Sean Speer: Not all population growth is created equal

2023/07/10 Leave a comment

An odd and unclear column.

The first two points are factual: that immigrants are older than people born in Canada (even if many come with young children or have children once in Canada), and that it tends to be more concentrated in out urban areas.

But conclusion seems deliberately opaque, suggesting a concern over composition and change of Canada’s population, that can be read as either a dog whistle or flirting with a variant of the “great replacement theory,” even if not his intent.

“A prudent position would be to recognize the benefits of large-scale immigration without assuming that it can be raised to unprecedented levels or become solely responsible for the country’s population growth free from consequence. Maximalist ends without due consideration of the consequences of maximalist means is rarely the basis of good public policy. Immigration is no exception.”

—

Last week the popular American economics blogger Noah Smith publishedan essay entitled “Maximum Canada” in which he outlined the success of Canadian immigration policy and the benefits of a bigger national population. 

His observations follow similar commentary in recent months in favour of the so-called “Century Initiative” in which Canada aspires to reach 100 million residents by 2100. The basic premise is that a much larger population would boost Canada’s economic and geopolitical influence around the world, lessen its asymmetry vis-à-vis the United States, and create a bigger domestic market for trade and commerce.

These arguments are generally compelling. There’s certainly something of a correlation between population size and global influence. The exceptions are far outweighed by the rule. 

The main problem with this analysis however is that it’s too focused on population growth as an end and fails to properly scrutinize the means. Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne recently argued for instance that the target of 100 million Canadians by 2100 isn’t even that ambitious because it broadly tracks population growth patterns over the past several decades. As he explained: 

To get to 100 million in 77 years—two and a half times our current level—implies an annual growth rate of 1.2 per cent. By comparison, over the last 77 years, our population more than tripled, from 12.3 million in 1946. That works out to 1.5 per cent annually. To be sure, birth rates were higher in the 1950s and 1960s; population growth today comes almost exclusively from immigration. Fine: let’s take 1970 as our starting point. Average annual population growth: 1.2 per cent. The Century Initiative proposal is essentially a continuation of the status quo.

Yet there’s something qualitatively different about population growth that’s driven by a combination of natural growth (births minus deaths) and immigration and growth that solely comes from immigration. Smith, Coyne, and others fail to grapple with these key differences. 

It doesn’t mean that Canada shouldn’t aspire to have a larger population or even necessarily that we shouldn’t pursue an immigration policy that ultimately gets us there. But before fully signing onto “maximum Canada”, we need to account for the fact that all forms of population growth aren’t the same. (This isn’t, by the way, a normative judgement. It’s merely an observation about the practical differences between a society that draws on immigration to supplement its own natural growth and one that relies on it entirely.)

Let’s start with the data. Replacement level fertility is an average of 2.1 children per woman. As Coyne notes, Canada’s fertility rate dipped below replacement level beginning in the early 1970s. It’s now just 1.4 children per woman (see Figure 1).

Although the country’s fertility rate has been below the replacement rate for the past half century, its current rate represents an unprecedented low. As Figure 1 shows, it has steadily fallen to now below the G-7 average and is increasingly one of the lowest rates in the world.

Graphic credit: Janice Nelson

That means that immigration isn’t just doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to population growth. It’s now nearly solely responsible. Take 2022 for instance. Canada’s population grew by more than 1 million people—the largest single-year growth since 1957—and immigration was responsible for roughly 96 percent. 

Estimates are that immigration will reach 100 percent of population growth by 2032 and will remain the main driver for the coming decades. As a result, Statistics Canada projects that the overall share of Canada’s immigrant population (which consists of landed immigrants) will rise from 23.4 percent in 2021 (see Figure 2) to as high as 34 percent in 2041. 

Graphic credit: Janice Nelson

There are various ways in which immigration-driven population growth is different than natural growth. These differences will ostensibly produce outcomes that are distinct from past experiences and therefore may limit the utility of historical instruction. There’s an onus on proponents of the Century Initiative to account for them in their analysis and advocacy. 

The first is that it’s older. Although the immigrant population is generally younger than the average age of non-immigrant residents, it’s still self-evidently older than babies. The majority of immigrants fall within the core working age group (25 to 54). Just over one quarter are aged 15 and younger. Immigration-driven population growth may slow the rise of (and even temporarily lower) the country’s average age but it won’t, according to leading economist David Green, “substantially alter Canada’s age structure and impending increase in the dependency ratio.”

The second is that it’s far less geographically distributed. More than half of recent immigrants settle in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver and nine of ten settle in a census metropolitan area. Natural growth by contrast would presumably more closely reflect the general distribution of population across the country. Immigration-driven population growth should therefore be expected to impose even greater pressure on housing and other infrastructure in our major cities and contribute to a growing urban-rural divide in our economic and political outcomes. 

The third is that it will reshape the country’s culture. That may not be a bad development—particularly in the eyes of those who value diversity—but it still represents a qualitative difference relative to natural growth that requires a bit more attention. 

Consider two scenarios. First, there’s a strong possibility that it erodes the place of the French language and francophone culture in our national life as Quebec’s share of the total population declines and its conception of binationalism is fully consumed by multiculturalism. Second, it’s also possible that it could at times conflict with the goal of Indigenous reconciliation to the extent that immigration-driven growth produces a growing share of the population that can plausibly argue that it has no role or responsibility for the historic injustices faced by Indigenous peoples. (There are growing calls—including from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—to expand newcomer education about the Indigenous experience presumably to mitigate this risk.)

These considerations don’t challenge the case that immigration has been a net positive for the country or that we should maintain high immigration levels in the face of aging demographics or even that we should aspire to a bigger population. They do however dispute the idea that the source of population growth is irrelevant. Natural growth and immigration-driven growth may produce the same number but their effects are necessarily different. 

What is envisioned by the Century Initiative and others is essentially without precedent. Immigration has never been solely responsible for such a run-up of Canada’s population. History cannot provide much of a guide. Only prudence can. 

A prudent position would be to recognize the benefits of large-scale immigration without assuming that it can be raised to unprecedented levels or become solely responsible for the country’s population growth free from consequence. Maximalist ends without due consideration of the consequences of maximalist means is rarely the basis of good public policy. Immigration is no exception.

Source: Sean Speer: Not all population growth is created equal

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Is racism behind denial of visas to African students?

2023/07/10 Leave a comment

Largely reflects the interests of education institutions and their financial pressures as much as concerns over differential treatment (given that immigration is inherently “discriminatory,” the question is more are their legitimate reasons and evidence to justify that discrimination):

In the five years between 2018 and 30 April 2023, officials at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reportedly rejected 59% of the visa applications from English-speaking Africans and 74% from French-speaking Africans seeking to study in Canada’s colleges and universities.

In 2022, the disapproval rates were 66% for applicants from French-speaking African countries and 62% for applicants from English-speaking African countries.

Besides the higher rejection rate for francophone African students, the stats show a massively higher rejection rate for African students compared to students from Western countries. Refusal rates for Great Britain, Australia and the United States were 13%, 13% and 11%, respectively, while for France the refusal rate was 6.7%.

‘A certain rate of racism exists’

Referring to hearings held in 2022 by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (SCCI) during which Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) admitted there was a problem, Etienne Carbonneau, director of research and support for internationalisation at Université du Québec in Québec City, said: “Let’s put it bluntly, we think there is a certain rate of racism that exists [in IRCC].

“By this I mean negative prejudices against, particularly, French-speaking African populations. When you look at IRCC’s responses, basically, the immigration officers who process the permit application files seem to be saying that they don’t believe the students.”

Both Carbonneau and Daye Diallo, senior economist at the Montreal-based Institut du Québec, underscored that while the high refusal rate of English-speaking Africans can also be attributed to racism at the IRCC, the impact on English universities such as McGill University in Montreal, or those in Ontario or elsewhere in the country, is not as severe.

“In Ontario, it [the rejection rate] is more than 50%. Serious too, but it is higher in Quebec. And because Quebec speaks French, the recruitment pools are more limited. In Ontario there are many students who come from Asia and English-speaking countries,” says Diallo, co-author, with Emna Braham, the institute’s executive director, of the study, “Portrait de l’immigration temporaire: attraction et rétention des étudiants étrangers au Québec”.

“We cannot go to India or China because Indians and Chinese are looking for training in English,” Carbonneau explained. “If I were at McGill University or University of British Columbia, and I saw that it was getting difficult on the Indian side [ie, recruiting from India], I would look to other markets. I don’t have that opportunity [recruiting for a French university].

“The potential for growth is really in French-speaking Africa, but this potential is cut off by the practices of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Presently, some 50% of French speakers worldwide live in African countries; by 2050, the continent will account for 50% of the world’s population growth.”

SCCI report evidence

The report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (SCCI), published in May 2022, titled Differential Treatment in Recruitment and Acceptance Rates of Foreign Students in Quebec and in the Rest of Canada, found evidence of racism both in the internal workings of the department and among IRCC’s visa officers vis-à-vis African applicants for study visas.

This evidence was contained in a report of a survey of IRCC conducted by the polling firm Pollara Strategic Insights following the international protests against the murder of George Floyd by members of the Minneapolis (Minnesota) police department in March of 2020, which sparked the Black Lives Matter protests.

Racialised respondents to the IRCC survey told Pollara that they “considered racism to be a problem in the department”, which, in its response to the report, IRCC acknowledged.

Pollara was told that some immigration officials referred to certain African countries as “the dirty 30”. Nigerians, the investigators were told, were considered “particularly untrustworthy”.

According to the SCCI, IRCC “acknowledged that due to the nature of its mandate to promote a strong and diverse Canada, it must hold itself to the highest possible standards so that the programmes, policies and client services are free from any racial bias”.

IRCC policy

IRCC reiterated this policy in an email that said, in part: “The Government of Canada is committed to the fair and non-discriminatory application of immigration procedures. We continually evaluate data and make concerted efforts to address the results and the differential strategies in order to improve our approaches so that we can overcome these issues.”

The email further explained: “The strategic review of the immigration policies and programmes will enable us to identify and address the issues relating to rejections and the International Student Program will be informed by this exercise.”

Among the steps IRCC has taken is the creation of a task force dedicated to the “elimination of racism in all its forms at IRCC”. This requires IRCC staff, including middle and senior managers, “to take mandatory unconscious bias training which is tracked”, and evaluate “potential bias entry points in policy and programme delivery [ie, deciding on visa applications]”.

As of May 2022, IRCC had “nearly two dozen projects under development to reduce and eliminate racial barriers – with a large focus on … African clients, due to the fact that this region historically faces longer processing times and lower approval rates”.

Nigerian students deemed ‘particularly untrustworthy’

While some IRCC staff considered Nigerians to be ‘particularly untrustworthy’, critics, including the University of Calgary’s Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Law Gideon Christian, who is also president of African Scholars Initiative, told the House of Commons committee that the 2019 pilot project, Nigerian Student Express (NSE), discriminated against Nigerians.

Pointing to documents he had obtained via an Access to Information and Privacy request, Christian showed that irrespective of whether the NSE improved processing times for Nigerian students by giving them the option to use a secure financial verification system, it discriminated against these students.

The NSE required Nigerians to provide different and more onerous financial data than did students from other countries that were part of the Student Direct Stream (SDS), Christian said.

Unlike students in the other 15 countries included in the SDS, such as China, Vietnam, Senegal, Brazil and Colombia, Nigerians seeking to study in Canada had to produce a bank statement showing that they had the equivalent of CA$30,000 (US$22,600) in their account for at least six months in the last year.

While testifying before the committee, Sean Fraser, minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship of Canada, defended the CA$30,000 figure, saying that it was fair because it did not include living expenses.

“The issue is that we don’t necessarily have financial partners on the ground in Nigeria, so having proof of funds of CA$30,000 is more equitable when you look across the requirements in other countries, where you have not only [the requirement to show] CA$10,000, but also the proof of funds to cover the cost of an international student tuition.”

In his testimony, Christian dismissed Fraser’s claim, noting that a “Nigerian is required to show proof of funds that are three times more than those of other SDS countries, and yet, when this applicant overcomes this high burden of proof, most of the study visa applications from Nigeria are still refused”.

Christian also told the SCCI that since all colleges and universities exempted Nigerians from English-language proficiency tests, “the language proficiency requirement imposed by the visa offices … exudes stereotypes and racism”.

SCCI Recommendation 4

The SCCI’s Recommendation 4 called for IRCC to reconsider the financial reporting requirements imposed on Nigerians and for IRCC to “remove the English-language proficiency required for Nigerian students”.

As with Canada’s English universities, French universities in Quebec recruit international students for a number of reasons. Carbonneau began by noting the importance of universities internationalising their student bodies.

“The career of a researcher who is from Quebec will involve collaborations with people who have been trained abroad and who have worked abroad. The integration of international students into our university programmes means that our Quebec students will have contact with people from other countries. They will be made aware of international issues and the issues of intercultural work and the taking into account of intercultural issues.

“We understand how the presence of international students, particularly at the graduate level, makes it possible to develop links between researchers and students that will be maintained over time.”

Recruiting in French-speaking Africa

International students contribute CA$22 billion (US$16.6 billion) to the Canadian economy and support more than 218,000 jobs, the SCCI heard. The portion of these funds spent in Quebec is part of the third reason Quebec’s universities recruit in French-speaking Africa. The other part is that the 217,660 French African students in the province’s colleges and universities help keep these institutions economically viable.*

The tuition for Quebec residents at the province’s French universities is approximately CA$6,000; international undergraduates payCA$30,000 more. Each international student also contributes some CA$15,000 to the province’s economy in living costs.

Since Quebec universities receive grants on a per student basis from the provincial government, for universities international students mean larger government grants.

According to Carbonneau: “We need students for the vitality of several of our university programmes. Quebec universities are funded per student, so when we have students, we have funding.”

Ontario’s universities, too, it should be noted, are hungry for international student fees. For the 2021-22 academic year, for example, the 22,728 international students at the University of Toronto, for example, paid on average CA$59,320 in tuition and fees, or a total of over CA$1.3 billion.

Recruiting university students from French Africa is also part of the government of Canada’s commitment to ensuring that approximately 72,000 of the nation’s immigrant target of 500,000 are French speaking. This policy was put in place to ensure that the percentage of French-speaking Canadians did not fall below the present 22.8%of the nation’s population of 40 million.

Although Fraser told the SCCI that “international students are excellent candidates for permanent residency” and that Canada has “increased our target efforts overseas to promote and attract francophone students and immigrants to Canada”, the committee heard of a number of roadblocks that prevented French African students from studying in Canada.

At the hearings, Alain Dupuis, executive director of the Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada (Canadian Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities), stated that irrespective of the government’s immigration goals, “we are closing the doors to them”.

Investment certificate roadblock

Denise Amyot, president and CEO of Colleges and Institutes Canada, told the SCCI that one of the main roadblocks is a requirement created, not by IRCC policy, but by its visa officers: the guaranteed investment certificate to demonstrate financial sufficiency and SDS.

While this certificate may have streamlined the application process, it ignored the fact, Amyot told the SCCI, that the banking systems “in certain countries are not as well developed, and students rely more heavily on family networks in ways that may seem atypical from a Canadian cultural lens”.

Referring to the cases for which he knew IRCC’s reason for denying the application for a study visa, Diallo told University World News: “The reason in these situations is that the student does not have enough real estate; he does not have a house in his country of origin.” He then asked, pointedly: “How can an 18 year old own buildings?”

The guaranteed investment certificate is more than a proof of financial resources, Diallo further explained. It serves as a proxy for the applicant’s attachment to his or her home country: ie, as proof that he or she plans to return to their home country.

Similarly, applicants have been denied study visas because they have not shown that they have enough family in their home countries, or that they have not established a travel history that shows that they have left and returned to their home country.

This is a requirement that one brief to the SCCI mocked by asking” “How many kids of the age 15-20 years old from other countries have travelled out of their shores at such a young age? What counts as sufficient travel history? This remains unclear,” says Carbonneau.

For his part, Diallo says: “There are reasons like that that are given. But they are ‘reasons’ which, in our opinion, are not necessary. [For] these reasons, the official can say that he believes the student will not return home. But these are not facts. There are no statistics that say that African students are more likely to stay here illegally when their visas expire.”

Residency roadblocks

Notwithstanding Fraser’s statement that “international students are excellent candidates for permanent residency”, the very document applicants for study visas must fill out puts them in a ‘catch-22 situation’ with regard to what’s called ‘dual intent’, says Shamira Madhany, managing director and deputy executive director at World Education Services, told the parliamentarians studying the issue.

Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows for international students to apply for permanent residency upon completion of their studies if “the officer is satisfied that they will leave Canada by the end of their period authorised for their stay” and wait outside Canada for their permanent residency to be granted.

However, in practice, one witness told SCCI: “If a student has the misfortune to check that box, their chances of getting a visa are nil … The authorities believe that they really do not intend to study in Canada, and they want to stay in Canada.”

According to Carbonneau, this situation is absurd.

“A student who comes to study with us with the intention of immigrating, which is deemed desirable by our government in Quebec [the lone province to issue its own study document accepting the prospective student], is using his studies, a bachelor degree or a masters degree or a doctorate, to integrate into Quebec or Canadian society – and then immigrate.

“For us it is desirable. But for the Government of Canada, I think the second most frequent response is that the application is refused because the Canadian government is not convinced that the student will return to his country after graduation.

“It’s really absurd because on the one hand Canada really needs qualified immigrants. We also need qualified French-speaking immigrants. But, on the other hand, we tell them once they graduate our expectation as a Canadian government is that you return home.”

Reform required

In his appearance before the committee, Fraser admitted the system needed reform but pushed back against critics by saying that Canada “need to prevent a lot of students coming with the purpose of staying permanently by claiming asylum, for example, when we have different streams for people who are coming for purposes other than studying”.

While Recommendation 15 does not expressly refer to the minister’s statement, by implication it rebuked him by calling on IRCC to clarify the dual intent provision of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, “so that the intention of settling in Canada does not jeopardise an individual’s chances of getting a study permit”.

Organisations and individuals involved in recruiting in Africa are concerned that Canada’s high rate of refusal of study visa applicants is hurting the country’s reputation in Africa. Amyot told the SCCI that he had heard of students who waited months for decisions only to find out that their study permits had been rejected “often for unclear and unfounded reasons”.

“We live in a world where the competition to attract the best brains is very important. Canada cannot afford to have these difficulties. Canada must work to reduce refusal rates from French-speaking African countries that have students who want to come to Canada,” said Diallo.

“We have a poor image internationally because Canada does not grant visas and the reasons why Canada does not grant visas are not the right reasons.”

Source: Is racism behind denial of visas to African students?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Businesses are joining the growing chorus of concern about the high cost of housing in Ontario

2023/07/08 Leave a comment

Significant. But no mention of immigration pressures on housing:

Home prices in Ontario have reached a point where they are pulling money out of other sectors of the economy and creating more challenges for business, warns a new report from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

As Ontarians spend more on housing, the report says, they have less money for other goods and services. The situation has resulted in “wide-ranging” implications for business in the province.

“We’re well past the stage of recognizing that this is a crisis,” Ester Gerassime, one of the report’s authors, told the Star. “There are economic implications for the business community, for our budgets at various levels of government. So, it’s important that we get this right.”

According to the report, titled “Home Stretched: Tackling Ontario’s Housing Affordability Crisis Through Innovative Solutions and Partnerships,” the cost of housing is so high it’s even impacting the ability to build housing. It argues that many in the labour force are unable to afford to live in the same communities where housing is needed.

Additional pressures, such as supply chain issues, are further hampering the ability to build enough housing to meet demand, the report says. Along with the pressure on businesses, the prices are resulting in low-income earners being pushed out of their housing and, in some cases, into homelessness.

Meanwhile, Gerassime said, other business are having trouble attracting and retaining talent, as workers avoid the increasingly large patches of the province where they can’t afford to live.

“Lots of individuals are moving to other provinces, out of Ontario,” she said. “Part of that is (due to) housing affordability.”

The provincial government wants to build 1.5 million homes by 2031 to help alleviate the pressures of the housing market. But Gerassime said it will take a “all-hands-on-deck approach” to meet that goal.

Recommendations in the report include building a labour force able to construct more housing, preservation of affordable housing and supporting innovation to find new solutions to the housing crisis.

Last week Re/Max released a report pushing for 15-minute neighbourhoods in Canada. Such planning would result in a mixed use of housing for all income levels within a 15-minute walk, bike, or transit time to all necessities.

The OCC’s report also advocated for building the “right types” of mixed housing developments as another solution to ease the real estate crunch. Such housing needs to include supportive units as well, Gerassime said.

“Addressing the housing affordability crisis is the morally and fiscally responsible thing to do,” she said, quoting a recent report from the Mental Health Commission of Canada. “For every $10 invested in supportive housing, we’d see an average saving of almost $22 dollars in health, justice and social services.”

Source: Businesses are joining the growing chorus of concern about the high cost of housing in Ontario

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That time when Canada’s population and prosperity both boomed, unlike now

2023/07/08 Leave a comment

Worrisome trend and contrast, reflecting policy failures on a number of levels, particularly the excessive focus on population growth:

Canada’s economy has outpaced that of every other G7 country over the past year, but there’s a big, million-people-sized catch.

That’s roughly how much Canada’s population grew over the past 12 months – almost entirely from immigration – for a 2.7-per-cent increase, according to the latest estimate from Statistics Canada. And as a mounting number of economists have pointed out, the massive influx of people is juicing the economic numbers.

Once the surge in population is taken into account, Canada’s real gross domestic product per capita, a measure of prosperity for the average person, is still where it was at the end of 2017.

In a recent note, Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter highlighted the sluggish pace of growth at a time when the population is expanding so much faster than in the United States. In the seven years since the Trudeau government’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth proposed measures to boost growth through infrastructure spending, more foreign investment and higher immigration levels, per-capita growth in Canada has underperformed that of the U.S. by close to 1.2 percentage points per year.

The Canada of the past offers its own contrast to the current prosperity rut. The last time Canada saw its population grow this fast was the decade after 1951, when annual population growth ranged from 2 to 3.5 per cent amid a baby boom and postwar immigration.

Yet thanks to rising productivity, Canada’s overall economic output grew even faster – despite a whopping four recessions during that period – with the result that real per capita GDP raced ahead.

The past also holds a warning for what could come next. In the latter half of the 1950s, as population growth accelerated even faster, per-capita GDP did begin to stall. Yet that was with an economy growing roughly three times faster than it is now.

Canada’s population growth will likely slow from its current frantic pace as immigration officials work through the pandemic backlog of applications, but not by all that much. Barring a vast improvement in productivity, Canada’s per-capita GDP – and our standard of living – appear headed for an outright decline.

Source: That time when Canada’s population and prosperity both boomed, unlike now

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Will immigration become a salient political issue in Canada?

2023/07/08 Leave a comment

Useful and informative polling. Money quote:

…leaders need to demonstrate there’s a coordinated, well-resourced plan to respond to the pressures created by growth. In my view, that has been sourly lacking from all levels of government.

This should also be a wake-up call to leaders from all three levels of government that if investments in infrastructure – like housing, healthcare services, and transportation – are not expediated to meet the growing population, opposition to immigration could increase thereby creating conditions for the rise of a more nationalist/populist political response.

—-

I can’t remember the last time immigration featured prominently in national political debates in Canada. This doesn’t mean that all Canadians hold decidedly pro-immigration attitudes. The lack of friction on the issue, in my view, is more likely the result of an elite-consensus on the value of immigration than a reflection of public opinion. We shouldn’t assume that none of the major political parties will never make immigration an issue.

In Quebec, immigration has been an issue that has animated the political debate but we haven’t seen anything similar in other parts of Canada. But we have seen immigration fuel divisive debates in the UK, France, the United States, and other democracies. Public sentiment about immigration and immigrants was a big factor in Brexit and the rise of Trump.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my interest in the subject has been growing as the impact of the housing and healthcare crises becomes more intense and people start reflecting on what may be causing it or at the very least, making it worse.

At the same time, there’s been a lot of attention paid to the pace of population growth in Canada, with much fanfare over Canada’s population passing the 40 million mark a few weeks ago.

Last month, I asked some polling questions on a national Abacus Data survey on immigration. My intent is to start tracking opinions every six months, because I think this issue has the potential to become more salient and prominent in our political debate – especially in the lead up to the next election.

The survey, fielded from June 23 to 27, 2023, sampled 1,500 Canadian adults online. The comparable margin of error is +/- 2.6%, 19 times out of 20.

Here’s a summary of what the survey found (full details below for paid subscribers):

  1. 11% of Canadians rank “immigration” as a top 3 issue. This is the first time I included in out list of response categories. The rising cost of living remains a top issue to more people (71%), with healthcare (48%) and housing (43%) rounding out the top 3.
  2. 61% believe that Canada’s target to welcome 500,000 immigrants next year is too high, including 37% who feel it is “way too high”.
  3. When asked whether the number of immigrants coming to Canada is having a positive or negative impact on several possible areas, 63% feel it is having a negative impact on housing, 49% feel this way about its impact on traffic and congestion, and 49% feel immigration is having a negative impact on healthcare.
  4. Half think immigration is having a positive impact on the availability of workers while 43% think immigration is having a positive impact on economic growth.

Digging Deeper on Public Attitudes towards Immigration

When I did a bit deeper into the data, these insights are particularly noteworthy:

  • 11% of Canadians rank “immigration” as a top 3 issue. This is the first time I included in out list of response categories. The rising cost of living remains top (71%), with healthcare (48%) and housing (43%) rounding out the top 3.
  • 14% of Conservative supporters, 14% of BQ supporters, 9% of Liberal supporters, and 5% of NDP supporters put immigration in their top 3 issues.
  • There is some, but not large, differences in perceptions about Canada’s immigration target by party support. Conservative supporters are the most likely to feel the immigration target of 500,000 is too high with 52% feeling it is way too high. Half of Liberal and NDP supporters feel the target is too high as well. BQ supporters are in between with 36% describing the target as way too high and 35% feeling it is too high (71% too high in total).

  • 35% of Canadians believe that the immigrant population is increasingly significantly in their community while another 24% think it is growing moderately. This views are consistent across the country and more pronounced among Conservative and BQ supporters, although a sizeable portion of NDP and Liberal supporters also feel this way.

  • Despite 61% feeling that Canada’s immigration target is too high, 41% think their community needs less immigration – a fascinating 20 point gap between the two measures. 18% of Canadians think their community needs more immigrants while 41% think the same amount of immigration as happening now works well. Atlantic Canadians (29%) are the most likely to want to see more immigrants. Views in Quebec are close to the national average.

  • There is a strong correlation between feeling the number of immigrants in one’s community is increasing and opinions about Canada’s immigration target. 67% of those who think the immigrant population in their community is increasing significantly also think Canada’s immigration target is way too high. This drops to 25% among those who feel immigration in their community is increasingly moderately, and 17% among those who think it’s increasingly slightly. Interestingly, 35% those who don’t think the immigration population in their community is growing at all think the immigration target is too high. This suggests there’s latent anti-immigration sentiment in communities where residents don’t perceive their too be much growth.
  • What might be impacting the overall negative impression of immigration? It’s clear the recent crises in housing and healthcare are definitely pain points. Half or more people feel that immigration is having a negative impact on both. If those issues get worse, I expect overall sentiment to immigration to also get worse.

  • Despite the friction that immigration is causing, the good news is only a minority (although a sizeable minority at 36%) believe that on balance, immigration in Canada is making the country worse off. 17% feel it is making Canada much worse off. In contrast, 29% feel immigration makes the country better while 29% think it’s impact is neutral.

  • To better understand the drivers of this view, I ran a simple regression model with views about immigration overall with several of the variables from the survey. That analysis finds that perceptions about the economic impact of immigration, its impact on crime and public safety, and its impact on fostering a sense of community are the largest predictors of one’s view on whether immigration has a net benefit on Canada overall. This suggests that the relatively short-term problems of housing and healthcare are not yet impact people’s overall views about immigration. Instead, the perceived economic benefits drive support or at least mute opposition to immigration while longer-term concerns (possibly driven by xenophobia or racism) about social cohesion and crime are major drivers for negative perceptions/attitudes about immigration.

The Upshot

The survey data suggests that the Canadian public is not overwhelmingly pro-immigration but also not overwhelming anti-immigration either. Friction about immigration’s impact on housing, traffic congestion, and healthcare is pretty widespread and deeply felt.

About 1 in 3 Canadians (36%) believe that immigration is making Canada worse off overall. This is not an insignificant minority but likely one that has existed for some time. The question is whether the relatively recent housing and healthcare crises push more people into this camp. If so, that could become a powerful political coalition.

The data reveals a gap in perception versus community need, with 61% believing Canada’s immigration target of 500,000 is too high, but only 41% feeling their community needs less immigration.

It’s noteworthy that Quebecers do not appear more resistant to immigration than others and younger Canadians are more open to it than older Canadians.

The survey’s results highlight the need for a strategic approach in managing public perception around immigration in Canada. Given the significant proportion of Canadians perceiving immigration’s impact as negative on housing and healthcare, politicians and policy-makers should engage in transparent discussions about the impacts of immigration on these areas, possibly linking it to other causes of strain on these sectors.

More important, leaders need to demonstrate there’s a coordinated, well-resourced plan to respond to the pressures created by growth. In my view, that has been sourly lacking from all levels of government.

This should also be a wake-up call to leaders from all three levels of government that if investments in infrastructure – like housing, healthcare services, and transportation – are not expediated to meet the growing population, opposition to immigration could increase thereby creating conditions for the rise of a more nationalist/populist political response.

Political managers should also highlight the economic benefits of immigration to sway the 52% of Canadians who view immigration’s impact on economic growth as either neutral or negative. This requires engaging economists, industry leaders, and community spokespeople to discuss how immigrants contribute to the economy through taxes, starting businesses, and addressing Canada’s aging population.

Politically, Conservative and BQ supporters show more resistance to immigration, suggesting the elite-concensus on immigration should not be taken for granted. Immigration could become a salient political issue that would allow the Conservatives and BQ to speak to voters who may not otherwise consider voting for those two parties. It could also serve as a powerful issue for the People’s Party.

Let’s not underestimate the potential political power of this issue. There may be a clear political majority who are worried about immigration and could be mobilized in reaction to their views. Immigration also has the potential to fundamental realign Canadian politics.

Too often, I hear people who assume Canada is immune to the political forces that have engulfed and divided other populations. That Canada is unique in its liberal, open-to-immigration, orientation. This data should cause those to reflect on that and consider the risk these numbers represent.

Finally, I am planning to track opinions every six months because I think we need to monitor these views more regularly. This continuous feedback loop will be crucial in understanding changing perceptions and adjusting messaging, especially in the lead up to the next election.

I welcome your thoughts and feedback and suggestions for future research.

Source: Will immigration become a salient political issue in Canada?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

John Ivison: As immigration doubts grow, Poilievre keeps the faith, Lawrence Martin: Canada’s best story might be immigration

2023/07/07 Leave a comment

Two similar takes, focussing on the welcome and rare, compared to other countries, support for immigration across political parties.

Starting with Ivison:

In mid-May, Bloc Québecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet put his Conservative counterpart, Pierre Poilievre, in a ticklish spot.

The Bloc introduced a motion denouncing the goal of an organization called the Century Initiative — co-founded by former ambassador to China Dominic Barton — to increase Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100. It is a goal consistent with the federal government’s immigration intake targets, the motion said; a goal that would diminish the French language and Quebec’s political weight, as well as adversely impact housing and health-care availability.

The Conservatives, always keen to curry favour in Quebec, supported the motion that called on the House to reject the Century Initiative objectives. That allowed NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan to claim Poilievre “wants fewer immigrants to come to Canada.”

“The Conservative leader is showing his true colours and giving Canadians a sneak peek into how a Conservative government would set the country back decades,” she said.

That would be big news, if true. It would suggest that the postwar consensus that has characterized Canadian attitudes towards immigration for the past four decades is under threat, and that a future Conservative government would dramatically reduce the number of permanent residents arriving in Canada every year.

The problem with Kwan’s claim is that there is no evidence to support it in anything Poilievre or his immigration critic, Tom Kmiec, has said publicly.

In his contribution to the debate on the Bloc motion, Poilievre criticized wait times for those caught up in the immigration backlog, and the failure by the government to speed up credentials recognition for foreign-trained doctors and nurses.

“It boils my blood, sitting for five hours in hospital with my daughter, who has a migraine headache, that there are not enough doctors and nurses, while the gatekeepers block them,” he said.

True, he took potshots at Barton and criticized the Century Initiative goals as a “Utopian idea.” But his plan is to make the system more dynamic, not blow it up. “We don’t need Utopian schemes, what we need is some common sense,” he said.

Kmiec’s critique has been focused on the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, which he pointed out has seen its budget double since 2016, yet still has a 2.4-million application backlog.

The Conservatives, he said, would put greater emphasis on employer-driven immigration streams and address critical labour needs, such as the 100,000 construction workers the province of Ontario says it is short.

There have been no attacks from the Conservatives on what Maxime Bernier has called “radical multiculturalism,” which the wild-eyed People’s Party leader defined as “the misguided belief that all values and cultures can co-exist in one society.”

Bernier will have noted that recent public opinion polls suggest around 40 per cent of respondents think the Trudeau government’s immigration targets — 500,000 permanent newcomers in 2025 — are too high. He will also be aware that Conservative voters are most concerned that immigration is a burden, not a benefit.

His party claims immigration should not be used to “forcibly change the cultural character and social fabric” of the country and that target numbers should be substantially reduced to between 100,000 and 150,000. They are arguments that will resonate with many Conservative voters.

Yet, on this issue at least, Poilievre has not pandered to his political base.

This is curious, given that there are growing calls from policy experts for the government to re-examine its targets, or at least rein in the number of temporary residents coming to Canada.

In 2022, there were 437,000 new permanent residents, in line with the government’s projected target. But there were also 1.6 million workers and students who arrived as temporary residents — far more than had been anticipated.

Statistics Canada projects the population of Canada will be as much as 43 million within five years, but those projections could prove off-base if the growth in non-permanent residents continues at the current pace.

Lisa Lalande, chief executive of the Century Initiative, said there are legitimate concerns about the deepening housing crisis and the accessibility of quality jobs. “Without planned, strategic investments, population growth will put a strain on the quality of life. We have always advocated for smart, planned population growth,” she said.

Mike Moffat, senior director of the Smart Prosperity Initiative at the University of Ottawa, tracked the impact on the housing market of 504,618 new arrivals in Ontario in 2022–23.

In a similar time period, 71,838 new units were built, almost half of which were one-bedroom apartments — a new home for every seven people.

“There is a real risk that Canada runs if it doesn’t get its housing situation in order — namely the consensus (on immigration) could crumble,” Moffat said.

He pointed out there is no cap on non-permanent residents.

In particular, the number of international students has soared, to the point where enrollment numbers for Ontario’s colleges suggest that half of all students this year will have come from overseas. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that a large number are essentially guest workers, registering for some classes online while spending most of their week working in coffee shops and gas stations. Since the federal government is responsible for issuing those entry visas, this is one area that one might expect to see Poilievre promise to clamp down.

Yet, in a speech to Parliament, he accused the government of allowing international students to be abused and exploited by “human traffickers and shady consultants.”

Poilievre’s reasons are not that hard to fathom. Aside from the fact that his wife, Anaida, arrived in Canada as a refugee from Venezuela, Poilievre is competing for the support of the votes of many recent immigrants to Canada in the suburbs around the big cities. Not surprisingly, they are very keen on maintaining high family reunification numbers.

He is also aware that the majority of Canadians are in favour of secure, economically driven immigration. For all the comparisons with Donald Trump — contempt for civility, “insiders” and experts — Poilievre is an economic conservative, not a culture warrior.

It all suggests that the Conservative leader is not “anti-immigration,” as Kwan claimed, and that the political consensus on bringing in hundreds of thousands of newcomers to this country every year continues, whoever wins the next election.

That is to Canada’s advantage. “Immigration has not been a political issue in past elections because the political parties, the business community and Canadians in general have recognized the importance of immigration to our long-term prosperity,” said Lalande. “If it does become a political issue, it’s to our detriment.”

Source: John Ivison: As immigration doubts grow, Poilievre keeps the faith

In the Globe, Lawrence Martin, Canada’s best story might be immigration:

In the run-up to Canada’s 156th birthday celebrations there were reports, based on what people were telling pollsters, saying that Canada has never been more divided.

It appears these people weren’t around in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Quebec was aflame, when the West was up in arms with the Reform Party, when our deficits and debt approached Third World-levels, when we faced a crippling recession, when the separatist Bloc Québécois was our Official Opposition party, when a Quebec referendum nearly tore the country apart.

Conditions are worse now than then? Who are they trying to kid?

As a measure of today’s alleged divisiveness, the pessimists may wish to consider the issue of immigration. By the numbers, Canada is growing in leaps and bounds, with more than 400,000 newcomers arriving annually. According to Statistics Canada, the country’s annual population growth rate is currently 2.7 per cent, the highest it’s been since 1957.

Such incoming waves can test the temper of any land. They have certainly done so in other countries. But how much prejudice, acrimony, or backlash have we seen in Canada? By comparison, a pittance. Our huge influx of newcomers has proceeded calmly, and peaceably – and it’s a tribute to the character of Canadians and the strength of the national fabric.

On Canada Day, praise for the country was not in abundance. In these times it’s the curmudgeons who hold court. But while there are plenty of things to grouse about, how we are doing on the critically important issue of immigration is not one of them.

We’re dwarfing our competitors, outpacing the population growth rate of the United States, Great Britain and other G7 countries by large percentages. Some countries’ populations have also stagnated or are tumbling, like that of Russia’s or China’s.

Canada’s large number of retiring baby boomers and its lower birth rate necessitate the great expansion. It is indispensable to nation-building.

The influx is accompanied by many problems, like housing shortages, that are not to be underestimated. But these hardly compare to the situations in the United States and the countries of Europe and elsewhere where the arrival of immigrant waves have become powder kegs, triggering bigotry, racism and hard-right movements that threaten stability and democracy.

Immigrants to Canada are not feared, but welcomed. Some have gone so far as to say we’re creating a multicultural Mecca. That’s a bit of a stretch. But how many other countries are doing better at cultivating a more diverse and inclusive society; an ethnic mosaic?

Politically, the country has become increasingly polarized. But immigration is one big issue that offers an exception. There is consensus among the major parties for the expansion.

With the influx, abetted by several government programs, comes an infusion of brains, talent, and creativity. While we once worried about a brain drain to the U.S., it’s now the U.S. that should be worried about a brain drain in our direction. The Trump administration viewed foreign-born scientists and engineers as a threat. Washington cut back on visas allowing highly educated foreigners residence, leaving an opening that Ottawa has happily taken advantage of.

Immigration from India is an example. In recent years, the number of Indians moving to Canada has tripled. At Canadian colleges and universities, the number of Indian students has boomed, while the number of science and engineering graduate students from India at American universities has steadily declined in recent years.

Where immigration may run into strong opposition is in its potential to exacerbate the housing shortage crisis. If Canada can’t adequately house its population, critics can reasonably challenge the advisability of bringing in so many newcomers.

But while he is a staunch critic of the government’s housing policies, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has steered clear of placing the blame on immigration policies. To go there would run the risk, given Canadian sensibilities, of charges of prejudice and racism. People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier has called for major decreases in immigration numbers, but the issue hasn’t helped him at the polls. This isn’t the United States.

The housing crunch and other stresses, such as fears in Quebec over the declining use of French, need to be weighed against the advantages. As economists attest, given our labour force shortages, newcomers are required to sustain Canada’s economic growth. New brain power is necessary if we are to improve our dismal record on productivity.

Throughout history, immigration has shaped Canada. It is doing so now on an even more imposing scale. Few issues are of more importance. It is our big story and it may be our best.

Source: Canada’s best story might be immigration

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Maximum Canada is happening

2023/07/05 Leave a comment

Rather naive in terms of minimizing the practicalities of ensuring adequate housing, healthcare and infrastructure, one of the key points that Saunders needed to be addressed in Maximum Canada. And the nation-building aspect overstated, given this gap and persistent low productivity that current policies, with few exceptions, are not addressing. Same large population fallacies:

A lot of people — at least, a lot of people who read this blog — know of Matt Yglesias’ book One Billion Americans. It’s good, you should read it. But not as many seem to know that it’s actually a riff on a book that came out three years earlier called Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough, by Doug Saunders. In fact, the books are pretty different; Saunders spends most of his time justifying the idea of a bigger Canada with appeals to the country’s history, culture, and politics, where Yglesias mostly discusses the practical details of how we’d fit the newcomers into the country. 

But what these two books share is that they’re both advocating a certain type of nation-building strategy — the idea of deliberately promoting large-scale immigration in order to expand a country’s population toward a numerical target. This isn’t something the U.S. has really done in the past. We enacted laws to make immigration more or less restrictive, but this was typically done either as an ad-hoc reaction to a wave of immigration pressure from abroad (e.g. in 1924), or out of moral and ideological concerns (e.g. in 1965). To a large extent, we didn’t really have to do this; people were almost always beating down our door to get here, and all we had to do was sit back and decide who to let in. (In the two decades after the Civil War, there was some talk of recruiting immigrants from abroad to populate the Midwest and West, but this was shelved when it turned out lots of people wanted to come of their own accord.) 

Canada, for much of its own history, was similar. But in recent years, the Canadian government has begun to set hard targets for immigration, such as last year’s target of 1.5 million more by 2025. And the country is deliberately encouraging more people to come, with one of the world’s most aggressive recruitment strategies. 

First, let’s just take a look at the results Canada is achieving. The country’s population has just passed 40 million — a 14% increase from when Doug Saunders published Maximum Canada. The national statistics agency loudly celebrated the achievement. And the country’s population growth rate has just shot up to over 3.5%, which is among the world’s fastest:

Source: Brent Donnelly

Here’s another fun graph, just from Nova Scotia:

Source: Deny Sullivan

And this is all from immigration. The country’s total fertility rate is 1.4, far below the replacement rate. Yet population is booming because Canada is recruiting from abroad.

This isn’t quite Maximum Canada yet, but it’s clearly headed in that direction. 

And Canada’s zeal for greater population inflows is matched by its determination to recruit the best and the brightest en masse. The country’s points-based immigration system, the Federal Skilled Worker Program, is well-known, as is the Provincial Nominee Program that allows individual Canadian provinces to recruit immigrant workers to specific locations. But the country keeps adding more programs for grabbing talent. Its latest idea includes an offer of permanent residency to people working in the United States on H-1B visas — basically, poaching America’s own skilled immigrants! Here are some excerpts from the announcement:

As part of Canada’s first-ever Tech Talent Strategy, Minister Fraser announced the following aggressive attraction measures:

  • the creation of an open work permit stream for H-1B specialty occupation visa holders in the US to apply for a Canadian work permit, and study or work permit options for their accompanying family members
  • the development of an Innovation Stream under to the International Mobility Program to attract highly talented individuals…
  • the promotion of Canada as a destination for digital nomads
  • the creation of a STEM-specific draw…under the Express Entry program…
  • improvements to the Start-up Visa Program

Canada also has family-based and humanitarian immigration programs like the U.S. does, but the big difference here is that they take absolutely massive numbers of skilled immigrants from all over the world.

All of this adds up to what looks to me like a nation-building strategy. Canada has a clear vision for itself as a multicultural mecca for all of the world’s smart and hard-working people. It’s a bit like Singapore, except more democratic, and without that country’s emphasis on preserving a single ethnicity’s demographic dominance. If you’re smart and you want to work and you like Canadian culture, it doesn’t matter what you look like; you’re in the club. 

What’s amazing is that the vast majority of the country’s populace appears to have signed onto this strategy. As Derek Thompson writes, immigration has not produced a big backlash in Canada, outside of some highly localized concerns (like Chinese capital flight buying up property in Vancouver). A little of this might be from the Anglophone majority’s desire to reduce the political influence of Quebec, but much of it is just that multiculturalism and immigration are deeply rooted in the country’s self-defined national identity. And on top of that, the fact that so much of Canada’s immigration is based on employment prospects and skills probably reduces social friction; immigrants are likely to make a lot of money and not commit much crime. 

There’s also one additional factor that no one talks about, but which would definitely be on my mind if I were Canadian: national security. Canada has a very large, very powerful, and occasionally politically unstable neighbor to its south. It has already defeated one invasion from that southern neighbor, and while more recently relations between the two countries have been friendlier, you never know when attitudes might shift. A country of 100 million would be a lot more capable of resisting the U.S. than a country of 40 million. 

Of course, there are major challenges for Canada’s nation-building strategy. Chief among these is NIMBYism; Canada is huge, but you can’t just scatter your population randomly across the plain (I mean, you can try, but the results are comedic). Modern knowledge-based economies harness clustering and agglomeration effects, which means Canada needs to fit those new millions into its cities. And despite very low crime rates, Canada is having a bit of trouble doing this. Unlike Japan, Canada does not have simple national zoning laws administered by a competent technocratic bureaucracy; instead, local municipalities are free to block housing as they choose. 

And block it they do. The Fraser Institute notes that Canada is not building nearly enough housing to house its massive population inflows:

And the mismatch has been getting worse over time:

Source: Fraser Institute
Source: Fraser Institute

Jean-François Perrault of Scotiabank notes that Canada has fewer housing units per 1000 people than France, Germany, Japan, the UK, or even the United States. He writes:

A key challenge is finding an approach that can overcome the political obstacles to a better supply response. Very often within city limits, measures to increase density pit current owners versus prospective residents. Municipal councillors are politically responsive to their voters given the nature of the democratic process. What may be great policy from a national perspective, like high immigration, runs into obstacles when it means finding practical solutions at the local level to increase the housing stock…

To get a sense of the main obstacles to a more elastic supply response, we have polled several of our clients in real estate and development across the country to find the cross-cutting factors they see as most limiting supply growth. To no surprise, the key impediments are in the planning and approval process. In many major cities, the entitlement process is very lengthy and unduly political. Many processes can delay or derail development applications and this can be exacerbated by under-resourced planning departments within cities.

Hmm, where have I heard this story before??

Even Canada’s commitment to multiculturalism is starting to come into conflict with its anti-housing NIMBY instincts. The government returned a plot of land in the middle of downtown Vancouver to the Squamish Nation, which promptly planned a very cool dense housing development with solarpunk aesthetics. The project is still going ahead, but urban planners are now starting to complain about the density, and local residents are trying to stop an access road to the development.

This will simply not do. If you let in tens of millions of people, you must house them; there is simply no other option, other than to let rents continue to skyrocket until the people revolt. Canadian leaders would do well to supplement Doug Saunders’ book with Matt Yglesias’ pragmatic tome. If Canada can’t figure out how to beat its entrenched NIMBY instincts and replace its old ideal of quiet pastoral low-rise cities with one of dense, bustling, efficiently functioning metropolises, it will never achieve Maximum Canada. 

In the meantime, though, we Americans to the south need to take a hard look at what Canada is doing, and ask ourselves why we can’t do something similar. Like Canada, the U.S. is a highly diverse nation of immigrants. Like Canada, our fertility is below replacement (though not quite as bad), and we rely on immigration for population growth. Like Canada, we face the inherent economic disadvantage of being located far from the world population supercluster in Asia, and thus we will always be fighting an uphill battle to get high-value industries to want to locate here. So like Canada, we should be importing huge numbers of skilled immigrants — especially because our software and finance and biotech industry clusters, and our world-beating research universities, make it easier for us to attract skilled immigrants in the first place. We should be playing to our strengths. 

And yet in the U.S., immigration of any kind is now at the center of a vicious culture war. The political right may occasionally claim that they only oppose illegal immigration, or that they want skilled immigration, but when it comes time for actual policy proposals, what they want is just to decrease all types of immigration. The days of pro-immigration Republicans like George W. Bush are gone. In fact, various hard-right figures have specifically railed against immigration from India, which is America’s most important source of skilled immigrants. 

Meanwhile, American progressives, unlike their Canadian counterparts, seem generally unenthusiastic about the idea of mass recruitment of high-skilled foreign workers; my suspicion is that they fear the competition the children of these immigrants will provide for their own children in the academic system. Instead, in recent years, some progressives have begun to lean toward the idea that immigration should be viewed as a form of reparations for colonialism, rather than a strategy for nation-building. Naturally, that absurd idea just triggers the right even more. 

This is a terrible political equilibrium. Survey after survey finds that Americans very strongly support high-skilled immigration, but because it’s a political football, only centrists like Biden seem interested in doing anything about it. Without a popular political mandate, any nation-building strategy like Canada’s is doomed. 

I wish Americans could tell themselves a positive narrative like Canada’s — of immigration as the way to build a multicultural nation. Many of us have tried to tell that narrative, and have foundered on the rocks of America’s age of division. As John Higham wrote, when America is underconfident — when we start to doubt who we are as a people and a nation — we instinctively think about closing the door. Right now, America definitely doesn’t know who we are, as a people and as a nation. Maybe next decade we’ll remember.

Canada, however, does know who they are. And good for them. Now all they have to do is build a bunch of housing, and they’ll be golden. 

Source: Maximum Canada is happening

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Many Finns Party ministers have pointed to replacement theory

2023/07/05 Leave a comment

Of note:

A HANDFUL of the Finns Party’s ministers have made overt and less overt references to the predominantly white far-right conspiracy theory known as the great replacement or replacement theory.

Helsingin Sanomat on Monday reported that Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio (PS) has pointed to the conspiracy theory in a number of statements in the session hall of the Finnish Parliament.

The theory alleges that left-leaning domestic or international elites are trying to replace the white population with non-white immigrants, enabling non-white majorities to take control of key institutions, destroy cultures and traditions, and ultimately eliminate white populations. The theory has also found its way into, for example, the rhetoric of the Republican Party in the US.The Finnish name for the theory is ‘väestönvaihto,’ which translates directly into population replacement.

Tavio has spoken about “population replacement,” a “population change process,” “foreignisation of the population” and “artificial” population growth through immigration, listed Helsingin Sanomat.

In 2021, he linked the conspiracy theory to the government’s policy toward the EU: “The Finnish population won’t get back its own free land because it has been handed over as a playground for the EU. We’re being depleted and the basis of our population is being changed supposedly in the name of wonderful multiculturalism.”

“The socialist government is advocating its own agendas with no regard for the means and won’t stop until our country has been depleted in the name of climate change and our population has been replaced in line with multicultural ideals,” he stated later during the same session.

Tavio viewed a year earlier that immigration is on track to result in a demographic change that can be likened to population replacement.

“Population growth rests on immigration and the birth rate among immigrants. If this continues, the outcome is a change in demographics. You could also talk about the so-called population replacement,” he remarked according to the newspaper.

Minister of the Interior Mari Rantanen (PS) in February used a hashtag related to the replacement theory when sharing a tweet concerning demographic changes in Espoo, Southern Finland, according to YLE.

Two years earlier she appeared to nod at the theory when commenting on a newspaper article about population growth in Africa: “At this rate, Europe will become part of Africa unless the tone and politics change. But some may genuinely want that.”

YLE also reported that her website was recently updated to remove a sentence that played on the Finnish word ‘sinisilmäinen,’ which translates literally to blue-eyed and figuratively to gullible and naive.

“We mustn’t be so blue-eyed that soon we won’t be blue-eyed,” the removed part read according to the public broadcaster.

Minister of Justice Leena Meri (PS) in February stated on YLE A-studio that the National Coalition’s readiness to double the number of work permits granted to non-EU citizens indicates a readiness to replace the population.

Minister of Finance Riikka Purra (PS) argued on Facebook in 2019 that talk about population replacement is not an exaggeration, pointing to a projection about the share of native-born population in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

“I haven’t acquainted myself with conspiracy theories of the far right that deal with population replacement, and I’m not planning on doing so,” she wrote. “When I talk about an increase in the number of immigrants and foreigners, about population change, turnover, replacement, variation and the kind, I’m referring to a fact depicted in this graph, for example.”

Purra was at the time the first deputy chairperson of the Finns Party.

Meri, Purra and Rantanen on Sunday all tweeted that they do not believe in conspiracy theories. “I’ll state this to be clear: I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. I also don’t believe in the replacement theory,” wrote Rantanen.

Her response seemed to leave it open to interpretation whether she believes the replacement theory to be a conspiracy theory.

Niko Pyrhönen, a researcher who has specialised in populism and conspiracy theories at the University of Helsinki, on Sunday told YLE that Rantanen has probably employed the term deliberately.

“She chooses and specifically employs the term ‘väestönvaihto,’ which is one of the few that are linked to conspiracy theories and serve as a dog whistle,” he stated.

The Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo) has noted that the great replacement is associated with ethnic nationalism, an ideology rooted in the notion of preserving the ethnic uniformity of society. Supo highlighted in its yearbook for 2020 that the theory has been one of the most noteworthy ideological drivers of far-right terrorists.

“This conspiracy theory framework rests on the idea that immigration and multiculturalism pose a fundamental threat to the western white population,” it wrote.

Source: Many Finns Party ministers have pointed to replacement theory

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

She came to Canada for an education. Desperate for a place to live, she had to rent a room with no door

2023/07/05 Leave a comment

Housing example of lack of planning for impact of immigration:

Parul Yadav saw Canada as a pathway to her future.

The 23-year-old, who arrived in Toronto alone but bright-eyed in late 2021, had pored over post-secondary programs around the world from her home in Delhi, India, carefully selecting a public relations course at Humber College for its hands-on learning opportunities. Toronto, she was told, was a multicultural city — one where newcomers like her would be welcomed.

What she didn’t expect was a housing crisis, one that would become an ever-present stressor as she began her studies.

She struggled, during those first days in a Mississauga hotel, to even book an apartment viewing without local references who could vouch for her. Even studio apartments were too expensive. Feeling desperate as the first day of classes approached, she signed on for several months of renting a den without a door in a shared apartment.

Today, she has a single room in a basement where two other students rent rooms on the same floor, while their landlord lives upstairs. She counts herself lucky, given how many other international students she’s met who’ve fared worse in Toronto’s housing market.

“I know so may international students who are living in miserable, miserable conditions,” Yadav said, describing groups of two or even three students who she’s known to split single rented bedrooms.

It’s a problem she believes the country needs to reckon with — especially as it aims to boost immigration rates. If Canada and its post-secondary schools are attracting promising young learners, especially to campuses in major cities such as Toronto that are facing rental crunches, how can officials ensure the kind of housing opportunities students need to thrive?

The question of whether Toronto has adequate housing for its international students is, of course, a microcosm of an even broader question: Are we prepared to house all the new immigrants that officials see as vital for Canada’s future? A report from Desjardins Securities recently suggested the answer is no — noting that homebuilding will have to increase by at least 50 per cent nationally through 2024, or a difference of about 100,000 more units starting construction in each of the two years, to keep pace with the expected rate of population growth.

Just weeks ago, the country’s population hit 40 million people for the first time. In Toronto, the provincial Ministry of Finance has forecast the population will surpass 3.3 million people by 2031 and 3.6 million by 2041. International migration is the primary driver of net population gains, city hall housing secretariat director Valesa Faria wrote in a statement to the Star — though city reports have also noted Toronto’s rapidly aging population as a key demographic shift in the years to come.

The federal government hopes to bring in 465,000 permanent residents this year, Faria said, rising to 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. International student study permits were also on the rise, she said, adding that the 550,150 permits issued last year represented a 75 per cent jump from five years earlier. These newcomers will bring skills and abilities that Toronto needs to sustain its “economic and social vibrancy,” she wrote. But it’s a reality that demands more housing.

“Toronto looks forward to supporting federal targets, however, it is imperative that these go hand-in-hand with new investments in affordable housing so that newcomers can find safe, secure and affordable homes to live successfully,” she wrote.

While being accepted for study in Canada does not guarantee a pathway to permanent residency, it is a common trajectory taken. The prospect of life in this country is a key lure of Canada’s international education strategy — which has uplifted the economy, created a steady immigration pipeline and offered a boost to the country’s colleges and universities amid declining public funding and domestic enrolment.

While schools have eyed increased enrolment in recent years, Faria sees student housing creation as failing to keep pace. Now, institutions such as Toronto Metropolitan University are putting new residence plans on ice, she said, directing blame on rising construction costs.

Student residences did not qualify for affordable housing funds, Faria added, and were therefore offered at market rent rates — which could be prohibitive for cash-strapped students. (Yadav, too, noted the cost of purpose-built residences often ruled them out as an option for her.)

The challenges of home affordability aren’t limited to international students, as students of all origins, in Toronto and beyond, often scramble to find affordable homes — like so many individuals and families with limited incomes. But city hall staff have noted newcomers at its colleges and universities are often making do with the lousiest living conditions, attributed in a recent city housing plan to “significantly” higher tuition and limits on their ability to work.

For Yadav, the doorless den she leased in late 2021 — after days of fruitlessly scouring Kijiji and messaging landlords — made her feel like she was walking on eggshells, with virtually zero privacy between her and her roommate. She tried to be out of the apartment as much as possible, and it wore on her mental health. “I remember I was always so stressed and always so low on energy that my friends would say, ‘Hey, is anything wrong with you?’” she recalled.

“It really does affect the relationships around you, the way you work, the way you study.”

After five months, she decided to test her luck again, with a budget that topped out at $1,500 per month, though she was hoping to keep closer to $1,000. But in Toronto, even studio units were going for higher rates. In the end, she found her single room in the basement of a house, which came with a $700 price tag and two other tenants sharing the floor. Yadav is grateful to have it — she said her landlord upstairs was kind, and really tried to offer students who’d newly arrived in Canada a “homey family environment.”

Many others she knew weren’t so fortunate.

Faria, the housing secretariat director, said international students, especially, can often be in the dark about their rights as a tenant — citing the findings of an ongoing working group tasked with probing student housing problems. “This presents a safety concern, as international students may be more vulnerable to predatory landlords and poor living conditions.”

One particular housing arrangement that has worried Toronto colleges and universities is the unregulated rooming house sector — an area where major changes are looming.

In December, council voted — after many years of debate — to legalize and license rooming houses citywide as of March 2024. This kind of rental, where tenants lease single bedrooms with shared kitchens and washrooms, often come with lower price tags than any other private market option and have long existed across the city. But they were illegal in Scarborough, East York and North York, and could be unlicensed in the old Metro Toronto and Etobicoke.

The idea of legalization, as staff proposed it, was to ensure rooming houses were safer and more regulated. In reports, staff pointed to devastating outcomes in the unlicensed market, with roughly 10 per cent of Toronto’s residential fire deaths from 2010 to 2020 in rooming houses — a grim count that would include the death of 18-year-old Helen Guo, an international student who’d just finished her first year of business management at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus. Of the 18 rooming houses where fires caused death or serious injury, 16 were unlicensed. And along with seniors on fixed incomes and low-income households, immigrants and students were seen as the most likely rooming house tenants.

“Students, post-secondary institutions and community members all expressed safety concerns for students living in overcrowded and unsafe living conditions,” the staff report recommending cross-city legalization and licensing read, while also noting that some areas of Toronto located near college and university campuses had seen a particular concentration of student-aimed rooming houses “due to the lack of alternative affordable rental housing options.”

Faria, in her statement, noted that city staff have been asked to develop a post-secondary-specific housing strategy alongside academic institutions. The vision had to go beyond residences, she suggested, noting the city hoped to convince schools to plan new affordable housing for students, staff and faculty on land they own. “It is critical that the post-secondary institutions themselves commit to building new housing as part of their long-term strategic plans in order to attract top students and faculty, and to maintain a global advantage,” she wrote.

Looking back to when she first arrived, Yadav said she wished there was more transparency from schools in their recruitment materials for international students, making sure they knew not only what kind of rental market they would face, but potential traps and pitfalls to look out for when searching for a place to stay. She’d seen people fall for rental scams, having sent money from overseas for a house or room that didn’t exist.

That same openness about the housing reality could apply to officials in Canada’s immigration process, she suggested. “Just be more open and clearer about the crisis that’s going on.”

Yadav is now nearing the end of her two-year program at Humber — a time in which she immersed herself in a student union and found a part-time job with a PR agency that excites her about her future. She hopes to make the jump to a full-time role, and carve out a life for herself in the city. “I’m hoping my salary will be increased enough to sustain myself renting a studio. I’m not even thinking about a one-bedroom right now,” she told the Star one recent afternoon.

She’s seen too many of her fellow international students pack up and leave, not simply because they struggled to find their footing right away, but because — like so many other individuals and families citywide — they felt their long-term housing hopes were simply unattainable in Toronto.

“I know so many people that are moving out of Toronto or Ontario after living here for five, six years because they cannot afford a house. They’re going to Calgary, they’re going to places like Saskatchewan,” Yadav said. “So many people are moving out — even out of Canada and going back home to their countries. Everything comes down to the housing conditions.”

It’s the kind of conclusion she hopes officials take heed of as immigration continues to flow.

“They’re just inviting people in — and they don’t have the right resources to support them.”

Source: She came to Canada for an education. Desperate for a place to live, she had to rent a room with no door

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Laying down routes: Here’s what transit in the GTA needs to keep up with Canada’s population boom

2023/07/05 Leave a comment

Another example of the disfunctionality in immigration, not planning and implementing for the effects of the large number of immigrants and temporary residents:

Like most immigrants to Canada, when Srikeit Tadepalli first came to Toronto from Mumbai, India, in February, he had a laundry list of things to do to get settled: get his social insurance number and his permanent residency card, apply for OHIP, look for a job and a place to live, and get to know the city.

Arriving in Toronto in the middle of winter without a car, Tadepalli was grateful for Toronto’s well-connected and accessible transit system. But particularly in the beginning, he had trouble navigating it.

“For such a developed transit system, there is very little communication directed towards newcomers about how to get around using transit in the city,” Tadepalli said. “Basic stuff, like: What is a PRESTO card? Where do I get a PRESTO card? … Even to this day, I sometimes struggle with it.”

Tadepalli is just one of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who come to Canada each year, a number that continues to grow, with the federal government pledging last year to welcome 1.5 million more people by 2025. If trends continue, most of these people will settle in Toronto and surrounding municipalities, where immigrants already make up around half of the population.

Even with all of its challenges, Toronto’s transit system is among the best in the world, with several big projects underway promising to make the GTA even more connected. Still, new immigrants and transportation experts say there is more the city can be doing to help newcomers get around: from small tweaks, like better communication targeted at newcomers, to expanding surface transit with a focus on the suburbs. Also crucial to support a growing population will be shoring up the TTC’s finances, with current shortfalls threatening the transit system’s ability to operate with adequate service and maintain a state of good repair.

Tadepalli said basic instructional videos targeted at newcomers about how to use the TTC would have gone a long way when he first arrived. In his first few days in the city, Tadepalli said he got on the streetcar assuming he could pay for his fare on board, then was told he had to come back with exact change or a loaded PRESTO card. He ended up relying on independent YouTubers to show him the ropes.

The TTC is always looking to improve, spokesperson Stuart Green said in a statement, adding the transit agency is creating an “enhanced wayfinding strategy” to make navigating the system simpler. On maps and signage, the TTC uses words, symbols, colours and numbers to help all customers, Green added. The TTC’s website also has a Google translate function which can translate to over 100 languages.

Transportation is one of the most critical aspects of Canada’s infrastructure for newcomers. It serves as a gateway for economic participation, getting people to school or work, gives immigrants access to important services such as health care and language lessons, and allows people to travel to enjoy different aspects of city life.

Already people in Canada’s densest city are finding it harder than ever to get around, especially in a downtown core paralyzed by construction. Toronto’s traffic congestion ranks among the worst in the world. It’s taking almost as long to travel by car as it did before the pandemic, even with fewer vehicles on the road, according to city data.

Meanwhile, the city cut TTC service and hiked fares this year to make up for lagging ridership on the transit system, which faces a $366-million operating shortfall this year. Unless the provincial and federal governments step up, the TTC will not have enough money to run the system at current levels or replace aging trains and buses.

When newcomers first come to Canada, they are more likely to rely on public transit, cycling and walking than established immigrants and Canadian-born people, said Valerie Preston, professor of urban social geography at York University. That means that expanding and investing in the TTC and regional transit, as well as building walkable, mixed-use neighbourhoods, will be essential for supporting more immigration.

“If we’re going to have half a million people arrive every year, and we’re also trying to meet our climate goals, those people need to be able to live in places where they can either use transit, and it’s efficient to use transit, or they can walk to and from work,” Preston said.

It’s not all bad. Toronto is beginning to invest in public transit after several decades of neglect. The 15.5-kilometre Ontario Line subway, when complete in about a decade, will run from Exhibition Place to the Ontario Science Centre through the heart of downtown, bringing 227,500 more people within walking distance to transit, according to Metrolinx, the provincial agency overseeing the project.

While locals are quick to complain about the TTC, which can be unreliable and crowded, many who come here marvel at the efficiency of the system.

“The connection, from buses, to GO trains, to trams, everything is very, I would say, flawless,” said Akbar Siddiqui, who came to the city one month ago from Mumbai and lives with his wife in Etobicoke. “I come from a country where the transportation network is a little flawed. There are a lot of delays. Everything is very congested primarily because in India, back in Mumbai, there are a lot of people, in a relatively small area.”

Still, Toronto is not where it needs to be to move a growing population, said longtime transit watcher and blogger Steve Munro.

“We have to stop assuming that building a couple of subway lines will solve our transportation problems.” As the city becomes more populated, and living downtown becomes less affordable, people are increasingly being pushed further from the city, meaning the demand for transit is becoming more diffuse, Munro said.

In 2021, the distant suburbs (30 minutes or more from downtown) of Canada’s three biggest cities — Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal — grew at a faster rate than the urban fringe or suburbs closer to the core, according to StatCan.

Newly elected mayor Olivia Chow has promised to invest in transit and active transportation, including by reversing recent TTC cuts and creating a dedicated busway in Scarborough. But the TTC is facing a significant money crunch that cannot be solved at the city level alone. The TTC relies on the farebox to fund about two-thirds of its operating costs, and ridership is currently just 74 per cent of what it was before the pandemic. On top of this year’s $366-million deficit, the transit agency anticipates an “operating pressure” next year as high as $600 million, according to a recent CEO report to city council.

The TTC is also short on money to maintain, and invest in, capital. The TTC recently cancelled a Request for Proposals for new subway trains because it did not get the funding it needed from the provincial and federal governments. The trains it had intended to replace are currently between 24 and 27 years old, with an intended life of 30 years.

“The combined operating and capital investments required to sustain the level and quality of transit service required to support Canada’s largest city cannot be supported solely through expenditure reductions, or revenue streams currently available to the TTC,” the recent CEO report warned. Ottawa announced in April that it would chip in $349 million to help the TTC buy more electric buses, but no new money to help run them.

“We need to really think about how we’re going to move hundreds of thousands more people with the same amount of road space,” said Steve Farber, transportation geographer and spatial analyst at the University of Toronto. Farber and Munro agree that the best way to accommodate a growing population over the short term is to invest in the city’s bus network, and to give those buses the right of way, so that more people can move more efficiently.

“We have to think about making transit a more desirable option for a much larger number of potential trips,” Farber said. “So, in the short run, get buses moving faster and more frequent everywhere. I think that will move the needle quite a lot.”

Tadepalli said even with its shortcomings, the TTC has been a lifeline for him since he got to the city, and continuing to invest in it will be crucial for future immigrants to thrive.

“Without affordable, accessible and clear information about transit, a lot of immigrants tend to not engage with the city and to stay home.”

Source: Laying down routes: Here’s what transit in the GTA needs to keep up with Canada’s population boom

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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