Manley: Canada’s empathy for refugees isn’t limitless, so securing our border is key

2023/03/30 Leave a comment

Sensible and realistic, and useful reminder of the reasons behind the STCA. The right-leaning Liberal in contrast to the op-ed Here’s a better fix for Roxham Road by his left-leaning former Cabinet colleagues Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock:

Twenty-one years after I negotiated the Safe Third Country Agreement in 2002 as part of the post-9/11 Smart Border Declaration, I applaud the changes made to that agreement this past week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Joe Biden.

The 2002 agreement enabled Canada to return to the United States individuals claiming refugee status who entered Canada from that country at designated, regular border crossings.

The new agreement simply extends that policy to individuals attempting to enter Canada through so-called “informal” border crossings like Roxham Road.

Canada sought the agreement in 2002 for reasons that seem all too familiar today. Refugee claimants found their way in huge numbers to legal border crossing areas such as Windsor, Ont., Fort Erie, Ont., and Niagara Falls, Ont.

In those days, the available support systems were overwhelmed by the large number of claimants. The refugee determination process became backlogged, often taking two years or more to reach a decision on the validity of a claim of refugee status. The number of refugee claimants were inflated by efforts of profiteers in the U.S. who collected and delivered these people to the Canadian border, often by bus from Buffalo or other central points.

In more recent years, the situation at Roxham Road developed because of a loophole in the agreement: It became a magnet simply because it, and other areas at which illegal crossings could be attempted, were not specifically included in the original agreement.

Canada’s position was, and remains, that refugee claimants, having somehow made their way to the U.S., should make their claim there. Those who choose to attempt to enter at “informal” crossings are in effect displacing or queue-jumping other claimants.

For context, it is important to remember that, in the aftermath of 9/11, many Americans falsely tried to portray Canada as a safe haven for terrorists intent on attacking the U.S. At the time, both then-senator Hillary Clinton and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who agreed on very little else, were reported to have falsely claimed that the 9/11 terrorists had entered the U.S. from Canada. Our openness as a society was being turned against us, putting at risk our commercial interests. As Ms. Clinton once said to me: “Security trumps trade.”

Since then, the world’s refugee problem has only worsened: The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that, in 2022, there were 103 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide. The enormous scale of this human tragedy is difficult to comprehend: If all these people were situated in one country, it would be the 14th most populous in the world. Most of those 103 million are in much greater danger of harm than those who have already found their way into the U.S., some of whom seek to enter Canada.

There is no question that Canada should continue to help house this burden of displaced humanity. But Canada also has a duty to its own citizens to enforce its laws and manage its territorial borders as part of its system of rule of law, both national and international, for the safety and well-being of its citizens.

Canada, in recent years, has taken in more refugees in absolute numbers than some Western countries our size or bigger. Refugees all around the world wait, often for years, in camps from which there is no escape. Canada has historically been a lifeline for many of these individuals. We can more than meet our global responsibility without taking in persons fleeing the United States.

Canadians have proven themselves to be open to immigration, demonstrating a willingness to pitch in to assist refugees, be they from African countries, Ukraine, Syria, Vietnam, or any other of the many venues of war, famine and persecution.

But Canadian goodwill is not bottomless and could be put at risk if some newcomers are perceived to be queue-jumpers, attempting to gain unfair advantage.

Past prime ministers and, no doubt, our current Prime Minister, feel and understand the burden of Canadian responsibility to the world’s victims of hunger, conflict and persecution, while also recognizing that Canadians’ generosity and sense of fair play must not be stretched beyond their limits.

John Manley is the former deputy prime minister and a current senior adviser with Bennett Jones LLP.

Source: Manley: Canada’s empathy for refugees isn’t limitless, so securing our border is key

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Axworthy and Rock: Here’s a better fix for Roxham Road

2023/03/29 Leave a comment

Predictable, and only workable in the context of the excessively high and increasing immigration levels. But not necessarily in the context of an immigration policy that takes into the account of the impact on housing, healthcare and infrastructure:

Ottawa pundits say that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau scored a political win by securing President Joe Biden’s agreement to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA). Henceforth, it will apply across the entire Canada-U.S. border, and asylum seekers can be turned away at any crossing point. Ottawa has thereby responded adroitly to Quebec Premier François Legault’s complaints about the flow of migrants entering Quebec at the infamous Roxham Road border crossing.

But there is something that neither the Prime Minister nor the President mentioned in their announcement: the impact of their decision on the men, women and children fleeing violence and persecution who had hoped to cross the Canadian border after feeling anything but safe in the United States. The vast majority are not in any way a threat to our security. They are ordinary people searching for sanctuary by putting themselves and their families at grave risk on a perilous journey, one they’d hoped would end with a Canadian border crossing.

We are left to imagine the bitter disappointment they will feel when instead of a portal to Canada they are met with a locked gate, a warning sign and no choice but to face the notoriously hostile American border security officials. As we have learned by watching the Mediterranean, some, in their desperation, will look for other points of entry to Canada by taking greater risks and putting their lives in danger. One “loophole” may have been closed, but others will no doubt appear.

“It’s what they deserve,” some will say. “Play by the rules! Don’t jump the queue!” But almost all of them are vulnerable survivors who escaped persecution and oppression simply to assert an ancient right – the right to asylum.

The right to seek asylum is codified in the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention. Before the STCA came into effect in 2002, under international law the convention obligated Canada to allow refugees to enter and remain here until the validity of their claim for asylum could be determined by a tribunal. Under the STCA, Canada effectively subcontracted this obligation to the United States.

There was another matter that neither our Prime Minister nor the President mentioned last week: the constitutional validity of the STCA is to be considered by the Supreme Court of Canada in the coming months. Depending on what the court decides, our government could end up not with a political win, but instead a major loss of credibility. The court could send Parliament back to the drawing board to legislate a new migration policy based on the paramountcy of human rights, instead of expediency.

It is fitting that the issue will hinge on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has had a major influence on Canadian attitudes toward migration. Polls have consistently shown that Canadians have a strong attachment to an open system of immigration. While Mr. Biden and Mr. Trudeau spoke of shared values, there is one major exception: Canadians differ from Americans in our commitment to pluralism and welcoming newcomers. Why, then, are we doubling down on a policy so inconsistent with that distinctive characteristic?

There is a better way. As Minister of Immigration, Sean Fraser demonstrated Canada’s openness by setting a target to welcome half a million newcomers to Canada in 2025. However, he also announced that the number of refugees admitted would be reduced from 76,000 in 2023, to 73,000 in 2025. It is not clear whether the 73,000-person figure will now include the 15,000 Central American migrants Canada promised it would assist the U.S. in resettling during President Biden’s visit last week. In any case, we should strive to dedicate 20 per cent of our 2025 immigration goal to the resettlement of forcibly displaced people, taking in at least 100,000 in 2025. We can work to build up the capacity of our U.S. diplomatic posts, and our U.S.-Canada border crossing points, to receive, process and settle those with legitimate asylum claims.

Let’s take on the diplomatic task of building a collaborative, hemispheric migration network and devote the necessary resources to make it work. We can draw on our ability to convene, and our talent for negotiation, by inviting a group of like-minded governments, civil society groups, and international organizations to a summit aimed at reviving and strengthening the imperilled right to asylum. Migration is increasing, driven by climate change and conflict. We have to get things right at our border – politically and morally.

A border that assures security while respecting asylum seekers and welcoming migrants? Now that would be a real win for Canada.

Lloyd Axworthy is a former foreign minister and current chair of the World Refugee and Migration Council. Allan Rock is a former attorney-general and minister of justice, and a member of the World Refugee and Migration Council.

Source: Here’s a better fix for Roxham Road

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Asselin: Budget 2023 – Canada’s economy faces mounting challenges – here’s how we overcome them

2023/03/29 Leave a comment

Marc Wiseman’s post, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-our-productivity-weakness-isnt-an-achilles-heel-its-a-malignancy/. another Century Initiative supporter is turning their attention to the more fundamental issue of productivity and per capita GDP rather than overall GDP:

As we approach the release of the federal budget, Canada is facing three converging and powerful challenges that require a coherent economic and fiscal strategy from the government.

The first challenge is the return of a political economy on a global scale. From the United States to Europe and Asia, countries are confronted with the challenges of national security and climate change with global competition over technological innovation and investment. By now, everyone has heard of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. Few should doubt the threat it poses to Canada’s economic competitiveness.

The second is the sustainability of the government’s current fiscal plan. Fast-rising debt-servicing costs, higher inflation for longer and diminishing fiscal firepower as a result of having doubled our federal debt during the COVID-19 crisis will all challenge the federal government’s inclination to ignore the real consequences of unconstrained spending.

The third challenge – largely a consequence of the first two – is the imperative of long-term growth. Without sustained economic growth, both our current account and federal budget deficits will continue to deteriorate, leading to an inevitable decline in Canadians’ living standards.

There are two main drivers of long-term economic growth. One of them is population growth. The government has taken action on this. Increasing high-skilled immigration is to be applauded, but an aggressive immigration policy will only work if we boost the other driver, productivity, thereby raising wages and living standards. The policy trap here is to confuse raising nominal GDP with GDP per capita, the latter being far more important for our living standards.

Increased productivity – output per worker – is the most important driver of economic growth. Recent experience suggests this is very hard to do. We need to pursue measures that will raise productivity in all sectors. In addition, and this is politically more challenging, we need to focus on expanding the sectors that hold the most promise for raising Canada’s productivity.

A country’s industrial composition matters a great deal. Certain sectors generate significantly higher output per employee and can increase productivity at a faster rate. Advanced industries are key to this goal. These sectors combine significant R&D investment and a highly qualified work force.

Sectors that invest heavily in technology and innovation tend to be more productive than others. A country with an advanced manufacturing base using artificial intelligence, robotics, genomic medicine and advanced computation will yield significant productivity gains. This is where the new frontiers of economic competitiveness are being drawn. The political economy of semi-conductors fabrication is not the same as the one for manufacturing shoes or T-shirts. One is being developed hastily, the other not so much.

Canada has a significant structural current account deficit in advanced industries, signalling a weakening of our economic competitiveness. It indicates we are not able to generate sufficient income from high-value exports to pay for our imports of advanced goods.

Canada can compete in advanced industries. We should be proud of our Canadian global champions in aerospace, agrifood, energy and automotive, all advanced industries. The problem is we don’t have enough of them.

British cabinet minister Michael Gove stated in a recent speech: “Rather than being an entrepôt, a bazaar and a duty-free exchange, a strong economy must also make, manufacture, create, innovate and shape.” He was referring to the British economy, but this applies just as much to Canada.

This is where modern industrial policy comes into play. It is a high-stakes game because politicians will often use industrial policy to justify all kinds of government interventions that have proven to be ineffective. As former U.S. Treasury secretary Larry Summers observed: “I like industrial policy advisers how I like generals. The best generals are the ones who hate war the most but are willing to fight when needed. What I worry about is the people who do industrial policy love doing industrial policy.”

Targeted policy design and execution are paramount. We need to mobilize our human capital, create a modern science and technology architecture capable of converting intellectual capital into expanding our advanced industries and high-tech manufacturing, build proper transmission channels of public R&D to industry, and create a regulatory and tax environment conducive to capital formation. In the current circumstance, the worst policy decision would be to take the easy road of spreading subsidies across sectors and all regions of the country.

Getting to the right policy outcomes is more important than political expediency. Addressing these challenges will require policy work that will go well beyond one budget.

Robert Asselin is senior vice-president of policy at the Business Council of Canada and a former adviser to two prime ministers.

Source: Budget 2023: Canada’s economy faces mounting challenges – here’s how we overcome them

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U.S., Canada kept migrant crossing deal a secret to avoid rush at the border

2023/03/28 Leave a comment

Sensible. And critics such as Brian Lilley (see below) would have rightly been all over the government had it not done so with the corresponding rush and chaos:

Canada and the United States waited a year to announce a new deal to turn asylum seekers away at unofficial border crossings, such as Roxham Road between Quebec and New York, to avoid a rush of migrants before the new rules could be enforced, the two countries said Sunday.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Cohen said it would not have served either country to disclose a deal until the planning process was complete and updated regulations were in effect. The goal was to have “an orderly transition,” he said.

Mr. Cohen said the governments feared that a premature announcement “would stimulate a large influx of migrants trying to get to Canada before that change went into place.”

“It was not in Canada’s interest to create that artificial surge of people trying to enter the country.”

On Friday, during President Joe Biden’s visit to Canada, he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that they had renegotiated the Safe Third Country Agreement, with the revised deal taking effect within hours. The changes meant that the two countries could start turning away asylum seekers whether they entered at official or unofficial border points.

Originally, the Safe Third Country Agreement, prevented people arriving via the U.S. from making asylum claims at official Canadian border crossings, but it didn’t cover unofficial ones.

Behind the scenes, the countries had already signed the deal a year earlier, in spring 2022, but the regulations that would put it into effect and allow its enforcement were only completed Wednesday, according to a document published by the U.S. government.

In the months leading up to the announcement, Canada had significantly played down the possibility of reaching an agreement with the United States. Only when Mr. Biden’s arrival in the capital on Thursday was imminent did that message change.

An administration official said changes to existing accords, such as the Safe Third Country Agreement, are subject to complicated and uncertain administrative reviews that can last two to three years after a deal is struck. Given the unknowns around implementation and the risks of people trying to get to the border before a deal was in place, the two governments only wanted to disclose the deal when it could go into effect.

Ottawa shared similar concerns about the risks of pre-emptively announcing the renegotiated deal, a federal government official told The Globe Sunday. Moreover, the individual said that Ottawa’s view was that it wasn’t a done deal until it had gone through the regulatory process. They said that within the past few weeks, the federal government had still been lobbying for an accelerated administrative review from the U.S. and it was only assured last week of its completion.

The Globe is not identifying the U.S. and Canadian officials because they were not permitted to disclose the private deliberations.

Applying the Safe Third Country Agreement uniformly across the border has been a top priority for Mr. Trudeau’s government, which has been under increasing pressure from the federal Conservatives and Quebec Premier François Legault to stem the flow of migrants at Roxham Road.

Last year, almost 40,000 people crossed into Canada at unofficial border points to make an asylum claim. Most of them arrived at Roxham Road. Smaller but growing numbers of migrants have been crossing the border in the other direction, from Canada to the U.S. They have primarily been Mexican nationals, who can enter Canada without visas.

But the much more pressing issue for the U.S. is its southern border, where between 100,000 and 200,000 migrants cross at unofficial border points each month. In a nod to the significant challenges the U.S. faces with migration from Central America, Canada on Friday also announced it would accept 15,000 more migrants from that region through legal channels.

Officials from both governments said Canada’s pledge of 15,000 more spots spurred the implementation of the renegotiated Safe Third Country Agreement.

In a joint statement, the U.S. and Canada on Friday said the changes will deter irregular migration across the border. But advocates say it will only make the situation even more precarious for asylum seekers. That’s because it risks pushing migrants to more dangerous and irregular routes and makes them more vulnerable to exploitation from traffickers.

By noon Sunday, the Canada Border Services Agency said that under the new rules, two people had been returned to the U.S. and four were deemed eligible to make an asylum claim in Canada.

Amid the suite of issues highlighted during Mr. Biden’s official visit, wasCanada’s promised spending to modernize North America’s air defences. Ahead of the trip, the U.S. had said it wanted Canada to spend more and faster on its defence upgrades.

Canada’s lagging defence spending and slow procurement processes have frequently been a point of contention with the United States. On Sunday though, Mr. Cohen said the U.S. is “generally satisfied” with the federal government’s progress.

He noted that Ottawa agreed to accelerate the installation of next-generation over-the-horizon radar in the north; committed to base upgrades in time for the arrival of new F-35 fighter jets; and reiterated its commitment to raise defence spending to 2 per cent of GDP.

Mr. Cohen also noted that Canada is in the midst of a national defence policy review, during which the U.S. is receiving classified briefings on the government’s progress.

“There’s a real satisfaction that Canada is moving in the right direction,” he said.

Source: U.S., Canada kept migrant crossing deal a secret to avoid rush at the border

But Lilley, in the Sun, his ideology blinds him to the practicalities behind the delay:

Between when the Trudeau government signed the agreement to amend the Safe Third Country agreement, and when it came into force, more than 41,000 people crossed illegally into Canada at Roxham Rd.

After we add in the numbers for March, expect the final tally to be over 45,000 or the equivalent of adding the population of Chatham, Ont., via what the government calls “irregular migration.”

While the agreement was only officially announced last Friday when U.S. President Biden was in Ottawa, it was signed almost a year ago. The official document, now released, was signed by Canada on May 29, 2022, while Americans signed it on April 15, 2022.

The agreement said that it would come into effect at a later date, but coming into force at midnight 51 weeks after it was signed seems a bit much.

“Both of our countries believe in safe, fair, and orderly migration; refugee protection; and border security. This is why we will now apply the Safe Third Country Agreement to asylum seekers who cross between official points of entry,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday when announcing the changes.

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“After midnight tonight, police and border officers will enforce the agreement and return irregular border crossers to the closest port of entry with the United States.”

This is what should have been done six years ago when the problem started, but having started the problem, Trudeau tried using it for political advantage. He was effectively importing an American wedge issue into Canadian politics, illegal immigration.

Crossing at Roxham Rd. is illegal, which is why there were big Government of Canada signs facing the American side of the border stating that fact in clear language. It’s why the RCMP would issue verbal warnings as people approached, telling them it was illegal to cross, and they would be arrested.

Once they were in Canada, though, they could declare asylum and begin a legal process to stay here.

The Safe Third country agreement recognized that Canada and the United States were safe for refugees and required people to apply in the first of the two countries they landed in. The agreement was signed two decades ago to end the problem of refugee shopping by people who were turned down on the application in one country, turning to the other.

There was a loophole, though, in that the agreement only applied at legal points of entry. That loophole was exploited by people who were mostly economic migrants trying to get a shortcut into Canada.

When Donald Trump was president, Trudeau used Roxham Rd. to show that Canada was virtuous and welcoming of immigrants while Trump was not. He tried to bait those opposed to these illegal crossings by implying they were racist, he wanted to use this for his own partisan ends.

With Joe Biden in the White House, he no longer had that edge and post-pandemic, the numbers increased. With more than 39,000 people crossing in 2022, it was a record, and the numbers for January and February were off the charts.

People who crossed into the United States illegally on the southern border — into states like Texas — were being put on a bus to New York City. Once there, officials in New York offered them bus tickets to Roxham Rd.

With record crossings, Quebec declared it was full, and the strain on their social services was too great, so the Trudeau government started bussing people to Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls.

Nothing about what has been happening was fair to anyone.

It’s not fair to Canadian taxpayers, asked to foot the bills for this make-shift system. It’s not fair to the people, mostly economic migrants, to be bussed around from place to place. It’s also not fair for the 2 million people in Canada’s immigration backlog looking to follow the rules.

It’s also not fair to people languishing in actual refugee camps around the world.

This should have been fixed years ago; once the deal was signed, it should have been implemented quickly.

Instead, Trudeau used and abused this file until it no longer served his political agenda.

Source: LILLEY: Deal to close Roxham Rd. was signed a year before taking effect

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Canada Strong and Free Network conference: Canada’s housing crisis panel excerpt

2023/03/28 Leave a comment

Notable reference to immigration and housing and how they need to align:

A panel on Canada’s housing crisis was packed with Hub contributors, including John Pasalis, who made the point that the country’s housing supply will not be able to keep up with its immigration targets.

“Governments need to sort out supply and find a way to build faster and build more before tripling our population growth. That should be a pretty basic concept, but apparently I was brought here because it’s controversial,” said Pasalis.

“You’re doing a disservice to everyone who is coming here,” said Pasalis.

Chris Spoke, a housing advocate and Hub contributor, said the issue of densification in big cities is a good one for conservative parties because they can upset big city voters who never vote for them with pro-development policies, and stem the tide of “Toronto refugees” who are moving farther out to the suburbs and pushing prices up.

“If you are a Peterborough NIMBY, you should be a Toronto YIMBY,” said Spoke.

Source: Canada Strong and Free Network conference: Canada’s housing crisis panel excerpt

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Wiseman: Canada’s productivity weakness has a greater impact than most believe 

2023/03/28 Leave a comment

Welcome greater focus on productivity and per capita GDP from by the chair of the Board of Directors of the Century Initiative, rather than just population and overall GDP growth (the Coalition for a Better Future has a tighter focus on productivity than CI but is largely composed of similar members):

When Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled her budget last year, Canada’s growth prospects were identified as a significant vulnerability and priority for the government. She sensibly recognized human capital and the green transition as the first two of three “pillars” required to tackle the problem, then identified the third as the “Achilles heel of the Canadian economy” – poor productivity.

Having recently torn my Achilles tendon, I can tell you the sharp, sudden pain experienced is quite unlike the slow, creeping problem that productivity growth has become in Canada. This is not an issue that suddenly emerged, rather it has sunk intrinsically into the fabric of our commercial activity and eroded Canada’s appetite for innovation.

Compared to peer countries, our productivity has been receding for decades, and its importance has been largely ignored by Canadian business and political leaders. An Achilles injury, while extremely unpleasant, means you hobble around for a few months until you get back on your feet – but that isn’t the case here. Our productivity stagnation continues to spread to all areas of the economy, like a malignant tumour.

While some economic indicators are rosy for Canada – unemployment is low, wages are rising – productivity rates are not. Labour productivity growth has slowed to less than 1 per cent today from 2.7 per cent in the 1960s and 1970s. The OECD has us ranked dead last of all the advanced economic countries in the world in its predictions for real GDP per capita growth from both 2020-30 and 2030-60.

While it’s widely known that Canada lags the United States, we have also fallen behind France, Germany, Britain, Australia and Italy in productivity. The Canadian work force is less productive because, on average, companies here use less capital and technology, are less innovative, and operate at a smaller scale in an economy plagued by insularity. And it’s getting worse.

It’s not just about having a more market-driven economy. Germany is outperforming us with a highly socialized economy and massive government investments in information and communications technology, as well as an advanced apprenticeship system and a business culture that prioritizes worker training.

When one works through the numbers, it is clear that the primary reason for our malaise is a lack of private-sector investment in research and development and in work force upskilling. Canada ranks 17th of OECD countries regarding the percentage of GDP spent on R&D and among the lowest of G7 peers.

To catch up, Canada must show discipline in focusing incentives to catalyze the private sector where it can have the greatest impact. We must prioritize R&D and training incentives that contribute to physical and human capital efficiency strategies.

Stagnation was less concerning during the longest bull market in history, when a forceful rising tide of monetary policy fuelling economic growth was able to mask many concerning, deeper trends. But that veil has now been removed, revealing that Canadian firms are not well-positioned to innovate and grow.

The United States contributes to our economy through its innovation and production, but it is also our biggest competitor. The number of patent applications submitted by Canadian businesses in 2020 was roughly 1.6 per cent of those submitted by American businesses, which is staggering underperformance even when GDP-adjusted.

Foreign companies and investors looking at Canada will always use the U.S. as a benchmark, given our shared geographic and cultural features. The Americans, recognizing we are at an industrial and economic turning point, have thrown down the gauntlet with public policy and private-sector initiatives to further advance their productivity growth over the coming decades. The most significant being the Inflation Reduction Act, earmarking US$500-billion in new spending and tax incentives to boost clean energy, labour skills and other areas that will contribute to future productivity growth.

To avoid falling further behind, our government should respond meaningfully in the federal budget this week. Last year’s budget introduced the yet-to-be-defined $15-billion Canada Growth Fund, which would use public money to entice more capital to invest in Canadian industry and is one of several bodies created to help Canadian firms innovate. While these are steps in the right direction, they lack the scale the U.S. can deploy and run the risk of having the government or other public bodies choosing winners, something that private capital is much more adept at.

A policy lever that Canada has considered but never implemented is an “intellectual property box,” which would tax income from patents and other intellectual property at a lower rate, effectively guarding against “poaching” from lower tax jurisdictions.

Recent budgets have attempted incentivization through things like the scientific research and development program that provides tax incentives to businesses that conduct qualifying R&D activities. These are available for eligible R&D expenditures, including depreciation expenses on capital assets – matching them to the revenue they generate over time. But programs like these need to be expanded broadly across industry and made straightforward. Unfortunately, eligible candidates often don’t receive the intended incentivesowing to narrow application of the rules by our tax regulators.

The 2022 budget included some tax incentives for small businesses, but these appear more driven by politics than sound economic planning. OECD data shows that productivity growth is typically driven by the top 10 per cent of firms in an industry – the biggest players. This year’s budget should include incentives for large firms located in sectors rife for innovation, in energy, e-commerce, advanced manufacturing, transportation and finance, to spend directly on R&D, and simplify the process so they can move with alacrity to get things built and skills developed.

On skills development, Canada has a natural advantage with its broad public support for immigration and merit-based application program that brings in a high percentage of working-age people with credentials. But immigration already accounts for almost our entire labour force growth – the greater challenge lies in ensuring new workers can contribute with their potential and skillsets.

According to Statistics Canada, more than 25 per cent of immigrants with foreign degrees end up in jobs that they are overqualified for, in roles that require a high-school diploma at most. Improving recognition of foreign credentials, simplifying our immigration processes, and strengthening training and education opportunities are all important ways to gear our human capital strategy towards productivity. With economic demands shifting quickly, employers have skin in the game and will need to intensify efforts to implement work-integrated learning.

The future of our country depends on a more productive economy, underpinned by improved R&D spend and a more skilled work force. In this budget, the government must embrace every tool at its disposal and commit to bold action if it wants to be the architect of a prosperous, innovative Canada that stands tall in the face of international competition.

Source: Canada’s productivity weakness has a greater impact than most believe

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Kershaw: Canadian immigration targets respond to, and create, generational tensions [housing availability and affordability]

2023/03/27 Leave a comment

Of note, on another externality of increased immigration levels:

There is an untold story underpinning Canada’s plans to ramp up annual immigration targets from about 250,000 to half a million by 2025.

Yes, wars, famine, discrimination, poverty and climate change offer many humanitarian reasons to welcome more people to Canada. So too do the many job vacancies in our country that need filling.

But more immigration also allows provincial and federal politicians to dodge a hard conversation with baby boomers about taxes. By dodging it, we risk harming newcomers and boomers’ kids and grandchildren. To reduce this risk, we badly need our governments to revisit changes made to taxation for the Canada Pension Plan in the mid-1990s that were not applied to medical care and Old Age Security (OAS).

Here’s the challenge: When boomers started out as young adults, there were 6.9 working-age Canadians for every person over the age of 65. Now there are 3.3.

This wouldn’t pose a problem if medical care and OAS had beenbuilt on a tax system that required Canadians to pay during their working years for health and income supports in retirement. But that isn’t how our policy works – with the exception of CPP.

By the mid-1990s, the federal government recognized that a shrinking ratio of workers to retirees required changes to CPP. To keep the program solvent for future generations, CPP shifted to a prepay system. The payments individuals contribute over their working lives are closer to the average cost of CPP benefits they are expected to use in the future. The change increased annual CPP contribution rates by 65 per cent but ensured the long-term viability of the program.

Unfortunately, Canadian governments didn’t similarly adapt revenue collection for OAS and medical care, which remain “pay as the country goes” systems. Governments collect revenue in each year to correspond (more or less) with the cost of benefits paid in that same year to whomever is using the programs.

This lack of foresight means government budgets are now in a precarious position. Boomers dutifully paid taxes according to the rules of the day. But those rules asked them to pay for the smaller percentage of retirees who came before them – not for the full cost of the medical care and income support they would actually use. As a result, those rules risk leaving unpaid bills for their offspring or insufficient public funding for the medical care and OAS on which boomers will increasingly rely.

Given this historical legacy, larger immigration targets are attractive to governments.

Rather than talk about whether boomers paid enough in taxes to fully cover the cost of their medical care and OAS, Canada plans to attract more workers to increase the total number of people available to pay taxes.

This might have been a fine solution, but our invitation to come to Canada isn’t what it used to be.

It now takes 17 years to save a down payment on an average home in Canada, compared with five to seven years in the 1970s through the 1990s. Whereas in decades past it was possible for newcomers to believe in the Canadian dream that a good home was within reach for a hard-working family, that dream has become increasingly elusive, especially in British Columbia and Ontario.

A sad reality is that the children of immigrants who arrived in the 1970s to the 1990s often struggle with housing affordability more than their parents did. They struggle even though they may have acquired better educations and found better-paying jobs than their parents did upon arriving in Canada decades earlier.

Here we uncover a hard truth. The much larger numbers of newcomers our governments aim to attract will join younger Canadians in the search for affordable housing – and will struggle to find it. Through no fault of their own, a rising number of newcomers will amplify demand for housing, driving up home prices. Rising prices increase housing wealth for long-time homeowners, often boomers – and this additional housing wealth is largely sheltered from taxation.

The irony should not be lost on anyone. The very solution that enables governments to avoid asking boomers to pay more in taxes for their medical care and OAS contributes to many boomer homeowners gaining tax-sheltered wealth. All the while, that strategy erodes housing affordability for their kids and grandchildren, along with the newcomers we welcome to our country.

It’s no surprise that politicians want to avoid talking to boomers about taxes, because that’s a risky business come election time. But we have to find a way to overcome this reticence by returning to the question: Why did we change taxation for CPP decades ago but not for OAS and medical care? And what can be done now to raise additional revenue for medical care and OAS from (affluent) boomers to compensate for the lack of adaptation decades ago?

If we don’t engage with these questions, we will remain en route to securing the well-being of many boomer Canadians at the expense of undermining the financial security of those who follow in their footsteps, including their offspring and millions of hard-working immigrants.

Paul Kershaw is a policy professor at UBC and the founder of Generation Squeeze, Canada’s leading voice for generational fairness. You can follow Gen Squeeze on Twitter and Facebook and subscribe to Dr. Kershaw’s Hard Truths podcast.

Source: Canadian immigration targets respond to, and create, generational tensions

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TransLink braces to handle increasing immigration among service pressures 

2023/03/27 Leave a comment

A useful reminder of the impact of increased immigration on infrastructure:

The capacity of TransLink’s expansion plans might be tested sooner than expected by Canada’s higher targets for immigration, according to a new report for the transit authority’s mayors council.

TransLink is estimating Metro Vancouver could see up to 50,000 new immigrants per year coming to the region, based on Canada’s targets for 500,000 new residents per year by 2025, compared with 36,000 per year between 2017 and 2021, according to the transit agency’s report.

And trends for the settlement of new immigrants show they’re landing mostly in rapidly growing communities south of the Fraser River that are on frequently served transit lines.

However, those sections of TransLink’s network are already struggling with overcrowding. Whereas ridership systemwide has only recovered to 84 per cent of levels experienced in 2019, ridership in areas south of the Fraser has surpassed pre-COVID-19 levels.

And if service can’t be expanded to meet that growth, residents in the region who tend to rely more on transit to start with will experience more overcrowding and frequent pass-ups at bus stops than they do now, according to the report, an update on system pressures received by TransLink’s mayors council on Friday.

“What changes, it just enhances the urgency to be moving forward on expansion, particularly south of the Fraser where our ridership is higher than it was in 2019,” said Sarah Ross, TransLink’s vice-president of planning and policy.

Ross said the updated figures don’t represent a big departure from expectations in TransLink’s Transport 2050 plan, with its immediate 10-year, $20 billion capital plan for expansion.

“This is not us saying we need to change our 10-year priorities’ plan, not at all,” Ross said.

However, the need to stay focused on the expansion plan has been telegraphed by TransLink’s experience with service south of the Fraser. In the last year, TransLink has reallocated service, trimming routes in slower-growing communities in the region to add 12 per cent to routes south of the Fraser.

“Every time we put out more service it’s taken up right away,” Ross said.

Implementing the R6 RapidBus service on Scott Road is one of the top priorities in that 10-year capital plan, but the update report comes at a time TransLink is trying to renew discussions with the province and federal government on how to pay for it.

TransLink’s mayors council meeting Friday was the same meeting at which chairman Brad West, mayor of Port Coquitlam, acknowledged receipt of the province’s $479 million emergency contribution to backstop the agency’s pandemic-driven shortfalls.

“It was important because the alternative to the province stepping-up was significant service reductions to our region, increased congestion and poor outcomes,” West said in his report to the meeting.

TransLink’s challenge will be to lobby Ottawa, in addition to Victoria, on supporting TransLink’s efforts to create a more sustainable funding model that doesn’t rely so heavily on regional fuel taxes that are due to decline as Lower Mainland drivers also adopt electric vehicles at a faster rate.

“We’ve talked at length about the funding model that TransLink is currently operating under being insufficient for the job ahead and in many ways has gotten us to where we are now,” West said.

Source: TransLink braces to handle increasing immigration among service pressures 

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Le calme règne sur le chemin Roxham

2023/03/27 Leave a comment

Of note, early stages:

Une dizaine de demandeurs d’asile ont rencontré samedi un obstacle imprévu lorsqu’ils ont constaté que le chemin Roxham n’était plus la porte d’entrée aussi simple qu’ils souhaitaient au Canada

L’accord annoncé vendredi entre Ottawa et Washington qui fera des 8900 kilomètres de leur frontière commune un passage officiel et qui conduira au refoulement des demandeurs d’asile qui la traversent notamment au chemin Roxham, au Québec, est entré en vigueur samedi.

La nouvelle a surpris ces candidats au statut de réfugié descendus d’un autobus en provenance de Plattsburgh. Plusieurs l’ont apprise de représentants des médias qui les attendaient.

« Wow ! », s’est exclamé un Colombien avec un regard incrédule. Il n’a pas donné son identité, mais il a dit en espagnol qu’il voyageait avec sa femme et son jeune fils. Quelques minutes plus tard, il s’est approché de la journaliste de La Presse canadienne pour lui demander si le chemin Roxham était vraiment fermé.

Jusqu’à vendredi, des files de taxis se stationnaient à l’arrêt d’autobus, prêts à transporter des clients vers le lieu de passage. Samedi, il n’en est venu qu’un seul.

Le chauffeur, qui a refusé de dire son nom, a transporté deux familles colombiennes vers la frontière. Il s’est contenté de hausser les épaules lorsqu’on lui a demandé s’il savait que ces passagers pouvaient être arrêtés une fois à destination.

La journée avait débuté bien calmement au passage frontalier du chemin Roxham, au Québec. Seuls quelques journalistes attendaient l’arrivée possible de nouveaux arrivants voulant traverser la frontière canado-américaine afin de demander un statut de réfugié.

Une nouvelle pancarte a été installée pour prévenir les nouveaux arrivants qu’il est dorénavant illégal de franchir la frontière à cet endroit.

« Entrer au Canada ici est illégal. Vous serez arrêté et pourriez être renvoyé aux États-Unis. Les demandeurs d’asile doivent faire leur demande dans le premier pays sûr où ils arrivent », peut-on lire.

Un élu de l’assemblée législative de l’État de New York a exprimé son inquiétude sur les conséquences de la nouvelle entente sur les citoyens américains.

« Ça devient un problème local, car on a un grand flot de gens venant ici, dit Billy Jones. Si on leur nie l’accès [au Canada], où iront-ils ? Que feront-ils ? D’un point de vue humanitaire, on ne veut pas que ces gens restent coincés à la frontière. Ils ne sont pas souvent préparés aux conditions que nous avons ici. »

La clandestinité

La nouvelle entente sur les demandeurs d’asile entre le Canada et les États-Unis ne dissuadera pas les migrants de tenter d’entrer au Canada à l’extérieur des points d’entrée officiels, soutiennent toutefois des groupes de défense de l’immigration au Québec.

Restreindre l’accès à la frontière et empêcher les migrants d’accéder à un chemin sûr vers le pays ne fera qu’encourager certains individus, a déclaré Abdulla Daoud, directeur général du Centre de réfugiés basé à Montréal, vendredi.

« Ce type de prise de décision […] dans le passé a mené à la création de nombreux réseaux de passeurs, a souligné M. Daoud en entrevue à La Presse canadienne. Le Canada n’a jamais vraiment eu à composer avec cela, mais maintenant, je pense que nous allons voir les chiffres augmenter parce que ces individus mal intentionnés ne vont pas disparaître. »

L’accord a été décrit dans des documents américains comme un « ajout » au traité de 2004 connu sous le nom d’Entente sur les tiers pays sûrs. Ce traité empêche les gens au Canada ou aux États-Unis de traverser la frontière et de présenter une demande de statut de réfugié dans l’un ou l’autre pays, mais jusqu’à maintenant, il ne couvrait que les points d’entrée officiels.

Eva Gracia-Turgeon, directrice générale de Foyer du Monde, un organisme qui héberge temporairement des demandeurs d’asile et des migrants à Montréal, a déclaré qu’il est possible que des réfugiés potentiels qui sont déterminés à entrer au Canada finissent par mourir en empruntant des routes dangereuses pour entrer au pays.

« Il est très possible que les gens essaient de traverser en utilisant des endroits plus cachés et se retrouver coincés dans les bois pendant des jours et même y perdre la vie », a déclaré Mme Gracia-Turgeon en entrevue.

« Nous parlons également ici de familles, de femmes enceintes et de jeunes enfants qui vont traverser la frontière. Il y aura donc potentiellement plus de drame à la frontière », se désole Mme Gracia-Turgeon.

Au moins un demandeur d’asile était prêt à franchir illégalement la frontière. Un homme s’identifiant comme Herman est arrivé vendredi à New York en provenance du Congo où il a laissé sa femme et ses quatre enfants. L’individu espère rejoindre des proches vivant actuellement à Ottawa. Parlant en français, il a dit ne pas avoir d’autres choix que d’aller de l’avant avec son plan.

« Elle me manque, a-t-il lancé en parlant de sa famille. Les conditions de vie sont terribles là-bas. »

Source: Le calme règne sur le chemin Roxham

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Closing Roxham Road will lead to ‘humanitarian catastrophes,’ immigration experts warn

2023/03/27 Leave a comment

We will see. Not everyone who crossed at Roxham Road, relatively risk-free, will uudertake the greater risk now that all crossings will now be subject to the STCA. A natural experiment in progress, and the current situation was untenable politically:

Quebec immigration experts say closing Roxham Road to asylum seekers may go against Canada’s international obligations and could result in more deaths at the border, after an already deadly year.

Two men died attempting to cross the Canadian border within two months of each other.

The first, 43-year-old Fritznel Richard, was trying to reach his family in Florida in time for the holidays. His body was found in early January. The second, Jose Leos Cervantes, 45, was also heading into the United States on Feb. 19, and collapsed just as U.S. border patrollers approached him and the two people he was with, shortly after they had made it into Vermont.

Richard and Leos Cervantes were crossing into the States, whereas people taking the Roxham Road unofficial border crossing south of Montreal are coming into Canada. Experts say the very reason the crossing became popular is because it is accessible and safe. They worry its closure will simply lead people to take the kinds of risks that have resulted in the deaths of people heading south.

“The global result of this is just more danger, more deaths and more humanitarian catastrophes,” said Mireille Paquet, an assistant professor of political science at Concordia University.

Details of the deal reached between Canada and the U.S. to close Roxham Road leaked to various media outlets over the course of Wednesday afternoon, hours before U.S President Joe Biden was set to arrive in Ottawa for his two-day visit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Friday’s agreement between the prime minister and Biden, which actually dates to April 2022, evokes an evolving global approach to surging migration: widening legal pathways while cutting off the irregular ones.

Radio-Canada reports the closure will take effect at midnight.

Details of the agreement were released Friday afternoon in a joint statement made by the two leaders.

The statement says the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection “enshrines our belief that irregular migration requires a regional approach centred on expanding legal pathways and humane border management and recognizes that we must address the underlying economic and security drivers of migration.”

Under this principle, Canada will welcome an additional 15,000 migrants on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere over the course of the year to continue expanding safe, regular pathways as an alternative to irregular migration.

Before the meeting, the L.A. Times and Le Devoir reported that migrants who are caught within 14 days of making it across the border into Canada outside of official checkpoints would be deported. Those details were not released in the joint statement.

Prior to the joint statement’s release, Stéphanie Valois, the president of the Quebec association of immigration lawyers (AQAADI), said the deal could go against international conventions Canada has signed.

Those agreements stipulate that refugees “should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom,” according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees website.

Valois said it’s unlikely that closing Roxham — where an RCMP post has been set up to briefly detain and process asylum seekers — will stop people from crossing altogether, and that it would only prompt migrants to go into hiding after arriving in Canada.

“It seems completely counter-productive to me,” she said.

‘Worst scenario possible’

Paquet noted that 15,000 is a low number compared to the amount of asylum seekers other countries, such as the U.S. and Germany, accept every year, as well as in comparison to the nearly 40,000 migrants, primarily from Haiti, Turkey, Colombia, Chile, Pakistan and Venezuela, who crossed at Roxham Road in 2022.

There are currently 4.6 million people seeking asylum across the world, according the UNHCR’s latest figures.

Accepting migrant crossings at the border does not mean accepting them to stay permanently, she said, echoing Valois, but accepting to heart “their story and their request for protection,” as outlined in the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees signed in 1951.

“This is closing the passage, but it’s also turning our backs on our international commitments,” Paquet said.

Frantz André has helped hundreds of asylum seekers after arriving in Quebec through Roxham Road. He flew to Florida in late January to bring Fritznel Richard’s ashes to his wife Guenda and to attend Richard’s funeral in Naples.

André struggled to believe the deal, which would in effect mean Canada will no longer accept asylum seekers at the border, if they already made a claim in the U.S.

“There’s no way — I mean, that’s ridiculous,” he said. “We’re simply creating the worst scenario possible.”

Source: Closing Roxham Road will lead to ‘humanitarian catastrophes,’ immigration experts warn

Another article, with USA activist perspectives:

Closing the northern U.S. border to asylum seekers bound for Canada solves a political problem for Justin Trudeau, but immigration advocates denounced it Friday as a “shameful” decision that will only endanger lives.

Friday’s agreement between the prime minister and President Joe Biden, which actually dates to April 2022, evokes an evolving global approach to surging migration: widening legal pathways while cutting off the irregular ones.

But making it harder than ever for migrants to claim asylum will only encourage them to undertake ever more dangerous journeys, said Yael Schacher, director for the Americas at Refugees International.

“Asylum is getting more and more restricted in the United States, so not having a way to get to Canada to ask for asylum is a big cut-off,” Schacher said.

“The problems with the U.S. asylum system and access to asylum in the United States are already getting worse, so there’s all the more need for this pathway to Canada, which is now being cut off.”

Biden and Trudeau have agreed to a supplement to the 2004 treaty known as the Safe Third Country Agreement, which governs asylum claims by migrants crossing the Canada-U.S. border.

The treaty expressly forbids such claims at official entry points, but was silent on other unofficial border crossings — a big reason why Canada has seen for years thousands of would-be claimants slipping into the country at junctures like Roxham Road in Quebec, where they can request asylum without fear of being returned to the U.S.

That all changes as of early Saturday morning, when the supplement — the “Additional Protocol 2022” — takes effect, extending the terms of the treaty so they apply along the full extent of the nearly 9,000-kilometre frontier.

The extension runs afoul of commitments both leaders have made to respect the rights of people who are in need of asylum, said Savitri Arvey, a senior policy adviser with the Women’s Refugee Commission.

“Overall, it represents a continuation of various steps that the Biden administration has taken to block access to asylum,” Arvey said. “It inevitably impacts the most vulnerable and forces them to take even more dangerous routes.”

The two countries have already agreed to the new protocol, which will require amendments to existing U.S. regulations, according to a draft order posted Friday on the U.S. Federal Register.

It will ensure the agreement applies to “individuals who cross between the official (points of entry) along the U.S.-Canada shared border, including certain bodies of water as determined by the United States and Canada.”

Canada has agreed as part of the deal to welcome an additional 15,000 migrants from across the Western Hemisphere this year — a figure that towers over the paltry 4,000 they agreed to last June at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles.

Migrants have been flooding Roxham Road in recent years; more than 39,000 asylum claims were filed in 2022 by people who were intercepted by the RCMP, the vast majority of them in Quebec.

Rema Jamous Imseis, the UN Refugee Agency’s representative to Canada, acknowledged in a statement the challenges posed by the sheer scale of migrants arriving in both countries.

The agency “urges all governments to keep in mind their obligation to provide haven to those fleeing conflict, violence or persecution.”

Amnesty International Canada was decidedly less diplomatic, condemning the decision as “shameful” and “an affront to the rights of refugee claimants seeking safety in Canada.”

There’s nothing like the same number of would-be claimants moving south from Canada into the U.S., prompting questions about the political upside for Biden — who has much larger migration headaches at the Mexico-U.S. border.

One thing is clear, said Schacher: the agreement “will benefit Canada much more than the U.S. Trudeau is winning on this deal.”

One emerging theory revolves around Title 42, the pandemic-era public health measure imposed in March 2020 that gave the U.S. broad power to expel migrants for fear of the spread of COVID-19.

The Biden administration’s original plan to was to rescind the measure on May 23, 2022 — less than six weeks after U.S. regulatory documents say the supplement to the Safe Third Country Agreement was signed on April 15.

A lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys-general, however, forced the U.S. to cancel its original plan to revoke Title 42. It’s now slated to end May 11.

“We are very concerned that following May 11, the plan (at the southern border) is for a proposed rule that would block asylum seekers who had transited through other countries,” Arvey said.

“The comment period for the proposed rule actually closed on Monday, and we know the intention is for that to go into place on May 11. So there are some parallels there for sure.”

The U.S. has long been preoccupied with ensuring parity between north and south in its border measures, fuelling speculation that the Canada-U.S. agreement could be in anticipation of new post-Title 42 measures.

“I think it might be something like, ‘Well, we have to think about parity between the way we treat like Mexico and Canada,'” Schacher said.

Canada, too, has a lot of international credibility on migration issues, she added, and could be a big help in selling a new “managed migration paradigm” for the hemisphere that puts the emphasis on legal pathways.

“That would be a big deal for the Biden administration, because Canada is seen as even more progressive on refugee issues generally than the United States.”

Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, called the new deal an “unfortunate development” for asylum seekers.

Source: Canada-U.S. deal on migration will limit safe options for asylum seekers: advocates

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