Year in review and look ahead

2025/12/23 Leave a comment

Time for my looking back piece, even if a bit self-indulgent.

Most of my time was spent on an analysis of the 2025 election results from a diversity analysis with Jerome Black, highlighting how representation of visible minorities had increased while that of women and Indigenous had stalled. A second area of major work was following and participating in C-3 citizenship discussions and debates. Annual updates on public service diversity and birth tourism, and setting the baseline for appointments that will be made by PM Carney.

2026 will continue with my various annual updates. Jerome Black and I have an analysis in train on the intersectionality of women and visible minority candidate in competitive ridings. I will be analysing the impact of C-3 in relation to age, gender, and country of origin and comparing that with expatriate voting data, given that the latter has grown significantly and the number of expatriate votes cast exceeds the winning margin in a number of ridings. No doubt other issues of interest will emerge.

Lots to keep me busy and engaged, along with maintaining my blog.

Best wishes for the holidays, whichever ones you celebrate.

Print below by my late father.

Citizenship 

Citations

Immigration – Citations

Multiculturalism 

Diversity and Employment Equity

Before the cuts: a bureaucracy baseline from an employment equity lens (Hill Times)

Political Representation 

The diversity of candidates and MPs stalled for some groups in this election (Policy Options, The Hill Times, with Jerome H. Black)

Citations

Filed under C-3, Citizenship, Immigration, Multiculturalism

Adams et al: Writing a new immigration story for Canada

2025/12/23 Leave a comment

It’s both, the contribution immigrants make and the limits of absorptive capacity:

…The Canadian success story about immigration we celebrated just a few years ago has changed, and we are now writing a new chapter. The world is changing rapidly in ways that we cannot expect to avoid, and the path forward will be like navigating rapids in a surging river. Sustaining public and political support for the multicultural and immigrant-welcoming society that Canada has built over the past half-century will require a careful balance between the immigration inflow necessary for economic growth and labour market demand, and our collective capacity to ensure a place (that is, a home, a job, health care, education and other essential public services) for everyone, native-born and newcomer alike. The newly-released federal budget appears aimed in this direction, and time will tell whether it helps us reach such balance.

This new chapter calls upon our leaders across all sectors to reframe the narrative around how we think about newcomers who arrive in our country. The tendency is to think of them primarily as people who require housing, jobs and other supports like language training – as a drain on government funding and places pressure on existing resources. Instead we need to focus more on newcomers as an essential influx of talent and needed skills that can help energize our communities and maintain our current standard of living now and into the future.

Source: Writing a new immigration story for Canada

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Keller: Canada’s falling population is exactly what the doctor ordered

2025/12/23 Leave a comment

mmMore from Keller:

…There’s a compelling logic to choosing many permanent immigrants from the temporary resident pool. But with such a large pool, and so many more applicants than permanent residence spaces, Canada can afford to be choosy. For the sake of the economy, we must be choosy. 

Unfortunately, that’s not what Ottawa and the provinces are doing. The Carney government gets a small gold star for a couple of quarters of right-sizing immigration quantity, but it gets a question mark, and even a black mark, when it comes to correcting the significant downgrade in immigration quality and selectivity that took place under the Trudeau government.

Source: Canada’s falling population is exactly what the doctor ordered

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Immigration and Crime Shift Canadians Toward Cultural Conservatism

2025/12/22 Leave a comment

Another survey confirming a shift and partisan differences:

The data reveals a 16-point increase over the past 5 years in hostile views of immigrants.

A clear majority (54%) now believe that immigration threatens traditional Canadian customs and values, up from just 38% in 2020, with a small 4-point NET score increase occurring in the past year (from +15 to +19). This isn’t a blip, but a trend with momentum.

The partisan dimension is striking, with those who self-identify with Conservatives (73%) and Bloc (75%) leading this concern in contrast to Liberals (37%) and NDP (33%) Even more telling, attitudes toward legal immigration have soured considerably, with only 39% now viewing it positively, down a stunning 15 points since 2018. Meanwhile, 61% favour making immigration more difficult, up 16 points from 2018’s 45%.

Concern about illegal immigration remains statistically unchanged at 75% viewing it as serious since 2018, but the intensity has shifted. 42% now rate it “very serious,” up from 37% in 2018. Those who self-identify with Conservatives drive this at 88%, but half of the NDP identifiers and almost three-in-four (71%) Liberals also agree.

Canadians aren’t just worried; they are assigning blame. A striking 72% believe the federal government has failed to manage immigration, with 72% saying too many immigrants have been admitted, and 71% linking excessive immigration to housing pressures and declining services. Nearly 3-in-5 Canadians (58%) report that their views on immigration have changed over the past five years, with Conservatives (70%) and Bloc supporters (75%) most likely to acknowledge this shift….

Source: Immigration and Crime Shift Canadians Toward Cultural Conservatism

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Rétention des immigrants récents: Le Québec maintenant champion canadien

2025/12/22 Leave a comment

Strong short-term retention, weaker long-term retention:

Un an après leur admission, 91,5 % des immigrants permanents admis en 2022 qui prévoyaient s’établir au Québec y vivaient toujours. En Ontario, la proportion est de 91,3 %, selon des données publiées vendredi par Statistique Canada.

Ce résultat est d’autant plus surprenant qu’il s’inscrit dans un contexte de mobilité accrue.

En 2023, 13,5 % des immigrants admis un an plus tôt avaient déjà changé de province ou de territoire, en hausse marquée par rapport à 10,1 % en 2022. La pandémie a laissé des traces : la mobilité interprovinciale a bondi à ce moment, puis est restée élevée.

Autrement dit, les nouveaux arrivants bougent davantage. Dans ce contexte, réussir à en garder plus de neuf sur dix après un an n’a rien d’anodin.

Le Québec fait mieux que l’Ontario, mais aussi la Colombie-Britannique (88,5 %) et l’Alberta (87,3 %). Pour la cohorte admise en 2022, c’est le meilleur taux de rétention à un an au pays.

Une montée rapide

La montée du Québec est récente, mais rapide. Entre 2019 et 2022, le taux de rétention à un an est passé de 85,9 % à 91,5 %, après avoir atteint un sommet en 2021 (93,4 %). Malgré un léger recul en 2022, le niveau demeure élevé.

Pendant ce temps, l’Ontario faisait du surplace. Depuis 2019, son taux de rétention tourne autour de 93 %, sans progression marquée.

Résultat : le Québec a rattrapé, puis dépassé la province voisine.

À moyen terme, le tableau change. Cinq ans après leur arrivée, 79,6 % des immigrants permanents admis en 2018 résidaient toujours au Québec, contre 90,8 % en Ontario.

À l’échelle des grandes villes, Montréal est plus fragile. Son taux de rétention sur cinq ans a atteint 71,3 %, comparable à celui de Toronto, mais inférieur à ceux de Vancouver, Calgary et Edmonton.

Concrètement, Montréal perd encore des immigrants vers d’autres provinces. Sur cinq ans, la métropole enregistre une perte nette de 5725 immigrants permanents pour la cohorte admise en 2018, pendant que plusieurs villes de l’Ouest canadien continuent d’en gagner.

À court terme, le Québec dans son ensemble tire mieux son épingle du jeu. Pour la cohorte admise en 2022, la province affiche un solde migratoire interprovincial positif, avec un gain net de 2095 immigrants permanents.

Le Québec ne fait pas que retenir la majorité de ceux qui s’y installent : il attire aussi des immigrants initialement destinés à d’autres provinces, surtout l’Ontario.

Source: Rétention des immigrants récents Le Québec maintenant champion canadien

StatsCan study: In 2023, 13.5% of immigrants admitted 1 year earlier settled in another province or territory, up from 10.1% in 2022


Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Rob Breakenridge: A debate on immigration will be a welcome distraction for Smith

2025/12/22 Leave a comment

Playing with fire?

…There are two sides of this question to consider: the degree to which Alberta wishes to control immigration and the degree to which Alberta wishes to limit immigration.

In her post last week and in an interview with Postmedia’s Rick Bell, Smith went out of her way to float the idea of limiting newcomers’ access to various social supports, based either on immigration status or number of years spent in Alberta.

This may not be hardline enough for the ardent separatists whose manifestofantasizes about deportations in the tens of thousands in their new utopia. But it’s a pretty clear signal that the Alberta government wishes to discourage any further influx of newcomers to this province.

This would seem to be a more recent and strategic pivot from this premier. It wasn’t that long ago that Smith was musing about the possibility of more than doubling Alberta’s population and drafting a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau criticizing federal immigration limits. The “Alberta is Calling” campaign may have originated under the previous premier, but it continued under the current one.

The Alberta government wanted population growth, but they didn’t seem prepared for the possibility that they might get it. The focus on the immigration issue provides a convenient scapegoat for the government’s mismanagement of that rapid population growth.

Pointing fingers at Ottawa doesn’t preclude the need to address these growth pressures. New figures from Statistics Canada show that while Canada’s population actually shrunk in the third quarter, Alberta’s population continued to grow.

But this is a volatile issue at the best of times. The political pressures that have thrust this issue to the forefront for the Alberta government, and their motivations for elevating this to a top priority — alongside a separation vote, no less — create the potential for a divisive and unhelpful debate.

Source: Rob Breakenridge: A debate on immigration will be a welcome distraction for Smith

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Todd: Liberals got a popularity bump by reducing immigration targets. But those numbers aren’t the full picture

2025/12/19 Leave a comment

Some reaction from various experts. Published at the same time that Canada’s population declined for the first time in many years, driven by reduced numbers of students. But government was being “too cute” in how it presented the numbers and somewhat foolish given the number of persons with detailed knowledge who would spot the “slight of hand:”

…Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who obtained the PCO surveys, said this would not be the first time Ottawa has massaged immigration numbers. It is, he said, common practice.

“And selling Canadians the idea that there has been a ‘reduction’ in new immigrants is not the same as an actual ‘reduction’ in the number of foreigners living in Canada,” said Kurland.

The most important measurement, Kurland said, is how many foreign nationals are living in the country at any one time. But the bigger numbers on temporary residents in Canada are even harder to nail down than those on permanent residents.

Statistics Canada recently reported there are now 3.03 million foreign nationals temporarily in the country as workers, students and asylum claimants.

Temporary residents made up about 7.1 per cent of the entire population for at least the past year. That compares to 2.3 per cent in 2015, when the Liberals were first elected.

Carney has promised to get the proportion down to five per cent by 2027, since it’s hurting the job prospects of both immigrants and those born in the country.

But Anne Michèle Meggs, a former director of Quebec’s Immigration Ministry and now a prominent migration analyst, says, “It’s going to take ages to bring down the numbers.”

Nevertheless, Meggs said Ottawa is “working hard at issuing fewer temporary permits. To demonstrate how they’re succeeding, they’ve started just this year to issue data on arrivals.”

To that end, on Wednesday the federal Immigration Department went on X to say: “Between January and September 2025, Canada saw approximately 53 per cent (308,880) fewer arrivals of new students and temporary workers compared to the same period last year.” Immigration officials say that means 150,220 fewer new students arrived, as well as 158,660 fewer new temporary workers.

Meggs, however, cautions: “There are some serious gaps in the data. It really is a numbers game.”

For instance, she said StatCan numbers show the number of people living in the country on work visas actually grew in the 12 months leading to September of this year — from 1.44 million to 1.51 million.

The only overall drop, said Meggs, has been in international students. The number of study-permit holders declined to 551,000 in September, from 669,000 a year earlier, she said, citing StatCan.

Meggs joins Henry Lotin, an economist who advises major banks, in pointing out that StatCan’s data has long been unreliable on how many guest workers and foreign students are in the country.

That’s because StatCan naively assumes, they say, temporary residents leave the country within 120 days of their visas expiring. Canada Border Services also does not publicly track who leaves the country. CIBC economist Benjamin Tal has estimated the number of uncounted “overstays” at roughly one million….

Source: Liberals got a popularity bump by reducing immigration targets. But those numbers aren’t the full picture

And the StatsCan report:

…Canada’s population fell by roughly 76,000 over the third quarter, the largest decline this country has seen in records dating to the 1940s, and a result of major policy changes by Ottawa to curb immigration.

Outside of a slight drop during the height of the pandemic, this is the first time that Canada’s population has declined in at least the past eight decades, based on historical data from 1946. 

The decline was driven by a drop in the number of international students, more than a year after the federal government started imposing caps on study permits. 

Source: Canada reports biggest population decline on record

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

ICYMI: How Trump is remaking one agency to aid his deportation push

2025/12/17 Leave a comment

The one more facilitative part of Homeland Security being undermined:

The Trump administration is transforming the agency known for processing green cards and citizenship requests into one of its strongest anti-immigration policing arms.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, is one of the three branches of the Homeland Security Department that deals with migration.

Traditionally, its more than 20,000 employees have focused on the various ways people can lawfully immigrate and stay in the U.S. — be that applying for asylum, a green card, citizenship, work visa, or another legal pathway.

Since January, administration officials have taken an axe to that traditional mission by encouraging early retirements, shuttering collective bargaining agreements and drastically cutting back on programs that facilitate legal migration. New job postings lean into the rhetoric of hiring “homeland defenders” and tackling fraud.

During his Senate confirmation, USCIS director Joseph Edlow proclaimed that “at its core, USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.”

The efforts come as President Trump seeks to curb illegal immigration but also reduce legal ways to get to the U.S. and stay here, especially for certain nationalities.

It’s rocking the agency from the inside, crushing morale and prompting resignations, according to current and former agency employees.

With the recent changes, at least 1,300 people took the “Fork in the Road” resignation offer for federal employees, while others have left on their own. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection employees were not allowed to take the offer.)

And it’s catching immigrants and their families, lawyers and advocates off guard.

“‘Am I going to get arrested?’ … That’s a question, regardless of their past,” said Eric Welsh, an immigration attorney in California who helps his clients apply for various USCIS programs.

“There really is a lot more fear and there is a lot more concern about, should we do it at all?,” Welsh said, about people applying for legal status….

Source: How Trump is remaking one agency to aid his deportation push

Filed under Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with ,

How claiming to be a refugee became a get-out-of-jail-free card

2025/12/17 Leave a comment

Pretty clear case of abuse of asylum that undermines support for refugees:

This month, B.C.’s newly minted Extortion Task Force was zeroing in on 14 foreign nationals accused of participating in an extortion crime wave currently terrorizing the Lower Mainland.

Starting in earnest in 2023, organized gangs have been roving through Surrey and Abbotsford demanding large sums of cash from South Asian businesses, and then attacking non-payers with arson or gunfire.

More than 130 such incidents have occurred just in 2025, yielding a weekly tally of shootings and vehicle fires. This rash of violence is one of the main reasons that Ottawa declared India’s Bishnoi Gang a terrorist entity in September, accusing them of generating terror among Canadian diaspora communities “through extortion and intimidation.”

But according to an exclusive report by Stewart Bell at Global News, just as the Canada Border Services Agency began investigating 14 alleged extortionists, all of them claimed to be refugees, instantly stopping the investigation in its tracks.

In a Thursday statement, Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke called out how the “international thugs and criminals” abused the asylum system in order to “extend their stay in Canada.”

Guests in our country who break our laws need to be sent home,” she said.

The case of the Surrey 14 is one of the more brazen abuses of the refugee system to date. But it’s nothing new that a foreign national would claim refugee status to evade deportation. Or that asylum status would be used as a tool of foreign criminal gangs.

Because, as the Surrey case illustrates, it works.

If the accused are indeed extortionists, they’re likely to eventually face some kind of removal order or criminal prosecution. But by merely telling border authorities “I am seeking asylum,” they’ve potentially obtained up to two additional years on Canadian soil.

As of the most recent estimates of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, there is a backlog of at least 24 months until refugee claimants can have their case put before an immigration officer.

As such, any foreign national claiming to be a refugee can be assured of at least two years of living in Canada under the status of an asylum claimant….

Source: How claiming to be a refugee became a get-out-of-jail-free card

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , , , ,

ICYMI – Saunders: A better way to manage the border after the collapse of the Safe Third Country Agreement

2025/12/16 Leave a comment

More practical than most of the other ideas floated. The Biden administration’s similar approach was starting to deliver results:

…A new, simplified and better-designed version of Safe Mobility should be launched, in the hands of Canadians in partnership with our southern neighbours who share the same problems. It might be online-only or phone-based at first, and widely publicized among migrant communities.

It would allow prospective migrants and refugees, including those living in the United States and along the road in the Americas, to have their case considered and their background screened before coming to the border. Worldwide experience shows that most migrants prefer to apply for legal programs even if there’s only a slight chance of succeeding, rather than the vast expense and mortal danger of overland migration and smuggling. If rejected, they mostly apply for somewhere else, rather than trudge further north.

A new study by the Denmark-based Mixed Migration Centre proposes Safe Mobility schemes as one of the best ways to end human smuggling. They’re considered the best solution to Britain’s and Europe’s boat-migration crises. I recently conducted a study of migration-governance initiatives for a report by the Canadian Council for the Americas on improving Canada-Latin America relations, and found a big appetite for Safe Mobility schemes across the hemisphere.

Best of all, they could be launched without the participation of the United States – even while the STCA still exists. They’re the best way to take pressure off our border, now that Washington isn’t helping.

Source: A better way to manage the border after the collapse of the Safe Third Country Agreement

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

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