Ismail: Canada welcomes record number of newcomers. Now what?

2023/05/04 Leave a comment

Raises many of the needed issues but remains fixed on current and planned levels as well as uncapped temporary residents. As I have argued before, unlikely that Canada will be able to address its housing, healthcare and infrastructure needs given these numbers.

And it is striking that IRCC has not published any data on the use of settlement services since 2016, even though the government spends over one billion annually. The only semi-public data we have are web enquiries which are low, between 10-15,000 per month, about a third of pre-pandemic levels:

Canada announced recently it had reached a significant milestone: welcoming over 30,000 Afghan refugees to the country since 2021, putting it on track to resettle at least 40,000 by the end of 2023.

Newcomers are critical in shaping the nation’s economy, particularly given the ongoing challenges around an aging population and persistent post COVID-19 labour shortages.

In 2022, Canada welcomed 437,180 immigrants — the highest on record, according to Statistics Canada. Further, the government announced a plan to welcome 1.5 million more by 2025.

Despite the need and the numbers, we continue to hear stories of highly skilled and foreign-trained newcomers facing challenges in transitioning to life in Canada.

The concept of the “Canadian Experience” is still a stereotype for some employers and creates barriers to joining the labour market and expediting the settlement process. Additionally, the costs and availability of housing are major issues — as it is for many Canadians. While efforts are being made by the government and settlement services to encourage newcomers to settle outside of major urban centres, there is a lack of vital support in those areas.

While some may see newcomers as a burden on our system, the numbers prove that to be the opposite. Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows that refugees join Canada’s middle-class within five years of their arrival and, over time, pay more in income taxes on average than they receive in public benefits and services. 

When it comes to home ownership, 65 per cent of refugee families who have been in Canada for 10 years or more live in homes they own, compared to 70 per cent of Canadian born citizens.

As Canada welcomes more people from around the world, the need for infrastructure to support the growth in our housing markets, schools, and health care systems, is critical. The appropriate funding and management of this growth needs to be considered by all levels of government, and support from various organizations, like Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services, is paramount.

Between 2021 and 2022, Polycultural’s Afghan Initiative Program supported over 7,000 government-assisted refugees who were brought to Canada under the emergency evacuation initiative. And the organization has also provided settlement and housing supports to nearly 1,500 Ukrainian temporary residents under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel. Overall, over 30,000 immigrants were supported by Polycultural over the last year.

Polycultural works with Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), provincial, regional, and local partners to address the needs of the refugees, including providing employment services, language classes, access to health care, and support in finding housing.

By 2036, up to 30 per cent of the country’s population will be immigrants. The government and its partners should continue to aid newcomers and advocate for the funding and investments that enable Canada’s newest citizens to truly thrive in their new home.

Marwan Ismail is the executive director of Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services, a charitable, non-profit, community-based agency.

Source: Canada welcomes record number of newcomers. Now what?

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

The Line Is Blurring Between Remote Workers and Tourists

2023/05/03 Leave a comment

Interesting implications for governments:

For years, cities, states and regions have been competing to lure corporate headquarters and offices, an arms race of ever-higher tax breaks and infrastructure projects cobbled together to benefit corporate executives and their shareholders. The spectacle of hundreds of American communities bidding against each other for Amazon’s now-paused HQ2 was both the pinnacle and nadir of this genre. But the remote revolution is upending this traditional model of economic development. The last two years of pandemic have accelerated previous trends, shining a spotlight on an alternative to the corporate sweepstakes, one in which cities chase the workers themselves. 

With many Americans newly willing to relocate and remote work vastly expanding the playing field of potential locations, smaller cities and regions need to be ready to capture their share of this windfall of migratory talent. While some of tomorrow’s destinations patiently wait for their turn in the sun, others have resorted to gimmicks — such as a $10,000 bonus, or $10,000 and a mountain bicycle, or $10,000 in Bitcoin — with less-than-stellar results.More fromBloomberg Citylab

Even the original and most successful of these programs, Tulsa Remote, has settled only 2,000 new arrivals since 2018, or roughly 0.2% of metro Tulsa’s population. That shouldn’t be surprising; these are relatively small-budget affairs. Many of these pandemic-era programs launched by cities ranging from Savannah to Helsinki used little more than mothballed travel budgets to seed their fledgling efforts. And even more mature efforts such as those in Tulsa or Northwest Arkansas (Bentonville and Fayetteville) still rely on philanthropic rather than public funding. Approaches such as these are forward-thinking but not scalable. 

Simultaneously, and in parallel, tourism departments are struggling to respond to a changing world of tourism. While tourism agencies’ historic target audience has been three-day weekend visitors, remote work and the rise of digital nomadsmeans that stays are increasingly in the 30-day range. According to Deloitte’s 2023 Travel Outlook, travelers willing to bring work with them take twice as many trips and, of those “laptop luggers,” more than a third are adding three or more days to their vacation to accommodate working remotely while traveling. Airbnb reported in May 2022 that long-term stays of more than 28 days were their fastest-growing category by trip length compared to 2019, more than doubling in size from Q1 2019. And United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has declared a “permanent structural change” in the industry as business and leisure travel have become indistinguishable.

These two developments — a growing, restless class of remote workers, and a tourism market of people who spend more of their time traveling — are more than related; they’re different facets of the same phenomenon. The line between remote workers and tourists is blurring, and communities big and small need to think strategically about how to position themselves to take advantage of this changing landscape.

The New Talent Attraction Landscape

When cities try to lure or retain companies, they play a B2B game. When they adjust their strategy to try and court a highly mobile class of talented workers, the model shifts to B2C. And that transformation requires a change both in how city agencies are structured and in their culture. 

The simplest transformation would be combining economic development and tourism offices into something customer- and resident-focused. Call it the Department of Hospitality. Ohio is already inching in this direction, with a proposal to rename TourismOhio as  the State Marketing Office and expand its mission to attract residents, students and workers — in addition to tourists. 

Whether it’s renaming agencies or merging them, the transformation entails a new way of doing business. Any new department would shift from the high-upside, low-volume business of luring corporate headquarters to the low-margin, high-volume approach of direct sales. This may entail shifts to the make-up of staff, messaging and strategy. And it will mean broadening the customer-facing programs to transform first-time buyers (visitors) into loyal customers (residents). 

Whether this entails connecting newcomers with reliable Wi-Fi and work spaces, familiarizing short-term tourists with housing options and family amenities, or merely keeping track of and welcoming new transplants to help them assimilate and feel supported over time, the work is critical. In a world where there are now hundreds of competing cities chasing the same residents/customers, the cities that figure out how to make their visitors’ and residents’ lives easier are going to have a massive competitive advantage.

To achieve this, cities will have to train their employees for a new era of increasingly important customer service. This would be a sea change for the vast majority of cities, and culture change at municipal agencies is notoriously difficult.

Whether these new offerings are gathered under the umbrella of merged economic development and tourism agencies or, less effectively but more feasibly, a well-choreographed coordination between the two as standalone agencies, this culture change will have to infuse their programs, combining economic development agencies’ ability to expedite city processes and tourism departments’ expertise in marketing. 

This effort will require employees of a sort not normally associated with the public sector: people who act as point-of-contact assistance for new and recent arrivals. Imagine one part hotel concierge, one part HR onboarding expert, and one part university student life expert who has experience welcoming and orienting a constant wave of new residents. 

A smattering of examples exist in the field.

Evan Hock launched MakeMyMove as a one-stop shop for Indiana communities, but today his site boasts more than 150 destinations across the US. One is Greater Lafayette, Indiana, which offers arrivals a $10,000 incentives package, including relocation costs and work space on campus at Purdue University — the first partnership of its kind. “A lot of what we’re doing now is helping communities set up this kind of infrastructure and then obtain funding to keep it going,” Hock says. To that end, Indiana’s legislature amended the state’s tax credit toolkit last year authorizing municipalities to use government funds on these kinds of programs.

A few states away, the Greater Topeka Partnership has lured 99 workers from over 25 states to date with its own $10,000 incentives program. But the small program has contended with the challenges of connecting participants to the right amenities, according to Bob Ross, the partnership’s senior vice president of marketing and communications. One participant dropped out due to a lack of coworking spaces; another ended up in a broadband dead zone and had to relocate — unforced errors that might have been avoided by a more comprehensive citywide strategy. “We’ve ended up doing a lot of that lift ourselves, which is probably a little beyond our bandwidth,” Ross says. “Cities are going to have to find ways to answer those questions more efficiently.”

Incremental Change

For most city agencies, change will come slowly. A more practical question may then be, what do incremental steps look like and how can they be achieved?

Cassandra Costello, executive vice president and chief policy and external affairs officer at the San Francisco Travel Association, has operated in this interstitial space for years. Her position was designed specifically to liaise between economic development and tourism — a rarity in the industry — but it provides her a wide-angle view on how the changing landscape affects the day-to-day operation of government.

Pre-pandemic, tourism was solidly San Francisco’s number one industry, growing for ten straight years and drawing nearly 26 million visitors who spent over $10 billion annually. After Covid brought this growth to an immediate halt, “tourism was no longer taken for granted, but instead, proved to be an industry that you had to work for to be able to compete on a global scale for visitation,” says Costello. 

This challenging environment puts it on par with other corporate attraction efforts. And with Costello’s perch on committees within the planning, parks, and economic development agencies, she is increasingly able to give a voice to tourists within the city’s economic development machinery. Having someone from SF Travel add their voice to land use and economic development issues gives more context to complex political decisions, often bringing a broader, even global perspective to issues that can feel hyper-local. 

Costello’s work shows that, as the line between short-stay tourists and residents blurs, improved resident amenities are going to be even more important to economic development than they were in the past — to the benefit of both new residents and old. “What is good for the visitor is great for the employee, resident and for business attraction,” she says. “Tourism can also help to bring people to downtown core areas seeing less foot traffic due to work from home policies.” 

As an economic development strategy, talent attraction is not going away. And neither, clearly, is remote work. Small and midsize American cities, traditionally muscled out of the business attraction game, have been quick to seize on this transformation. Larger cities, even the heavyweights with legacy business clusters and resilient brands, are slowly pivoting their attention to this new way of doing business. A more consumer-oriented approach will improve the quality of service for all residents, regardless of how often they move, by making them feel more taken care of and more welcome. What’s good for the guest is good for the host, especially when the guest might never leave.

Lev Kushner is the founder of Department of Here, a strategic communications and economic development consultancy.

Greg Lindsay is an urban tech fellow at the Jacobs Urban Tech Hub at Cornell Tech.

Source: The Line Is Blurring Between Remote Workers and Tourists

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Temporary foreign worker program must have open work permits

2023/05/03 Leave a comment

A more modest proposal than permanent status for all but unlikely given some business community opposition:

If your boss asked you to pay him $1,000 in cash to keep your job, expected you to work without safety equipment or holiday pay, or told you to sleep on the floor in the apartment he was renting to you … you would probably quit. I hope you would.

But if you are a temporary foreign worker this may not feel like an option for you.

The Canadian temporary foreign worker program continues to grow, as companies grapple with labour shortages in many sectors. Last year an estimated 220,000 temporary foreign workers came to Canada and this number is likely to be even higher next year as the federal government relaxes restrictions on the program.

Will the number of abuses increase too? Probably, unless we change the way the program is administered.

The biggest problem right now is closed work permits. Temporary foreign workers must stay with the employer who hires them. If temporary foreign workers quit or are fired they can only work for a new employer who happens to have an unfilled labour market impact assessment (LMIA), or they have to return home. And because temporary foreign workers all have closed work permits, they sometimes endure working conditions that Canadian employees would walk away from.

Open work permits, in contrast, would give temporary foreign workers the same flexibility that Canadians take for granted. Open work permits would allow them to quit a job that is abusive and move to any other employer that will hire them. Interestingly, open work permits are already offered to temporary foreign workers who can demonstrate that they are being mistreated. But at that point the abuse has already happened. And many temporary foreign workers are reluctant to report abusive employers because they are (mistakenly) worried about jeopardizing their future chances to apply for permanent residency. 

Open work permits are also more flexible for employers. With one, a temporary foreign worker can be promoted easily or moved to where they are needed most within an organization, especially as they gain more experience and their skills improve. Companies’ needs change quickly, and this flexibility can be crucial in a competitive environment. Some temporary foreign workers could even work at a second part-time, short-term, or seasonal job, if they wanted.

To be sure, some advocacy groups would argue that we should immediately grant citizenship or permanent residency to all temporary foreign workers as soon as they arrive in Canada. However, the amount of bureaucracy involved would also increase dramatically, slowing down a process that is already very cumbersome. When companies are hiring workers they usually need someone immediately. Temporary foreign workers who are seeking work also need to be able to work as soon as possible.

Granting immediate permanent residency to all temporary foreign workers would also give the companies that use the temporary foreign worker program, such as slaughterhouses and fast-food restaurant chains, much greater involvement in deciding who immigrates to Canada. Most Canadians would not be comfortable with more corporate involvement in Canadian immigration decisions.

Of course, with open work permits some companies might complain that their investment — the worker they just recruited — will walk out the door. Temporary foreign workers are more expensive and time consuming to recruit than Canadians. Companies pay $1,000 just to apply for a LMIA that enables them to recruit temporary foreign workers, and they may also have to pay for the worker’s transportation or housing costs. 

However, the risk of their new worker leaving is the incentive for companies to treat their temporary foreign workers well. Companies should not choose workers just because they cannot quit. 

Every few weeks we hear about more temporary foreign workers being exploited or mistreated. The government continues to tinker with the temporary foreign worker program, so these abuses continue. Open work permits would enable these workers to walk away from bad jobs, just like any Canadian.

Catherine Connelly is a Canada Research Chair in organizational behaviour at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University and the author of “Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program.”

Source: Temporary foreign worker program must have open work permits

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Dutrisac: Langues officielles, inégalité réelle

2023/05/03 Leave a comment

More on Quebec language concerns and immigration aspects:

Le gouvernement Trudeau a présenté son nouveau Plan d’action pour les langues officielles 2023-2028 avant même que ne soit voté le projet de loi C-13 qui donne un peu de mordant à l’actuelle loi sur les langues officielles. Ce plan reconduit la somme consentie dans la précédente version 2018-2023, tout en y ajoutant 1,4 milliard pour atteindre 4,1 milliards.

C’est un niveau d’investissement dont on dit qu’il est « historique ». On ne sait si ce sont les retards qu’a connus l’étude détaillée du projet de loi C-13 qui font que le plan vient avant l’adoption de la nouvelle loi, ce qui devrait survenir en mai à la Chambre des communes. Manifestement, nul besoin de nouveaux pouvoirs législatifs pour financer la kyrielle d’initiatives fédérales destinées à soutenir le français hors Québec et l’anglais au Québec.

À cet égard, l’offensive des députés libéraux de l’île de Montréal Anthony Housefather, Marc Garneau et Emmanuella Lambropoulos n’a peut-être pas permis de retirer toute référence à la Charte de la langue française dans le projet C-13, mais au moins, le gouvernement Trudeau a senti le besoin d’amadouer les Anglo-Québécois en réservant une enveloppe de 137,5 millions pour financer divers services destinés à la minorité anglophone. Feignant la surprise, le ministre de la Langue française, Jean-François Roberge, aurait voulu qu’une partie de ces sommes servent à la francisation des anglophones. De son côté, l’organisme de pression Quebec Community Groups Network a bien accueilli le plan qui financera un meilleur accès, si c’est possible, à la justice, à l’éducation, aux soins de santé et aux services sociaux, tous des services assurés par le gouvernement québécois, pour les « 1,3 million de Québécois de langue anglaise ». On notera que cette définition des anglophones ne se limite pas aux 7 % que représente la minorité historique, comme le conçoit Québec. Le groupe se réjouit particulièrement que le plan mette l’accent sur la diversité et l’inclusion, ce qui représente des « opportunités » pour la communauté anglophone et son rayonnement.

Il va sans dire que la situation des francophones hors Québec est tout autre. D’une façon générale, le plan fut bien reçu quoiqu’à bien des égards les problèmes d’accès à des services en français, que ce soit en matière de garderies, d’écoles, de collèges et universités, de cours de justice et de soins de santé, demeureront entiers.

En campagne électorale, le gouvernement Trudeau avait promis 80 millions par an pour l’éducation postsecondaire : le plan ne prévoit que 32 millions, souligne le média Francopresse. Les déboires de l’Université Laurentienne à Sudbury, qui s’est déclarée insolvable, la difficulté de mettre sur pied l’Université de l’Ontario français à Toronto, et la précarité du Campus Saint-Jean de l’Université de l’Alberta, notamment, contrastent avec le développement débridé des universités McGill et Concordia au Québec.

Alors que se déploient des services de garde à la petite enfance partout au pays comme il en existe déjà au Québec, il est loin d’être assuré que des garderies de langue française seront accessibles en dépit de l’aide de 50 millions en cinq ans que prévoit le plan d’action dévoilé la semaine dernière par la ministre des Langues officielles, Ginette Petitpas Taylor.

Les données du recensement de 2021 ont montré un déclin du français au Québec. En Acadie, le recul fut encore plus marqué. Dans le reste du Canada, seules des métaphores funestes conviennent pour évoquer la situation. En Ontario, par exemple, le pourcentage de la population qui parle français de façon prédominante à la maison a glissé sous la barre des 2 % alors que les Ontariens sont deux fois plus nombreux à se qualifier comme francophones.

Pour contrer ce déclin, Ottawa mise sur l’immigration francophone. Le plan d’action prévoit consacrer 100 millions de plus, pour un total de 222 millions, afin de soutenir cet apport.

Dans son mot d’introduction, Justin Trudeau s’est félicité du fait que, pour la première fois, la cible d’immigrants francophones hors Québec avait été atteinte l’an dernier avec l’admission de 16 300 immigrants de langue française. L’objectif est fixé à 4,4 %, ce qui représente le pourcentage de francophones hors Québec en 2001, une proportion qui a chuté de 3,5 % depuis. Mais cette politique est un leurre : à ce rythme, pour rétablir le pourcentage de 2001, il faudrait répéter l’« exploit » pendant près de 100 ans, et ce, sans même tenir compte de la formidable puissance assimilatrice du Canada anglais. Ce n’est pas sérieux.

Avec le projet de loi C-13, le gouvernement libéral délaisse en principe la doctrine, élaborée par Pierre Elliott Trudeau, de la parfaite symétrie entre l’anglais et le français en situation minoritaire. Le gouvernement libéral promet d’établir une « égalité réelle » plutôt qu’une « égalité formelle » entre les deux langues officielles. Or, c’est plutôt une inégalité tant réelle que formelle que continueront à supporter les francophones hors Québec dans ce pays essentiellement anglophone.

Source: Langues officielles, inégalité réelle

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Canada’s costly housing market leaves international students open to exploitation

2023/05/02 Leave a comment

No questioning, of course, of whether or not Canada should set levels for students, along with temporary foreign workers, to reduce housing and other pressures. Or whether the government should review existing designated learning institutions (DLI), particularly private colleges, given their recruitment practices:

Skyrocketing rent prices in Canada’s major cities are leaving more and more people struggling to find an affordable place to live. National conversations about the housing crisis often overlook a growing segment of the population that is extremely vulnerable to housing discrimination, rent gouging, rights abuses and sexual harassment: international students. 

Canada had more than 807,000 international students in 2022, around 40 per cent of whom come from India. While all these students need housing, many face discrimination in the rental market. Tania Das Gupta’s ongoing research into Punjabi newcomers in Canada has found that some landlords discriminate against international students based on gender and ethnicity. 

Discriminatory ads

An online search for rentals shows many ads for properties that are available to international students. In addition, many ads are aimed at Indian students with landlords seeking tenants who are vegetarian or from particular regions of India. 

The wording in the ads seems innocuous, but many can be discriminatory and prey on international students. Landlords often demand large upfront payments. And international students are often sought because their relatively recent arrival in Canada and temporary migration status means they are less likely to complain. 

Housing as a human right

Even though these ads violate the Ontario Human Rights Code, they continue to be posted on public websites. The code defines the right to be free from discrimination in housing as “not only the right to enter into an agreement and occupy a residential dwelling, but also the right to be free from discrimination in all matters relating to the accommodation.” 

Das Gupta’s ongoing research features in-depth interviews with students and service providers. Respondents have shared that many live-in landlords tend to infantilize and over-monitor them. Others, especially female international students, have experienced sexual harassment and assault as well as sexual exploitation.

A 2018 survey at McGill University found that 38.6 per cent of international students experienced sexual harassment and 23.6 per cent experienced sexual assault. 

Sub-standard, illegal and overcrowded housing

Accommodation aimed at international students can often be sub-standard, over-crowded and unsafe. Many often lack fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors and have pest infestations. Many secondary units in single-family homes, like basement suites, are built without permits and not to code. 

Brampton, Ont., a city where many Indian international students reside, had a vacancy rate of 0.8 per cent in 2019, which is well below the minimum of three per cent considered acceptable. It is no wonder then that Brampton has an estimated 50,000 illegal units. 

This is dangerous and can lead to tragic outcomes. In January, an international student in Cape Breton, N.S. died in a fire in an overcrowded international student house. In December 2022, Cape Breton University advised international students to defer coming to Canada because of the shortage of suitable accommodation.

Another common issue with housing for international students is overcrowding. With rental costs increasingly unaffordable, many students are renting single rooms with others. Some online ads even offer a room with only one bed that is to be shared with another tenant the student does not know. One ad on Kijiji stated: “looking for 1 Indian girl to share one room with another Punjabi girl.”

Screenshot of an ad on the website Kijiji for a shared room in a house in Brampton, Ont. Author provided

Stories of landlord harassment and wrongful evictions are common across Canada. These incidents combined with the costly rental market mean that homelessness is a common experience for students. A 2018 study found that more than 31 per cent of post-secondary students experience some type of homelessness. 

While the study did not focus on international students in particular, Das Gupta’s ongoing research shows that homelessness is common with stories of some students sleeping in their cars because they cannot afford rent.

Ending the culture of exploitation

A recent CTV W5 investigation exposed how international students at Cape Breton University and other Canadian post-secondary institutions are strategically recruited because they pay significantly higher tuition fees than Canadians.

The extreme nature of the crisis at the university led students to speak out and advocate for the rights of international students, including raising awareness that complaining about human rights abuses, sexual assaults or other crimes will not hurt their chances of staying in Canada.

But such advocacy can only go so far. Structural changes by governments and post-secondary institutions are required and municipalities need to better regulate illegal rental units. And importantly, international students eager to voice solutions must be consulted and heeded.

Source: Canada’s costly housing market leaves international students open to exploitation

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

More immigration needed to help stave off Swiss worker shortage …

2023/05/02 Leave a comment

Of note:

“For Switzerland, it will likely become more difficult in the future to recruit [from] abroad,” said Hendrik Budliger, head of independent demographics firm Demografik in Basel. Behind this trend, he added, are an immigration level that is set to decline from 2026 and a coming wave of retirement of baby-boomer workers.

The current worker shortage is being felt across various sectors, including in the hospitality industry. Over 60% of hotels in Switzerland are unable to recruit enough staff, according to a survey by Gastrosuisse, the umbrella organisation for hotels and restaurants. With overnight stays climbing steadily, the number of unfilled full-time positions in this service sector has risen to record levels, SonntagsBlick reportsExternal link: from 2,000 in 2015 to a current total of 8,500 vacant positions.

Having exhausted possibilities to recruit locally, businesses are looking to neighbouring countries. But in Europe the number of people of working age is falling by almost three million per year, calculations by Demografik show.

“If the [Swiss] economy continues to grow at the same rate as it has in the last 20 years, there will be a shortage of around 1.3 million skilled workers in 2050,” Marco Salvi of the think tank Avenir Suisse told the newspaper. “Because skilled workers are also becoming scarce in Europe, Switzerland must increase labour migration from third countries.”

Why Switzerland needs workers from abroad

Switzerland is an attractive place to work and the country needs specialists. But work permits can be hard to come by.

Members of the hospitality industry associations have been pushing for a similar approach. Talk in Bern, however, seems to be headed in the opposite direction, with the right-wing Swiss People’s Party again putting into question the free movement of persons with the European Union. This summer the party plans to launch a “sustainability” initiative to limit population growth and migration to Switzerland.

Source: More immigration needed to help stave off Swiss worker shortage …

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Government ‘hackathon’ to search for ways to use AI to cut asylum backlog

2023/05/02 Leave a comment

For all the legitimate worries about AI and algorithms, many forget that human systems have similar biases and the additional issue of inconsistencies (see Kahneman’s Noise). Given numbers, irresponsible not to develop these tools, but take steps to avoid bias. And I think we need to get off the mindset that every case is unique as many, if not most, have more commonalities than differences:

The Home Office plans to use artificial intelligence to reduce the asylum backlog, and is launching a three-day hackathon in the search for quicker ways to process the 138,052 undecided asylum cases.

The government is convening academics, tech experts, civil servants and business people to form 15 multidisciplinary teams tasked with brainstorming solutions to the backlog. Teams will be invited to compete to find the most innovative solutions, and will present their ideas to a panel of judges. The winners are expected to meet the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, in Downing Street for a prize-giving ceremony.

Inspired by Silicon Valley’s approach to problem-solving, the hackathon will take place in London and Peterborough in May. One possible method of speeding up the processing of asylum claims, discussed in preliminary talks before the event, involves establishing whether AI can be used to transcribe and analyse the Home Office’s huge existing database of thousands of hours of previous asylum interviews, to identify trends.

Source: Government ‘hackathon’ to search for ways to use AI to cut asylum backlog

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

David: L’aide fédérale à mourir [immigration impact]

2023/05/02 Leave a comment

Of note. Quebec and rest of Canada’s widely diverging immigration levels, and the ongoing diminution of Quebec’s share of the Canadian population:

Quoi qu’il en ait dit, le ministre de la Langue française, également responsable de la Francophonie canadienne, Jean-François Roberge, n’a pas dû être surpris de constater que le nouveau plan d’action pour les langues officielles du gouvernement Trudeau prévoit de consacrer 137,5 millions de dollars à la communauté anglo-québécoise, mais pratiquement rien à la protection du français au Québec.

Depuis son adoption en 1969, la Loi sur les langues officielles repose sur le principe erroné d’une symétrie entre la situation des francophones hors Québec et celle des anglophones au Québec. Après avoir défendu cette vision hypocrite pendant plus d’un demi-siècle, Ottawa a finalement admis qu’il n’en est rien, mais cela ne change pas grand-chose en pratique.

Même s’ils sont minoritaires au Québec, on persiste à traiter les anglophones comme une espèce menacée, alors qu’ils font partie d’une majorité écrasante au Canada et en Amérique du Nord.

Les députés libéraux anglophones du Québec qui se sont indignés de voir que la nouvelle mouture (C-13) de la loi fait référence à la Charte de la langue française, toujours présentée comme un monument d’iniquité, ont voulu s’assurer que cela demeure ainsi.

Jean-François Roberge, qui ne manque pas d’humour, a expliqué que son gouvernement ne comptait pas sur Ottawa pour sauver le français au Québec. « Par contre, on s’attend à ce qu’il ne nuise pas », a-t-il ajouté.
• • • • •
Il est vrai qu’en acceptant d’harmoniser les dispositions de la Loi sur les langues officielles régissant les entreprises sous autorité fédérale avec celles de la loi 101, le gouvernement Trudeau a fait preuve de bonne volonté.

Les meilleures intentions du monde ne pourraient malheureusement pas inverser une dynamique démographique qui conduit inexorablement à une diminution accélérée de la proportion de francophones dans l’ensemble du pays au Canada, y compris au Québec.

Qu’on le veuille ou non, toute contribution fédérale à la valorisation de l’anglais au Québec ne peut que renforcer l’attraction qu’il exerce chez les immigrants, qu’on a déjà du mal à convaincre de s’intégrer à la majorité francophone.

M. Roberge, qui s’affaire à son propre plan d’action, qui doit être présenté à l’automne, suggère que l’argent destiné aux groupes qui font la promotion de l’anglais soit consacré à la francisation. Cette proposition risque d’être accueillie assez froidement par ceux qui trouvent que la loi 96 est déjà trop exigeante, notamment en ce qui concerne la francisation des entreprises.

Sans grande surprise, le Parti libéral du Québec semble prêt à se porter au secours de la communauté anglophone. Jeudi, à l’Assemblée nationale, il a empêché la mise aux voix d’une motion présentée par le Parti québécois, qui dénonçait l’importance des sommes qui lui sont destinées, par rapport à ce qui est prévu pour la protection du français, alors qu’elle bénéficie d’un réseau d’institutions qui garantissent amplement sa vitalité.
• • • • •
Si le Québec est resté sur sa faim, les communautés francophones hors Québec ont généralement bien accueilli le plan d’action fédéral, notamment les 221 millions qui serviront à stimuler l’immigration francophone.

On ne peut que souhaiter voir arriver des renforts qui les appuieront dans leur lutte pour préserver leur identité, mais une certaine perplexité est de mise. Depuis 20 ans, on a atteint une seule fois l’objectif d’une immigration francophone représentant 4,4 % de l’ensemble des nouveaux arrivants hors Québec.

La Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne (FCFA) estime qu’il faudrait atteindre le chiffre de 12 % dès l’an prochain et de 20 % en 2036 simplement pour revenir au niveau de 2001. Or, le plan d’action ne propose ni objectif précis ni échéancier.

Simplement empêcher la proportion de francophones de continuer à chuter sera encore plus difficile si le gouvernement Trudeau ouvre les vannes de l’immigration pour faire en sorte que le Canada compte 100 millions d’habitants en 2100, comme le suggère l’influent groupe « L’initiative du siècle ».

Le gouvernement Legault annoncera vraisemblablement à la fin de l’été son intention de hausser les seuils d’immigration pour les prochaines années, mais ceux-ci devront inclure une plus grande proportion de francophones.

Il faudra cependant les trouver quelque part, et l’expérience enseigne que ce n’est pas si facile. Ceux qui viendront au Québec n’iront pas grossir les rangs des communautés francophones ailleurs au pays, et vice-versa.

En réalité, face à un mal incurable, le plan d’action fédéral ressemble davantage à un programme d’aide à mourir dans la dignité, dont les Québécois devront bien se demander s’ils veulent vraiment s’en prévaloir.

Source: L’aide fédérale à mourir

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Palme McGuinness: Australia not immune to immigration anxiety, but we have no need to worry

2023/05/01 Leave a comment

Another interesting article from Australia with some similar issues and some similar optimism (although tatters may be too strong a term for Canada but some may not agree). And Canada would benefit from an independent review or commission to review the objectives and their implementation:

Fashion, ideology and political expedience have left Australia’s immigration system in tatters. Now, finally, we have a solid review of the immigration system, embraced by responsible minister Clare O’Neil. There are still details left to be finessed, but implementing the principles of the Martin Parkinson-led review will be the hard reset our visa system needs.

Not before time. Immigration anxiety is escalating around the world as countries struggle to manage the inflows of refugees and economic migrants keen to share the protection and opportunities of liberal democracy. The European Union is bickering over who should take the migrants that keep coming and who should pay. Italy, an immigration inflow frontier, elected a prime minister tasked with firming its borders. Britain brexited the discussion at great cost to its economy. In the US, migrants walking over the border are bussed around to make a political point. Immigration anxiety has moved more elections than climate anxiety.

Australia, protected by its geography, has been spared much of this. But not all. We have many problems of our own making that feed into what the Transatlantic Council on Migration identifies as the key drivers of immigration anxiety.

Our anxiety in this area, the Council finds, is caused by common factors, including some we’re facing in Australia right here, right now.

One of these is a sudden large flow of immigrants – and Australia is expecting at least 650,000 over two years. Another is the perception that new arrivals will compete with the existing population for scarce resources and opportunities – such as housing, medical care, welfare, and jobs. And then there’s the level of trust in the ability of policymakers to control inflows and deliver successful integration policies. Australia has scraped by, though fissures regularly appear on asylum seeker policy and integration. But our infrastructure, housing and services are groaning at a time when immigration is about to spike.

In the circumstances, we needed the Parkinson review a couple of decades ago. But since we have it now, now will have to do.

The review won’t build the new houses, roads or hospitals we already needed yesterday. But it might just be able to help us agree on how we can become a better nation, with the help of the people that business and the care sector need today.

That is perhaps the most important part of this review. It starts out by stating the purpose of our immigration system. Because, as the review panel writes, “clear objectives are part of the story Australians tell about why the country is taking certain action” and “when that story is lost sight of or stops being told, trust and confidence is weakened”.

The purpose laid out in the review might be expressed in modern language, but goes back to the core principles of what makes nations strong and citizens confident of their collective sovereignty.

The first principle is that immigration should build Australia’s prosperity. This should be a no-brainer, but as usual somehow partisan politics from the left and the right got in the way. So let’s say it straight: bringing in clever people adds bodies, yes, but it also raises the national IQ. Smart people generate ideas, create businesses, or win overseas business for Australian companies, which creates more jobs right here onshore. Keeping an eye on national prosperity doesn’t mean forgoing humanitarian intake (sometimes doing the right thing is just the right thing to do), but it means evaluating the overall effect of the combined intake against one very important objective: that we all benefit. This is why recent migrants are sometimes not wild about untargeted new intakes. They want to know that the country they’ve invested themselves in is going to get richer and better.

The next is enabling fair labour markets. This principle has had some less than savoury incarnations, including the White Australia policy, which limited immigration from non-European countries. Along with a large dollop of racism, the purpose of the Restricted Immigration Act of 1901 was to keep out people who would work for lower wages. It is a considerable improvement that we can now say our immigration system is designed to protect people in our society who need lower paid jobs as a step into the labour market and dispense with the racist excuse.

The review also, refreshingly, prioritises “building a community of Australians”. It recognises the importance of giving migrants the ability to set down roots and become Australian. One of the most corrosive ideas in immigration here and abroad has been the notion that a country is acting in its best interests when it treats migrants who want to stay as temporary, or guest workers. If decency doesn’t tell you people who spend their productive years in a country might find that they and their children have built a life there, not just a career, then international experience can.

Guest worker programs, like the Turkish workers Germany brought in after WWII to rebuild bombed out cities, lead to parallel societies. The children of the guest workers still wanted to stay, but spoke poor German and felt no sense of belonging. Guests don’t, to return to the housing shortage, build new accommodation for themselves and their kin. Terms like “assimilation” have gone out of style, but the review emphasises the importance of “democratic resilience and social cohesion” – a nation in which nationality is a bond is stronger and happier.

Finally, and I have to say I like this as much as the other principles which underpin the review, it puts an Orwellian caveat on all the above: break any of these rules rather than be outright barbarous. Some of the migrants we want, want to be temporary. We have to be OK with that too.

A hard reset to principle and purpose is what our immigration system desperately needs. Like all the best policy work, once it’s clearly articulated it seems just to state the bleeding obvious.

Parnell Palme McGuinness is managing director strategy and policy at strategic communications firm Agenda C. The company was engaged to work for a Liberal Party MP during the federal election. She has also worked for the German Greens.

Source: Australia not immune to immigration anxiety, but we have no need to worry

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

U.S. asks Canada to reimpose visa requirements for Mexico to stem surge of crossings at northern border

2023/05/01 Leave a comment

Request was bound to happen:

The Biden administration has been asking Ottawa to consider reimposing visa requirements for Mexican nationals visiting Canada, CBC News has learned.

At issue is the sharp increase in illegal crossings from Canada into the United States: Mexicans don’t need a visa to travel to Canada, while the U.S. requires a visa for Mexicans to enter. American border officials say some Mexican nationals are using Canada’s visa-free rule to fly into the country and then cross south illegally into America.

The Conservative government under Stephen Harper created a visa requirement in 2009 for Mexicans to stem the flow of asylum claims from Mexico. The Trudeau government relaxed it in 2016.

Source: U.S. asks Canada to reimpose visa requirements for Mexico to stem surge of crossings at northern border

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →