‘Breaking point’: Quebec premier asks Trudeau to slow influx of asylum seekers

2024/01/19 Leave a comment

Valid concerns but with respect to costs, Legault avoids discussing the disproportionate amount Quebec gets under the Canada Quebec accord that ensures Quebec gets a fixed percentage of settlement funding irrespective of the immigration share:

Quebec Premier François Legault is asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to slow the influx of asylum seekers entering his province, which he said is nearing a “breaking point.”

Legault made his request in an official letter to Trudeau sent Wednesday afternoon, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.

“We are very close to the breaking point due to the excessive number of asylum seekers arriving in Quebec month after month. The situation has become unsustainable,” Legault wrote.

He said that in 2022, Quebec took in more asylum seekers than the rest of the country combined.

The closure of the unofficial Roxham Road crossing point south of Montreal in 2023 “momentarily” slowed the flow, he said.

“However, the arrivals have continued to increase at airports. The number of people arriving on a visitor visa and applying for asylum is also increasing significantly.”

Nearly 60,000 new asylum seekers were registered in Quebec in the first 11 months of 2023, which has put “very significant pressure” on services, the premier writes.

“Asylum seekers have trouble finding a place to live, which contributes to accentuating the housing crisis,” the letter said. “Many end up in homeless shelters, which are overflowing.”

He said organizations that help asylum seekers can’t keep up with demand. Legault said the children of asylum seekers are also straining schools that already have a shortage of teachers and space.

The premier reminded Trudeau that asylum seekers who are waiting for work permits receive financial assistance from Quebec. Last October, some 43,200 asylum seekers received $33 million in aid.

Legault expressed particular concern over Mexican nationals, who he said represent a growing proportion of the asylum seekers coming to the province.

“The possibility of entering Canada from Mexico without a visa certainly explains part of the influx of asylum seekers,” he said.

“The airports, particularly in Toronto and Montreal, are becoming sieves and it is time to act,” he added.

Legault is formally asking the prime minister to tighten its policies around granting visas. He’s also seeking the “equitable” distribution of asylum seekers across Canada, possibly by busing them to other provinces.

Source: ‘Breaking point’: Quebec premier asks Trudeau to slow influx of asylum seekers

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Sean Speer: Trudeau’s empty-calories economic agenda is failing Canada

2024/01/19 Leave a comment

Of note:

The key point here is that even if one is motivated by normative commitments to reducing inequality in our society, the answer isn’t to neglect the imperative of intensive growth. A policy agenda that sought to boost business investment and innovation in the name of increasing overall wealth wouldn’t necessarily involve a major equity trade-off. Higher GDP per capita growth is ultimately key to boosting living standards for all Canadian households.

The bigger point though is that the Trudeau government’s experiment with an extensive growth agenda rooted in high immigration and high public spending has manifestly failed to produce positive results. It may have staved off a technical recession, but it has contributed to deep recessionary conditions for Canadian living standards that are having far-reaching socio-political consequences including heightened pessimism about the future among ordinary citizens.

This growing realization has led to renewed debate about Canadian immigration policy. That’s a healthy development. We need to restore a more responsible policy that sets reasonable targets and reprioritizes high-skilled immigrants. Pierre Poilievre deserves political credit for taking a big step in this direction.

But that’s a necessary yet insufficient response to what ails Canada’s economic life. What we ultimately need is to replace the Trudeau government’s empty-calories economic agenda with a healthier mix of pro-growth policies to boost investment, productivity, and living standards.

source: Sean Speer: Trudeau’s empty-calories economic agenda is failing Canada

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Bad News For Employers, Immigrants And H-1B Visas In Second Trump Term

2024/01/19 Leave a comment

Of note. May be one of the only benefits for Canada, drowned out by likely negative impact on our economy:

A second Donald Trump term would bring new restrictions on legal immigration that would affect employers and likely drive more work and tech talent out of the United States. Trump’s actions during his first term, his rhetoric during campaign rallies and statements by allies signal unwelcome news for companies that rely on foreign-born scientists and engineers to grow and innovate. With Donald Trump winning the Iowa Caucus and leading Joe Biden in some polls, employers may wish to include the prospect of a Trump presidency in their contingency plans.

H-1B Visas Would Face New Restrictions

If Donald Trump becomes president again, companies should expect new restrictions on employing foreign-born scientists and engineers in H-1B status. After he took office in 2017, Trump’s immigration policies increased the denial rate for H-1B petitionsfor initial employment (typically new employees counted against the annual H-1B cap) to 24% in FY 2018 and 21% in FY 2019. In 2020, a legal settlement forced U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to end several practices, causing denial rates to plummet to 2% by FY 2022.

H-1B petitions for continuing employment rose to 12% in FY 2018 and FY 2019. Those petitions were usually extensions for existing employees at the same company. The denials caused employees who could not obtain extensions to leave the United States. The legal settlement resulted in H-1B petitions for continuing employment to decline to 2% by FY 2022.

If Trump officials in a new administration directed USCIS adjudicators to act more restrictively, denial rates would increase. Even successful lawsuits could leave employers with the policies in place for years, which happened after Trump officials restricted H-1B petitions in 2017.

In a second term, Trump’s team could return to its H-1B interim final rule published in 2020 (after solving its procedural issues). A lawsuit stopped the rule on procedural grounds. The administration tried to publish parts of the rule again before Donald Trump left office.

Source: Bad News For Employers, Immigrants And H-1B Visas In Second Trump Term

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Yakabuski: The Trudeau Liberals created a ‘population trap’ that is making us poorer

2024/01/18 Leave a comment

Further piling on but correct assessment regarding the political difficulties in changing/reversing course:

Reducing immigration numbers will not be easy. Businesses and postsecondary institutions will bellyache and the Liberals risk alienating some progressive and ethnic voters. Paradoxically, it could cause short-term economic pain by temporarily reducing domestic consumption.

But cutting immigration is no longer an option that Mr. Miller can just “consider.” It must be his top priority.

Source: The Trudeau Liberals created a ‘population trap’ that is making us poorer

And from the Globe Editorial:

Another mistake being made in Canada is the Liberals’ failure to address the immigration issue. The government’s refusal to take obvious steps to end even the worst abuses of the student visa program, for instance, risks harming Canadians’ support for immigration.

Canadians should take note of how ignoring immigration issues has worked out south of the border. Decades of incompetence by both Republican and Democratic administrations has led to the point where the two sides cannot reach a bipartisan solution. That impasse has opened American voters to the idea of a radical fix, and has allowed Mr. Trump to win support for his inhumane threat to put illegal immigrants in concentration camps.

Source: The U.S. may be on the brink, but no democracy can be taken for granted

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Tasha Kheiriddin: Trudeau frittered away a good immigration policy for the sake of Liberal votes – National Post

2024/01/18 Leave a comment

Discounts the flawed policy rationale of the Barton commission recommendations but of course, political considerations also played a role. And, as we saw during the Kenney years, the liberals cannot take these voters for granted:

Immigrants are also grateful to the party that bring them in. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau learned this from his father. Pierre Elliott Trudeau took credit for the citizenship of millions of Canadians, even though many had come to Canada under previous governments. Why? Because they took their oath under his watch. And when it came to elections, the immigrant communities of the day — Italians, Greeks, Haitians, Vietnamese — tended to vote Liberal.

The implications of Trudeau Jr.’s replication of this policy are dire. Studies show that they are turning Canadians against immigration: even 62 per cent of current immigrants think we’re letting in too many people. They are impoverishing Canadians, both current and newcomer, according to the bank study. And they are also helping fuel Quebec separatism, as francophones look with alarm at rising immigrant populations in the Rest-Of-Canada. By the end of the century, Quebec risks becoming a bit player in Confederation, with only 15 per cent of its population.

This cannot continue. Instead of flooding the country with newcomers, the government needs to boost domestic productivity. That’s a harder fix — and one that won’t give them more votes. But then again, if Canadians can’t afford a decent life, the Liberals may not get their votes either.

Source: Tasha Kheiriddin: Trudeau frittered away a good immigration policy for the sake of Liberal votes – National Post

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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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