, we will collect enhanced biographic information and conduct security screening while the applicant is still in Gaza. Provided no inadmissibility concerns are flagged, people who are able to leave Gaza will have their biometrics collected in a third country,” the Immigration Department said in a statement.

Shortly after the Gaza family reunification program was first announced, Liberal Mental Health Minister Ya’ara Saks said members of the Israeli community in Canada had expressed concerns about the program.The conflict in Gaza has coincided with a massive rise in antisemitism across Canada, and police have reported an increase in hate crimes directed at the Jewish community.

“This is a limited program, the security concerns are well understood and the security requirements are strict and follow reviews from Israeli authorities,” Saks assured her constituents in an Instagram post on Dec. 22, the day after the immigration program was first announced.“I understand the concerns I’ve heard from community members. Security is always the number one priority and we will be vigilant.”

Saks declined to elaborate on her comments when contacted by The Canadian Press last week.

The background questions are only the first of a multi-step screening process.

If no concerns are flagged, basic personal details like name, date of birth, sex, and passport information of the applicant will be passed on to Israeli and Egyptian governments, which will do their own vetting and determine whether or not the individual can leave Gaza. After that, applicants will still have to undergo fingerprinting and other biometrics before they can board a plane to Canada.

The Immigration Department has promised to be flexible if applicants don’t have access to all the background information that has been asked of them, but Jewish Toronto immigration lawyer Debbie Rachlis said that flexibility is not enshrined in the policy.“That’s not written down anywhere and to me it’s not worth anything,” said Rachlis, who is also a member of the Gaza Family Reunification Project.

The penalties for putting incomplete or inaccurate information in the application can be significant, she said, including getting banned from Canada for up to five years.

Rachlis said she wouldn’t be able to answer some of the questions about herself, especially without written records. She said there is no real recourse for people who get refused because they can’t remember details, like all of their past work supervisors’ names.

The government is still accepting applications, and hasn’t given any estimate of when visas could be issued. The department said the application process could take longer than it otherwise would if IRCC has to wait for additional information to complete background checks.

Source: Invasive or not enough? Lawyers raise concerns over screening of Gaza visa applicants

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Keller: An immigration system that’s lowering national wealth? Yes, the Liberals did that

2024/01/17 Leave a comment

Along with the recent Canada stuck in ‘population trap,’ needs to reduce immigration, bank economists say, another piece by Keller noting the perverse impact on productivity of current policies:

The Trudeau government has the power to fix all of this, but as problems have grown and grown some more, it has chosen its usual course: inaction. It has run its mouth and its Twitter, while doing nothing. This past weekend, Mr. Miller did a round of TV interviews, threatening to do some undefined something, “in the first quarter or first half” of this year. Maybe.

Let’s get serious already. How do we get Canada back on track, with a pro-immigration, pro-economic-growth policy? That’s my next column.

Source: An immigration system that’s lowering national wealth? Yes, the Liberals did that

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Vastel: Les prévisibles répercussions d’une volte-face irréfléchie [removal Mexican visa requirement]

2024/01/17 Leave a comment

Indeed:

Le résultat était prévisible. Le gouvernement de Justin Trudeau en avait été prévenu. Le premier ministre s’est néanmoins entêté, dès son arrivée au pouvoir, à lever l’obligation de visas imposée par son prédécesseur aux ressortissants mexicains. Et le Canada peine aujourd’hui, inéluctablement, à gérer l’explosion de leurs arrivées et des demandes d’asile, qui aurait pu être évitée, n’eût été l’acharnement politique du premier ministre au détriment de la bonne politique publique.

Le mois dernier, Radio-Canada nous apprenait qu’Ottawa ouvre désormais la porte à un retour sur cette décision mal avisée. Une sage volte-face, si elle se confirme. Car rien ne justifiait d’éliminer en 2016 l’imposition de visas aux voyageurs du Mexique, hormis la volonté de Justin Trudeau d’honorer une promesse électorale, de démanteler du même coup l’héritage de son prédécesseur conservateur et de tenter, sitôt élu, de se forger une réputation sur la scène internationale.

Les fonctionnaires fédéraux avaient même averti les troupes de Justin Trudeau des risques d’un tel amendement à sa politique d’immigration : que des ressortissants d’autres pays se munissent de faux passeports du Mexique pour pouvoir entrer librement au Canada, que des membres du crime organisé se faufilent pour s’installer au pays et que les demandes d’asile injustifiées se multiplient. Sept ans plus tard, voilà précisément ce que constatent les autorités canadiennes, ont révélé une série de reportages de Radio-Canada l’automne dernier. C’est à croire que M. Trudeau aurait mieux fait de se fier à l’expertise de la fonction publique fédérale plutôt qu’à sa simple volonté politique. Quelle idée saugrenue.

L’ancien premier ministre Stephen Harper avait imposé en 2009, au grand mécontentement du Mexique, l’obligation pour ses ressortissants d’obtenir un visa pour voyager au Canada. Le nombre de demandes d’asile présentées par des Mexicains à leur arrivée en sol canadien atteignait alors des records (9500 pour la seule année 2009), après avoir presque triplé au cours des trois années précédentes. L’effet a été immédiat, et ces demandes ont chuté pour ne se chiffrer cinq ans plus tard qu’à 90.

Mais aussitôt le visa remplacé par une simple autorisation de voyage électronique, la tendance s’est inéluctablement inversée. En 2022, à la suite de la réouverture complète post-pandémie des frontières, près de 8000 ressortissants mexicains ont demandé le statut de réfugié aux douanes aéroportuaires canadiennes entre les mois de janvier et octobre — dont 82 % à l’aéroport international de Montréal. Malgré tout, le gouvernement Trudeau — qui avait laissé entendre en 2016, pour apaiser les craintes soulevées par ses propres fonctionnaires, qu’il plafonnerait l’arrivée de migrants mexicains à 3500 par année — refusait alors toujours d’adapter sa politique d’accueil.

Au cours des neuf premiers mois de 2023, ce chiffre aurait atteint 17 500 demandes. Or, à peine 30 % de celles-ci sont acceptées en moyenne. L’arrivée d’un visa, en 2009, avait fait chuter de 85 % le nombre de fausses demandes présentées.

Le Québec s’inquiète depuis l’an dernier de ce nouveau flux d’arrivées par avion, qui ne sont pas équivalentes au nombre d’entrées irrégulières du chemin Roxham, fermé en mars dernier, mais qui se font encore de façon disproportionnée à Montréal. Les États-Unis sont venus ajouter leur voix, constatant que l’entrée irrégulière de Mexicains sur leur territoire, bien que bien moindre par leur frontière nord, avait plus que quadruplé entre 2015 et 2023 (plus de 4800 arrestations l’an dernier).

Pendant que le gouvernement de François Legault attend toujours qu’Ottawa acquiesce à sa demande de remboursement pour l’accueil quasi exclusif de migrants sur son territoire, les doléances des Américains, elles, ont visiblement davantage convaincu le gouvernement canadien que le statu quo était intenable. La sourde oreille réservée au Québec s’est avérée tout ouïe pour Washington.

Il est désormais à souhaiter que le gouvernement Trudeau mûrisse rapidement sa réflexion et admette enfin son erreur. La précarité économique et l’instabilité sécuritaire qui sévissent au Mexique ne permettent pas — et n’ont malheureusement jamais permis depuis 10 ans — une porte ouverte et sans contrôle à ses ressortissants. La liaison aérienne Mexico-Montréal ne peut devenir une passoire, aux répercussions largement documentées ces derniers mois.

Le Québec, d’abord, s’en trouve à accueillir un nombre de demandeurs d’asile de plus en plus difficile à gérer pour ses services publics. Et c’est l’intégrité du système d’immigration canadien qui risque d’être fragilisée. Cette volte-face arbitraire, qui n’a jamais eu lieu d’être, doit maintenant une fois pour toutes être à son tour renversée.

Source: Les prévisibles répercussions d’une volte-face irréfléchie

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David: L’implacable loi du nombre [#cdnimm and declining demographic weight of Quebec]

2024/01/17 Leave a comment

Noting the impact on population-based transfer payments:

Selon des documents du ministère fédéral des Finances obtenus par La Presse en vertu de la Loi sur l’accès à l’information, une somme de 87,3 millions sera soustraite des sommes versées au Québec dans le cadre du Transfert canadien en santé, déjà jugé très insuffisant par le gouvernement Legault, et du Transfert canadien en matière de services sociaux, qui sont calculés au prorata de la population. Inversement, l’Ontario, qui accueille une proportion beaucoup plus forte d’immigrants, aura droit à des versements additionnels de 91 millions.

Même si on a fait tout un plat des 5 à 7 millions versés aux Kings de Los Angeles, une baisse de 87 millions peut sembler peu de chose, dans la mesure où les transferts fédéraux au Québec vont totaliser 31,5 milliards en 2023-2024, mais elle risque de devenir de plus en plus importante au fur et à mesure que l’écart entre le nombre d’immigrants accueillis au Québec et dans le reste du Canada continuera d’augmenter.

S’il est vrai que de plus en plus de Canadiens, d’un océan à l’autre, s’inquiètent des conséquences économiques de seuils d’immigration trop élevés, notamment l’aggravation de la crise du logement, le gouvernement Trudeau maintient toujours un objectif annuel de 500 000 nouveaux arrivants permanents au cours des prochaines années, alors que le Québec a fixé le seuil à 56 000. À ce rythme, le pourcentage d’environ 22 % de la population canadienne qu’il représente aujourd’hui chutera rapidement.
* * * * * 
Les formules qui déterminent les transferts fédéraux aux provinces sont basées sur des calculs qui ne tiennent pas compte de considérations comme la capacité d’intégration, d’ailleurs très difficile à évaluer de façon précise, ou encore la protection de l’identité.

Il ne faut sans doute pas voir dans la baisse des sommes versées au Québec une stratégie machiavélique pour le forcer à aligner ses politiques d’immigration sur celles d’Ottawa, sous peine d’être pénalisé, mais l’effet est le même.

La loi du nombre est implacable. Il était déjà manifeste que la volonté du Québec de maintenir les seuils d’immigration à des niveaux compatibles avec sa capacité d’accueil entraînait une diminution de son poids démographique et politique au sein de la fédération. Il apparaît maintenant qu’elle a aussi un coût financier.

Il est nettement plus difficile d’intégrer un nouvel arrivant à une société dont la langue est aussi marginale que le français l’est en Amérique du Nord, et le gouvernement fédéral verse au Québec des sommes substantielles à cet effet, mais on ne peut pas lui demander de le dédommager pour les immigrants qu’il refuse d’accueillir ni d’adapter ses objectifs en fonction des intérêts du Québec. Il appartient plutôt aux Québécois de juger si tous ces aspects sont compatibles.

Source: L’implacable loi du nombre

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LOP: Immigration Policy Primer

2024/01/16 Leave a comment

Useful primer:

This document provides an overview of the various factors and players that shape Canada’s immigration policy, sheds light on the legislative framework and the roles and responsibilities of the various levels of government, and presents a few of the essential components and instruments in this field.

In 2021, Canada welcomed 406,000 permanent residents, and the country plans to gradually increase its intake levels to 500,000 new admissions per year by 2025. These new levels will then be maintained into 2026. The increase aims to support various national priorities, such as solving the labour shortage, meeting humanitarian commitments in response to global crises and family reunification. These priorities reflect the objectives in Canada’s immigration policy as set out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Those include, but are not limited to, economic development, granting refugee status to persecuted people and promoting the integration of permanent residents.

Canada’s immigration policy is implemented by the federal government in partnership with the provinces and territories, with which it shares jurisdiction in the area of immigration. However, that sharing is not equal because the roles and responsibilities differ from one province or territory to another; however, it still enables all of them to play a more active role in selecting immigrants from the economic immigration category in order to better meet the specific needs of their labour market.

As for federal jurisdiction, the IRPA is the main statute governing immigration, while the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations are an important policy instrument that specify immigration procedures and processes. The federal government can also issue ministerial instructions to more flexibly and effectively manage the processing of immigration applications and to introduce pilot programs. In addition, it can establish operational guidelines that help ensure that the immigration policy is consistently applied, even though they don’t have the force and effect of law. Those guidelines are distributed in the form of instructions, operational bulletins or manuals for guidance.

The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada also performs an essential function. It is an administrative tribunal divided into four divisions with various mandates, such as processing claims for refugee protection made in Canada and detention reviews. Regarding those, the courts of justice regularly issue decisions that affect implementation of the immigration policy.

Source: Immigration Policy Primer

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Pierre Poilievre pledges to tie immigration levels to homebuilding – Financial Post

2024/01/15 Leave a comment

Given current housing starts, less than 250,000, and for illustrative purposes, 3 persons per housing unit, this would mean a total of 750,000 permanent and temporary residents, less than half the current amount.

An easy understandable slogan but, like so many by all parties, more complex than presented given the various interested groups and the hard decisions around trade-offs:

The Conservative politician who’s trying to take down Justin Trudeau said that if he’s elected, he would link Canada’s immigration levels to the number of homes being built.

Pierre Poilievre took aim Friday at Trudeau’s housing minister, Sean Fraser, arguing that when Fraser was immigration minister, he oversaw soaring numbers of new arrivals without ensuring the country could properly accommodate them.

“We need to make a link between the number of homes built and the number of people we invite as new Canadians,” Poilievre said, speaking at a news conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba.He said his Conservative Party “will get back to an approach of immigration that invites a number of people that we can house, employ and care for in our health-care system.” He cited data showing that Canada is now completing fewer homes than it did 50 years earlier, when its population was around 22 million. It’s close to 41 million today

There were 219,942 new homes completed in Canada in 2022, the most recent year for which complete data is available, compared with 232,227 in 1972, when the country was going through a construction boom.

Poilievre did not say whether he would roll back Canada’s permanent resident target or curb the number of temporary newcomers, such as foreign students. In the past, he has declined to say that he would scale back immigration.

Canada accepted about 455,000 new permanent residents in the 12-month period to Oct. 1 while bringing in more than 800,000 non-permanent residents, a category that includes temporary workers, students and refugees. Canada’s population growth rate of 3.2 per cent means it’s growing faster than any Group of Seven nation, China or India.

Many economists have also criticized the government for failing to ensure services have kept pace with Canada’s immigration targets.

Trudeau has fallen far behind Poilievre in public polling, and the high cost of housing is likely part of the explanation. His government has unveiled several measures meant to boost home construction, and they’ve pledged to examine reforms to programs that allow temporary immigrants.

The prime minister told reporters in Guelph, Ont., on Jan. 12 that there’s no “magic solution” to the housing shortage and touted his government’s program to transfer millions of dollars to cities that speed up development approvals.

“Construction workers and availability of labour is a challenge we’re facing, which is why we continue to have ambitious immigration targets,” he said.

Source: Pierre Poilievre pledges to tie immigration levels to homebuilding – Financial Post

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Trudeau botched immigration surge, Canada’s top bank economists say – Financial Post

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

Hard to make a stronger condemnation than this:

Canada’s current immigration policy — among the most open in the world — is now causing economic damage and needs to be reconsidered, according to the country’s top economists.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to dramatically increase immigration — and allow a flood of temporary workers and international students — without providing proper support has created a laundry list of economic problems, including higher inflation and weak productivity, chief economists at Canada’s biggest banks said Jan. 11 during a wide-ranging panel discussion in Toronto.

“Frankly I’m surprised we screwed it up because we sit in such a privileged position in Canada,” Beata Caranci, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank, told a packed audience at an Economic Club of Canada event.

Unlike many other countries, including the United States, Canada is not dealing with poorly controlled flows of migrants across its land borders and has had time to think about the implications of its policies, Caranci said. “We designed our own policy, we put it in place, we implemented it, and we still screwed it up.

Source: Trudeau botched immigration surge, Canada’s top bank economists say – Financial Post

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Canadian Immigration Tracker – November 2023 update

2024/01/13 Leave a comment

No major changes from October.

The one element to flag is the sharp increase in the number of asylum claimants, from a monthly average of about 10,000 January to June 2023 to about 15,000 July to November, largely driven by the easing of visa restrictions, with close to two-thirds of claims being “inland.” Given the large number of Mexican claimants, averaging more than 2,000 per month in 2023, there will continue to be calls to reimpose the visa requirement on Mexicans, as well as more general calls to restore the previous visa restrictions.

Highlights on slide 3.

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshows/canadian-immigration-tracker-key-slides-november-2023/265358086

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