Todd: The summer job is threatened by Canada’s misguided migration strategy

2025/08/11 Leave a comment

Good op-ed, featuring comments by David Williams of Business Council of British Columbia, David Green of UBC, Pierre Fortin, Anne Michèle Meggs and food service data compiled by me.

The search for a summer job is a rite of passage.

Filled with anxiety and reward, the quest in Canada offers young people an introduction to the marketplace, where they will spend a large portion of their lives, hopefully leading to independence and self-confidence.

But this summer in Canada, opportunities for people between the ages of 15 and 24 are abysmal. Their hunt is full of dead ends and discouragement. Talk about making hope-filled young people feel unwanted.

What can we make of the contradictory economic signals? Young Canadians are increasingly facing an employment brick wall. But at the same time many corporations say they’re struggling with “labour shortages.”

For clarity, we should listen to the economists, business analysts and migration specialists who say a big part of the problem for young job seekers is Canadian industries are increasingly addicted to low-wage foreign workers, especially of the temporary kind.

There are now 2.96 million non-permanent residents in the country, most of whom work. And that doesn’t count more than half a million who are undocumented or have remained in the country after their visas expired.

In a typical summer of the recent past, young people would look for jobs in the restaurant, hospitality, tourism, retail, landscaping and food and beverage industries.

But Postmedia reporters Alec Lazenby and Glenda Luymes are among those who have noted that unemployment among people between 15 and 24 is at a record 20 per cent across the country. That’s nine percentage points higher than three years ago.

And the real numbers could be worse. In B.C. in the month of June, for instance, more than 21,000 young people simply dropped out of the job market from discouragement.

The Liberal government has been doing young people a terrible disservice through its stratospheric guest worker levels, says David Williams, head of policy for the Business Council of B.C.

“If the government intends to expand the labour supply explicitly to fill low-skill, low-experience, low-paying job vacancies,” like those sought by young people, Williams said, “it is helping to keep Canada on the dismal path” to the lowest income growth among the 38 countries of the OECD.

Rather than trusting in the labour market to resolve wage and price imbalances on its own, Williams said the federal government’s high-migration strategy “is like believing Christmas dinner will be made easier if you invite more people because they can help with the washing up.”

Ottawa’s approach to migration is setting young people up not only for early job disappointment, he said, but long-term stagnant wages.

UBC economics professor David Green, who specializes in labour, is among many who say Canada’s immigration program is moving away from raising all Canadians’ standard of living.

“The research shows that immigration tends to lower wages for people who compete directly with the new immigrants, who often consist of previously arrived immigrants and low-skilled workers” — such as young people, Green says.

As the UBC professor makes clear, high migration rates “can be an inequality-increasing policy.” They hurt inexperienced workers and “improve incomes for the higher-skilled, and business owners who get labour at lower wages.”

To illustrate, it’s worth looking at migration numbers related to the food industry, where many young people in Canada used to find summer jobs.

Figures obtained by a former director in the Immigration Department, Andrew Griffith, reveal a rise in temporary foreign workers in Canada’s food industries since 2015, when the Liberals were first elected.

There has been a 666 per cent jump in a decade in the number of temporary foreign cooks, as well as a 970-per-cent hike in “food service supervisors.” There has also been 419 per cent increase in “food counter attendants” and “kitchen helpers.”

Ottawa approved a 419% jump in foreign “food counter attendants” and “kitchen helpers” in a decade. Those are decent starting positions for inexperienced job seekers. (Source: IRCC / Andrew Griffith)

The problem extends beyond summer jobs, says Pierre Fortin, past president of the Canadian Economics Association. Too many Canadian bosses who don’t find it easy to hire staff, he said, now think it’s their “right” to hire non-permanent migrants.

“But immigration is a public good, not a private toy,” Fortin said. “The employer gets all the benefits and the rest of society is burdened with all the time and costs for the successful integration of the newcomers, in the form of housing, services and social and cultural integration.”

B.C. and Ontario have the highest proportion of temporary residents in Canada. The rate is 9.3 per cent in B.C.; 8.6 per cent in Ontario. The national average is 7.1 per cent. And that level is far above what it was before 2020, when it was just three per cent. 

Canada’s temporary foreign worker, and international experience, programs were initially supposed to provide employers with short-term relief during a specific labour shortage, says Anne Michèle Meggs, a former senior director in Quebec’s immigration ministry who writes on migration issues.

But too many employers now rely on the programs as a long-term strategy, including to keep wages low. Meggs is surprised, for instance, the food-services industry relies so heavily on migrants.

“I admit I was shocked that Tim Hortons would be hiring through the temporary foreign workers program.”

Meggs is also taken aback that so many food chains even find it profitable to hire foreign workers over local ones. “It costs a lot, and there’s considerable bureaucracy,” she said. That includes spending more than $5,000 on each visa worker’s labour market impact assessment, to convince Ottawa a local worker isn’t available for the position.

To make matters worse, guest workers themselves often get exploited by employers, said Meggs. “Many are still expecting to be able to settle in Canada, obtain permanent residency and bring their families. But for those with limited education and language skills, that is very unlikely.” She points to how last year a U.N. report said Canada’s temporary guest worker programs are a “breeding ground” for contemporary slavery.

It’s hard to say if Prime Minister Mark Carney is ready to revise the Liberal party’s long-standing strategy of handing industries what they want: large volumes of low-skilled foreign labour.

Since its peak at the end of last year, the proportion of temporary residents in Canada this June has gone down only slightly, by less than three per cent.

Unless Carney orchestrates a bigger drop, it suggests he is ready to maintain his party’s record migration rates. That will mean young Canadians unable to find summer work will continue to suffer.

And, since migration policies have ripple effects on wages throughout the economy, they won’t be the only ones.

Source: The summer job is threatened by Canada’s misguided migration strategy

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Minister planning new powers to clamp down on fraudulent immigration consultants

2025/08/11 Leave a comment

Perennial issue and debate:

Immigration Minister Lena Diab is preparing to crack down on unscrupulous immigration consultants, drawing up new regulations that would give the industry regulator more powers, such as forcing them to compensate migrants they have defrauded. 

The move follows a number of inquiries into the improper conduct of consultants, including one involving an elaborate job-selling scheme targeting migrants.

The College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants earlier this year cancelled the licence of Hossein Amirahmadi, a consultant the college found to have orchestrated job selling, faked payroll documents and fraudulently obtained work permits. 

It ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine by October, as well as $49,000 in costs incurred by the college. It also instructed him to reimburse clients a total of $32,000 in fees. 

But the college, which regulates licensed immigration consultants, lacks the power, without going to court, to collect the funds or force him to pay. 

Draft regulations drawn up by the Immigration Department last year would allow the college to impose fines of $50,000 per infringement of the act establishing the college. They would also give it the power to establish a compensation fund for migrants exploited by its members. 

But the proposed regulations, drawn up before Ms. Diab took on her new cabinet role, have been shelved for months. Ms. Diab’s spokesperson, Isabelle Buchanan, said the minister is preparing new regulations. 

…But lawyer James Yousif, a one-time policy director for former immigration minister Jason Kenney, said it is “time to accept that Canada’s experiment with a separate immigration consulting profession has failed.”

“We should return to a model in which only lawyers are permitted to represent clients under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” he said. “The legal profession in Canada is much better governed, with stronger accountability and disciplinary mechanisms.”

Source: Minister planning new powers to clamp down on fraudulent immigration consultants

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Plus de 142 000 personnes attendent leur résidence permanente au Québec

2025/08/09 Leave a comment

Of note:

…Est-il déjà arrivé que l’on résorbe ces arriérés ? En 2019, le ministre Simon Jolin-Barrette avait éliminé 18 000 dossiers d’immigration, avant de se faire ordonner par la Cour supérieure d’en reprendre l’examen. Ces dossiers étaient cependant non traités et non pas sélectionnés comme c’est le cas actuellement avec les 142 500 personnes en attente.

Laurence Trempe rappelle aussi que Jason Kenney, ministre de la Citoyenneté et de l’Immigration entre 2008 et 2013, avait aussi supprimé certains dossiers de grands-parents qui attendaient des parrainages depuis plus de huit ans. Mais la différence encore ici est que ces personnes n’étaient pas installées au Canada, contrairement aux plus gros arriérés actuels en immigration humanitaire.

L’accélération pourrait venir d’un programme d’exception, si Québec décidait par exemple de traiter ces dossiers hors quota, ou alors d’Ottawa, dit Me Lapointe, même s’il en doute. L’ancien ministre de l’Immigration Marc Miller avait d’ailleurs laissé entendre qu’il était prêt à dépasser le seuil de Québec pour le regroupement familial.

L’AQAADI plaide qu’il n’y a rien dans l’Accord Canada-Québec qui l’empêcherait de le faire. « Notre interprétation est que Québec n’a pas la compétence pour limiter dans ces catégories. On doit tout au plus en tenir

Source: Plus de 142 000 personnes attendent leur résidence permanente au Québec

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How do Canadian officials detect plagiarized refugee claims?

2025/08/08 Leave a comment

Reasonable use of AI IMO:

A failed refugee claimant came to Amandeep Singh in May for help after he was refused because his claim was “nearly word for word” identical to others before the refugee board.

While the Edmonton-based immigration consultant had heard for a long time that some claimants and their counsel have plagiarized claims to game the system, what struck him was what tool the refugee board and immigration officials use to flag these cases, which he says seems to have happened more often.

“I wouldn’t say this (plagiarism) is something new,” said Singh, who did not take on that client because he didn’t believe the man had a case. “It shows to me that officials are actually using artificial intelligence, so it is easier for them to look at multiple cases at the same time to see if the information in a claim matches with other asylum applications.”

While the refugee board denies the use of AI in its claim processing, the Immigration Department and the border agency — bodies that determine if a foreign national is eligible to seek asylum in Canada and which can intervene in refugee hearings — are less clear on how they identify these cases. Generally, officials deem similar claims as a potential indicator of fraud.

In the case that Singh reviewed with personal information redacted, the refugee board adjudicator drew comparisons between the man’s claim and five others.

“I am a follower of the Sikh religion, and my family and I are devout Sikhs … 1became (sic) the member of Khalistan movement (aiming for a peaceful creation of an independent state for Sikh people),” according to the refugee refusal decision, which set out a side-by-side table highlighting each similar paragraph in those claims. The parentheses are from the claim, which includes grammatical errors, as cited in the decision.

“The primary objective for joining movement was to establish a new nation for the Sikh community, providing them the freedom to practice their religious activities and ensuring equal rights for all.”

Apart from the different date noting when the claimant joined the movement, the whole paragraph, including the typo “1,” was the same as the narrative cited by the refugee protection tribunal. The claims also referred to visits by Indian authorities to the family homes to look for the claimant and for alleged links to Pakistan.

The person told the tribunal that he did not know why others’ narratives were similar to his word for word, but did explain that what happened to him could have happened to all Sikhs given the circumstances. The refugee judge, however, concluded that’s not reasonable.

Sean Rehaag, director of Refugee Law Laboratory at Osgoode Hall Law School, said there are anti-plagiarism tools that universities have used for a long time to find similar bits of text, as well as ways for the refugee board to identify similar claims without using high-tech.

For instance, said Rehaag, a decision-maker may encounter two or more similar claims, and refer to the board administration to look into it further, examining other files from the same country by the same representative. Or decision-makers may talk with one another about a particular type of case, or someone triaging cases discovers a pattern and flags it internally.

Rehaag said the information could also come from immigration and border agency officials, who he said probably have program integrity tools that would allow them to identify suspicious patterns. In those circumstances, he said, officials would then intervene in the refugee proceedings based on integrity concerns.

The Immigration and Refugee Board told the Star that it does not use artificial intelligence at any stage of processing or deciding claims.

“While claims from the same country or region may share common elements, credibility or integrity issues could be raised if review of the files identified substantially similar claimants’ narratives about the specific circumstances of their claim,” the board said in an email.

Where similarities are identified in the process, it said claimants are required to provide an explanation. If the claimant is found to have provided false or misleading evidence, it could lead to a rejection….

Source: How do Canadian officials detect plagiarized refugee claims?

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USA: New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda

2025/08/08 Leave a comment

Incorrect title – not “may” but “will:”

The new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will likely focus the agency on the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda. On July 15, 2025, Joseph Edlow began as USCIS director following a Senate confirmation vote along party lines. Edlow’s job will be to implement the policies of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. The agenda will include restricting asylum, directing adjudicators to tighten the approval process for immigration benefits applications and ending or controlling the ability of international students to work in the United States after graduating from U.S. universities.

USCIS Will Be An Immigration Enforcement Agency

In an opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation, Joseph Edlow said, “USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.” That sends a message to adjudicators: Treat applications similarly to those during Donald Trump’s first term, when denials increased and Requests for Evidence skyrocketed at USCIS.

In a question submitted to Edlow, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), the committee’s ranking member, wrote, “The Homeland Security Act does not include language stating that USCIS is an immigration enforcement agency. . . . The statute makes clear that unlike ICE and Customs and Border Protection, USCIS’s primary mission is adjudication and processing of applications, not enforcement. Will you retract your inaccurate statement that ‘USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency?’” Edlow replied in writing, “No. The statement was not inaccurate as the adjudication of immigration benefits is inherently an act of enforcement of the immigration laws.”

Jon Wasden of Wasden Law said the USCIS transition from a “service” to an “enforcement” agency began under Barack Obama and intensified during Donald Trump’s first term. He notes that even during the Biden administration, USCIS continued to take funds and reallocate them to the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate within USCIS, which he believes violates the Homeland Security Act. Wasden is harsh in his assessment: “Both parties have created an environment where applicants are seen as the enemy, treated as criminals, and officers are above the law. I wish I could lay all this at the feet of Stephen Miller, but his Democrat predecessors share the blame.”

Still, USCIS differed significantly under Joe Biden compared to Trump’s first term. The Biden administration’s final rule on H-1B visas proved to be far more favorable for employers, universities and high-skilled foreign nationals than anything produced during the Trump years. Policy experts viewed the Trump administration’s interim final rule on H-1B visas, which a court blocked for violating the Administrative Procedure Act, as designed to prevent, or at least discourage, employers from using the H-1B category by narrowing eligibility and piling on requirements. A Department of Labor interim final rule would have priced many H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market by inflating the required salaries.

“Positive actions the Biden administration took on high-skilled immigration included taking steps to issue an ‘unprecedented’ number of employment-based green cards, increasing the validity of Employment Authorization Documents for up to five years, providing favorable guidance for O-1A visas and national interest waivers and making it easier for some employment-based green card applicants to stay if they have ‘compelling circumstances,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “O-1A visa filings and requests for national interest waivers increased significantly after the new guidance.”

The NFAP analysis noted that the Trump administration carried out what judges found to be unlawful policies on H-1B visas for nearly four years. An H-1B is often the only practical way for a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, to work long term in the United States. Denial rates for H-1B petitions for initial employment reached 24% in FY 2018 and 21% in FY 2019, compared to 6% in FY 2015. (H-1B petitions for “initial” employment are primarily for new employment, typically a case that would count against the H-1B annual limit.) Only lawsuits, court rulings and a legal settlement ended the policies.

Source: New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda

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Les faux représentants en immigration, un véritable fléau

2025/08/07 Leave a comment

Good series in Le Devoir on immigration consultants and fraud:

…Consultants « fantômes », faux avocats, usurpateurs d’identité de vrais consultants : de plus en plus de faux représentants font payer des services d’immigration sans être autorisés à les dispenser, selon les informations compilées par Le Devoir.

Au Québec et dans le reste du Canada, il n’est pas obligatoire d’avoir recours à ce genre d’intermédiaire pour déposer une demande en immigration, quelle qu’elle soit. Mais à partir du moment où quelqu’un facture ce genre de services, il doit en revanche être impérativement autorisé : avocat membre du Barreau du Québec, consultant membre du Collège des consultants en immigration et en citoyenneté (CCIC) ou encore notaire à la Chambre des notaires du Québec.

Le problème est difficile à appréhender dans son ensemble, notamment parce que plusieurs entités opèrent de l’étranger et en dehors de la loi. Mais s’il n’y a qu’une pointe de l’iceberg à déceler, elle est déjà immense : dans la dernière année, le CCIC a fait fermer plus de 5000 pages Web et de médias sociaux qui faisaient la promotion de praticiens non autorisés.

Sur le terrain

Dans un contexte où les restrictions en immigration rendent de plus en plus difficile le renouvellement des permis de travail, d’études ou encore l’accès à la résidence permanente, « les faux représentants sont devenus un vrai fléau », dit Louis-Philippe Jannard, coordonnateur du volet protection de la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes.

« C’est un problème endémique dans certains quartiers », abonde aussi Camille Bonenfant, organisatrice communautaire à la Clinique pour la justice migrante. Lorsque des membres de son équipe se déplacent pour donner des ateliers d’information, c’est presque « systématique » : les personnes rencontrées « s’approchent et nous montrent une carte d’affaires d’une personne qui n’est enregistrée nulle part ».

« C’est sûr qu’il y a une augmentation », tranche aussi Dory Jade, qui soulève le problème depuis 20 ans. Il est directeur général de l’Association canadienne des consultants professionnels en immigration et a eu connaissance des plus grandes comme des plus petites fraudes : « Il y a des cas qui ont payé des centaines de milliers de dollars à des individus qui leur ont fait miroiter qu’ils pouvaient les emmener au Canada », raconte-t-il.

Ou encore des gens qui ont vendu toutes leurs possessions pour obtenir des papiers… qui ne sont jamais arrivés, poursuit M. Jade….

Source: Les faux représentants en immigration, un véritable fléau

Other articles in the series: Des usurpateurs aux faux avocats : la jungle des consultants en immigration, Des solutions pour contrer les consultants fantômes en immigration, Quand le rêve canadien vire au cauchemar | Parcours

… “Ghost” consultants, false lawyers, identity thieves of real consultants: more and more false representatives are charging immigration services without being authorized to dispense them, according to information compiled by Le Devoir.

In Quebec and the rest of Canada, it is not mandatory to use this kind of intermediary to file an immigration application, whatever it may be. But from the moment someone charges for this type of service, he must be authorized: a lawyer member of the Barreau du Québec, a consultant member of the Collège des consultants en immigration et en citoyenneté (CCIC) or a notary at the Chambre des notaires du Québec.

The problem is difficult to understand as a whole, in particular because several entities operate from abroad and outside the law. But if there is only one tip of the iceberg to detect, it is already huge: in the last year, the CCIC has closed more than 5,000 web and social media pages that promoted unauthorized practitioners.

In the field

In a context where immigration restrictions are making it increasingly difficult to renew work permits, study permits or access to permanent residence, “false representatives have become a real scourge,” says Louis-Philippe Jannard, coordinator of the protection component of the Consultation Table for organizations serving refugees and immigrants.

“It’s an endemic problem in some neighborhoods,” says Camille Bonenfant, community organizer at the Clinic for Migrant Justice. When members of his team travel to give information workshops, it is almost “systematic”: the people met “approach and show us a business card of a person who is not registered anywhere”.

“It is certain that there is an increase,” says Dory Jade, who has been raising the problem for 20 years. He is Director General of the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants and has learned of the biggest and smallest frauds: “There are cases that have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to individuals who have made them think they could take them to Canada,” he says.

Or people who sold all their possessions to get papers… who never arrived, continues Mr. Jade….

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Wright: The Bogus Idea That Will Not Die

2025/08/06 Leave a comment

Indeed:

…What we are describing is essentially a Ponzi scheme. All Ponzi schemes ultimately collapse when it becomes impossible to recruit enough new “investors” to keep the scheme going. The longer it goes on, the bigger the eventual collapse. You can’t fix a Ponzi scheme by keeping it going.

And yet, that is essentially what the proponents of greater population growth are offering as the solution – their advice is to keep the Ponzi scheme going.

In the next few posts, we will look at this in a little more detail – how the terms of the senior promise arose, what we can do to make it sustainable going forward, and the intergenerational consequences if we instead keep the Ponzi scheme going.

Source: The Bogus Idea That Will Not Die

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Worswick: Where’s this brain gain of elite U.S. professors we keep talking about?

2025/08/06 Leave a comment

Arguing for a more selective approach to international student recruitment while allowing numbers to rise again (most of the abuse happened at the college and satellite campus levels):

…Taken together, this is hardly an environment where we would expect professors from elite U.S. universities to go when they can move to almost anywhere in the world. The widely cited QS ranking places Harvard University 5th in the world, while nearby MIT ranks 1st. University of Oxford is ranked 4th and University of Melbourne is ranked 19th, while the highest-ranked Canadian universities are McGill at 27th and University of Toronto at 29th. It is unlikely that the extreme budget stresses these Canadian universities now face have yet to fully affect their global reputations, and so their rankings may not stay this high.

Universities are important parts of modern economies. In the case of Ontario, a 2021 Conference Board of Canada report found that universities’ annual activities and human capital development is equal in value to 11.7 per cent of the province’s GDP. Elite professors can raise the prestige of their institution and help attract international students, strengthening the economy through their tuition and expenditures. To gain more of these benefits, both the federal and provincial governments should adapt policies to help Canadian universities attract top academics from the around the world.

Provincial governments are clearly struggling to provide adequate funding for both health care and education, and health care is typically ranked by Canadians as the greater priority. In this context, provinces should focus public resources on reducing health care shortages and allow universities to operate more independently, setting tuition as appropriate to support their academic programs.

The Canada Research Chair program needs to be revamped. The annual transfer from the federal government to the university for a given category of chair has not changed since 2000, meaning that, in real terms, each chair has fallen in value by roughly 40 per cent and will continue to fall in real terms with future inflation. The Canada Excellence Research Chairs, introduced in 2008, are more generous, but the program needs to be expanded if it is going to attract many elite faculty members from the U.S. 

Finally, as I have argued before, international student numbers at universities should be allowed to rise again given the high tuition fees they raise and the fact that these students typically go on to be strong candidates as economic immigrants. This would generate higher revenue, allowing universities to make more competitive salary offers to top international candidates.

Source: Where’s this brain gain of elite U.S. professors we keep talking about?

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Le Canada est-il vraiment un sanctuaire pour les immigrants LGBTQ+?

2025/08/06 Leave a comment

Expectations of paradise in general are unrealistic:

..Le Canada, un paradis queer ?

C’est d’ailleurs le genre de partenariat qui renforce encore davantage l’image du Canada comme lieu sûr pour les communautés LGBTQ+. Une réputation bel et bien basée sur des faits, tranche Ahmed Hamila, professeur de sociologie à l’Université de Montréal. Ce qui ne veut pas dire qu’il ne faut pas la nuancer, s’empresse-t-il d’ajouter.

À leur arrivée, plusieurs de ces demandeurs d’asile vivent une « lune de miel » — d’une durée d’environ cinq ans, selon la plus récente collecte de données de M. Hamila. « Après, les personnes commencent à déconstruire cette image paradisiaque. Parce que, en plus du fait qu’elles doivent faire face à des enjeux d’homophobie ou de transphobie, s’ajoutent des enjeux de racisme et de xénophobie — des problèmes qu’elles ne connaissaient pas dans leur pays parce qu’elles faisaient partie de la majorité. »

Même au Canada, un pays où les droits LGBTQ+ font partie des « valeurs intrinsèques », poursuit le spécialiste, « il reste que, dans le traitement des demandes d’asile et dans l’accès aux soins et aux services sociaux, il y a encore de grands défis pour les personnes réfugiées, migrantes et racisées ». Celui qui est également codirecteur de la Clinique Mauve donne l’exemple des papiers d’immigration, qui permettent difficilement le changement de genre ou le choix du marqueur « X ».

« La situation est peut-être meilleure qu’ailleurs, mais ces personnes vivent de la discrimination en milieu de travail et dans le logement. Et [elles se heurtent à] énormément de barrières pour avoir accès [au statut de réfugié] ou au système de justice », note aussi de son côté M. Otaegi Alcaide.

Si l’image du Canada continue à être celle d’un « paradis queer », c’est que le pays a quand même fait figure de pionnier en la matière, poursuit M. Hamila. En 1993, la Cour suprême a reconnu dans l’arrêt Ward que l’orientation sexuelle pouvait être un motif d’asile au pays. Mais c’est « presque par hasard », au détour d’exemples donnés de « l’appartenance à un groupe social » et non pas à la suite d’une demande précise pour cette raison, souligne-t-il.

Ce n’est que près de 10 ans plus tard, en 2002, que le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés a reconnu à son tour ce motif pour octroyer le statut protégé de réfugié….

Source: Le Canada est-il vraiment un sanctuaire pour les immigrants LGBTQ+?

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As premiers push for more immigration power, experts call for a fact-based debate

2025/08/05 Leave a comment

Please, evidence-based policy, not the reverse…:

Some premiers say they want to have more local control over the immigration system — but experts say what the system really needs is a national conversation on immigration reform that shores up public support.

“Most of the existing policies have been formulated on the fly without any evidence or serious impact evaluations of what the various classes of immigrants are, how they’re performing economically and otherwise,” said Michael Trebilcock, a retired academic and co-author of two books on immigration policy.

“So it’s basically research-free.”

As the premiers and territorial leaders were wrapping up their three-day meeting in Huntsville, Ont., late last month, they called for an increase to economic immigration levels to fill local labour gaps and said they would use their constitutional powers to seize more control over immigration and issue work permits.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford later walked back his vow to issue work permits to asylum seekers.

“Do I want the whole immigration system on the shoulder of the province? No. Would I like to be treated the same way as Quebec? Yes, and so would every other province and territory,” Ford said last Monday.

Quebec has its own distinct immigration system through an agreement with the federal government. The province is able to choose who can immigrate to Quebec based on its own criteria, with French language skills being a significant factor.

David Piccini, Ontario’s immigration minister, said last Monday that the province also wants to see more financial support from Ottawa to help pay for social services strained by a high number of asylum seekers landing in Ontario.

Ninette Kelley, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees official and a former member of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, said that provincial control over immigration has grown significantly over the last two decades.

“They know what their provinces need today, and they want to make sure they get the labour in that is required to meet those demands,” she said.

“But at the same time, there’s been absolutely no evaluation that I can see of how those programs are implemented or what effect they’re having.”

Trebilcock said the premiers’ concerns need to be taken seriously because increased immigration boosts demand for health care and other provincial services.

He said that it’s “disturbing” to see Canadians’ support for immigration decline in multiple public opinion polls. He said current immigration policies lack broad support and he believes a comprehensive, public review is needed to rebuild that support through evidence-based policies.

“What we see at present is often piecemeal, on-the-fly changes in reaction to particular concerns that have surfaced in the media … international students, temporary foreign workers,” he said.

Kelley said that, instead of a multi-year exercise like a national inquiry, a top-to-bottom immigration system review could be conducted quickly with “the right people at the table.”

Saskatchewan Immigration Minister Jim Reiter told The Canadian Press that he and the other subnational immigration ministers have told Ottawa they want to be seen more as partners in immigration, not stakeholders.

“We need more influence in the decision-making of this because so much of the economic stream needs to be targeted depending on the specific needs of each province,” Reiter said.

The federal government last year slashed the number of slots in the Provincial Nominee Program from 110,000 to 55,000 as part of broader efforts to rein in immigration.

The program allows provinces and territories to nominate individuals for permanent residence based on their skills and ability to contribute to the economy. Each province and territory has its own set of program streams targeting different types of immigrants based on factors like skills or business experience.

Reiter said provincial immigration ministers want to see the Provincial Nominee Program return to its previous levels.

He said that while he understands the need to reduce the number of temporary visas, that shouldn’t come at the expense of economic immigrants.

“We’ve had to restrict (the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program) down to three streams now to a large degree because we just don’t have enough spots anymore,” Reiter said.

Reiter said that of the 3,600 spots Saskatchewan has for its immigrant nominee program, three-quarters have to go to temporary workers, so the province is prioritizing nominees who work in health care and skilled trades.

“We’ve got the largest potash mine in the world being built … just outside of Saskatoon and that company, BHP, every time we meet with them they raise the issue that skilled trades are an issue. So this is having a detrimental effect on economic growth,” he said.

Trebilcock said that if provinces are focused on using immigration to strengthen their local labour markets, steps could be taken to make it easier to recognize immigrants’ foreign credentials in fields like law and medicine.

With federal immigration decisions having provincial consequences, Kelley said, running an effective immigration system requires close collaboration between all levels of government.

“So that speaks to the need for really tight co-operation between the federal government and the provincial government and municipalities, both in the setting of levels and in the housing and medical policies that are currently in place so that we can accommodate those who we’re letting in,” she said.

Source: As premiers push for more immigration power, experts call for a fact-based debate

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