Le Québec fait le plein de cerveaux grâce à l’immigration

2025/07/28 Leave a comment

Similar to other provinces. We select immigrants largely based on human capital, including education:

Le Québec peut compter sur des immigrants très scolarisés : ceux-ci détiennent un diplôme universitaire dans une proportion de loin supérieure à celle des non-immigrants. C’est l’un des constats qui se dégage d’un rapport de l’Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) publié jeudi.

Les chiffres sont sans équivoque. Selon les données du dernier recensement canadien, tenu en 2021, 44 % des immigrants présents au Québec détenaient un diplôme universitaire, contre 25 % des non-immigrants. Chez les résidents non permanents, cette proportion grimpait à 58,6 %.

Ces écarts s’expliquent essentiellement par la méthode de sélection de la population immigrante. « Elle est “sélectionnée” en favorisant la scolarité élevée », explique par courriel l’autrice du rapport, Christine Lessard. « Il n’est donc pas étonnant qu’on y trouve une plus grande proportion de titulaires d’un grade universitaire que dans la population non immigrante. »

Ce rapport est le troisième volet d’une étude dressant le portrait des détenteurs d’un diplôme universitaire au Québec. Après avoir comparé les données québécoises à celles des autres provinces et les avoir décortiquées par région administrative, l’ISQ s’est penché sur le statut migratoire des détenteurs de diplôme. Les données analysées ne concernent que les personnes âgées de 25 à 64 ans.

En 2021, quelque 21,3 % des résidents du Québec étaient des immigrants permanents ou temporaires.

Plus de la moitié des immigrants admis au Canada depuis 2001 détiennent un diplôme universitaire : en d’autres mots, ils sont très scolarisés. « Il est certain que l’immigration contribue au maintien voire à l’accroissement du niveau de scolarité de la population », avance Mme Lessard.

La croissance de la population du Québec repose par ailleurs en grande partie sur l’immigration. Entre 2016 et 2021, la population québécoise non immigrante de 25 à 64 ans a chuté de 2,7 %, tandis que la population immigrante a augmenté de 11 %, et celle des résidents non permanents de 150 %. Au net, la population du Québec a crû de 1,4 % sur cette période….

Source: Le Québec fait le plein de cerveaux grâce à l’immigration

Quebec can count on highly educated immigrants: they hold a university degree in a proportion far greater than non-immigrants. This is one of the findings that emerges from a report by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) published on Thursday.
The numbers are unequivocal. According to data from the last Canadian census, held in 2021, 44% of immigrants in Quebec held a university degree, compared to 25% of non-immigrants. Among non-permanent residents, this proportion rose to 58.6%.
These differences are mainly explained by the method of selection of the immigrant population. “It is “selected” by promoting high schooling,” explains the author of the report, Christine Lessard, by email. “It is therefore not surprising that there is a greater proportion of university degree holders than in the non-immigrant population. ”
This report is the third part of a study portraying university degree holders in Quebec. After comparing Quebec data with those of other provinces and dissessing them by administrative region, the ISQ looked at the migration status of diploma holders. The data analyzed only concern people aged 25 to 64.
In 2021, some 21.3% of Quebec residents were permanent or temporary immigrants.
More than half of the immigrants admitted to Canada since 2001 hold a university degree: in other words, they are highly educated. “It is certain that immigration contributes to maintaining or even increasing the level of education of the population,” says Ms. Lessard.
Quebec’s population growth is also largely based on immigration. Between 2016 and 2021, the Quebec non-immigrant population aged 25 to 64 fell by 2.7%, while the immigrant population increased by 11%, and that of non-permanent residents by 150%. Netly, Quebec’s population grew by 1.4% over this period….

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Kelly and Treblicock: Canada needs a coherent immigration policy – not another piecemeal fix

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Good op-ed and call for a more serious review and approach. Their recent book, Reshaping the Mosaic, captures the change from previous policy processes to current less comprehensive ones, and is a very useful documenting the changes to immigration-related policies and programs along with the consultative processes:

…Immigration remains a powerful engine of Canadian growth and resilience. Immigrants already make up nearly one-quarter of the population, a share projected to rise to 36 per cent by 2036. But as recent volatility in public opinion underscores, we cannot afford to keep muddling through with fragmented, short-term responses. There has not been a serious, comprehensive review of Canadian immigration policy in more than 30 years. 

It may be too late to influence next year’s immigration levels plan. But the Minister should renew the government’s 2023 commitment to review the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This review should not be conducted behind closed doors. Like previous major legislative reviews, it must bring together evidence and experience from federal and provincial policymakers, employers, service providers, newcomers, researchers and citizens in a transparent process.

Getting immigration policy right is more than a social or political imperative – it is essential to Canada’s long-term economic resilience in the face of trade instability, demographic aging, and rapidly advancing technology.

Source: Canada needs a coherent immigration policy – not another piecemeal fix

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Plan to accept newcomer parents and grandparents will strain health services, Alberta warns

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Parents and grandparents applications always over subscribed. Suspect some, if not many, of immigrant origin Albertans are interested in sponsoring their family members. But of course, from a demographic perspective, parents and grandparents only increase average age, not decrease it:

Alberta’s immigration minister says he’s concerned about the federal government’s plan this year to accept thousands of parents and grandparents of immigrants already in Canada.

Joseph Schow responded Tuesday to a federal notice that Ottawa plans to take in 10,000 applications from those who have previously expressed interest in sponsoring family members.

Schow took issue with the 10,000 figure.

In a statement, Schow said provincial health-care systems, housing and social services don’t have the capacity and could be overwhelmed.

Federal Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s office said the federal government’s actual countrywide target for approvals this year for the parent and grandparent immigration stream is higher at 24,500.

Diab’s office said Schow was responding to a notice that the ministry is preparing to take in 10,000 applications for consideration from already settled immigrants who expressed interest in 2020 in sponsoring their parents or grandparents.

“Family reunification is an important part of Canada’s immigration system, helping Canadian citizens and permanent residents sponsor their loved ones to live and work alongside them in Canada,” a spokesperson for Diab said in an email, adding that the federal government is committed to reuniting as many families as possible.

“Opening intake for 10,000 applications will help us meet this commitment and will not increase the target.”

Schow’s office said it was under the impression the 10,000 was the 2025 target, and his concern remains the same.

‘Disproportionate strain’

Schow said in the Tuesday statement that he understands “the importance of family reunification, [but] inviting large numbers of parents and grandparents into the country without proper co-ordination with provinces places disproportionate strain on already busy health systems.”

“This creates serious concerns for both Albertans and the newcomers themselves, who may not receive timely care if our system is overwhelmed.”

The minister didn’t directly answer questions about whether he wants to see the parent and grandparent target reduced or eliminated. In an email, he said the “root issue” is the federal government setting immigration targets without provincial input.

“The more direct concern with this program is its impact on health care,” Schow added….

Source: Plan to accept newcomer parents and grandparents will strain health services, Alberta warns

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Meggs: Et si on réduisait les chevauchements entre Ottawa et Québec en immigration ?

2025/07/26 Leave a comment

Notable shift in Quebec’s no longer pursuing additional powers in immigration (at least for the moment):

Le gouvernement Legault veut-il toujours plus de pouvoirs en immigration ? Si oui, ce serait le bon moment d’en discuter avec le gouvernement fédéral.

On a appris récemment que le ministre fédéral des Finances et du Revenu national, François-Philippe Champagne, dans une lettre à ses collègues, a exigé un examen « ambitieux » de leurs programmes et activités dans une perspective de sabrer de manière considérable les dépenses. Un des moyens proposés pour y arriver serait de réduire les chevauchements avec les provinces. Un autre serait de se défaire des programmes, lorsque possible.

S’il y a un domaine où les chevauchements abondent entre le Québec et le fédéral, c’est bien celui de l’immigration. Chaque personne qui souhaite s’établir au Québec, de manière temporaire ou permanente, passe par les processus des deux gouvernements à un moment donné de son parcours, généralement en payant des frais chaque fois. Il y a quelques exceptions. Les personnes qui obtiennent un permis de travail temporaire du fédéral dans le cadre du Programme de mobilité internationale et ne demandent pas de résidence permanente n’ont pas d’étape à faire auprès du gouvernement québécois

Réduire les chevauchements serait un soulagement énorme, en matière de coûts et de temps, pour les gens arrivant au Québec. Les retards créés par ces dédoublements sont très stressants et peuvent être interminables.

De plus, le Québec contrôlerait enfin plus de leviers en matière de l’immigration. N’est-ce pas ce que le gouvernement réclame depuis son arrivée au pouvoir ? En septembre 2019, lors de la campagne électorale fédérale, le premier ministre François Legault demandait aux candidats de s’engager à autoriser le Québec à décider seul essentiellement l’ensemble de son immigration, précisant les « réfugiés et les personnes acceptées en vertu du programme de réunification familiale » et la gestion complète du programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires.

En avril 2022, lorsqu’il se dirigeait lui-même vers des élections, il a affirmé que le succès du français au Québec passe par un rapatriement de « tous les pouvoirs » en immigration, une revendication répétée en juin, insistant sur le fait qu’une forte délégation de députés caquistes l’aiderait à convaincre les partis fédéraux de l’importance de lui céder tous les pouvoirs en immigration. Il a même menacé d’organiser un référendum sur le sujet, pour ensuite se rétracter en février 2024, en disant que ce n’était pas nécessaire, avant de ressortir l’idée de sa poche en avril de la même année. En fait, en 2024, M. Legault a demandé deux fois au premier ministre Justin Trudeau le rapatriement de l’ensemble des pouvoirs en immigration.

Plus tôt cette année, pendant la campagne fédérale, M. Legault a été plus précis dans sa demande. Dans sa lettre aux chefs à la course du 27 mars 2025, on peut lire : « Dans l’immédiat, le gouvernement québécois vous demande de respecter l’esprit de l’Accord Canada-Québec relatif à l’immigration et à l’admission temporaire des aubains, en accordant au Québec le pouvoir de sélection et de fixation des seuils du Programme de mobilité internationale, sauf pour les demandeurs d’asile. » Il a été ravi quand le chef du Parti conservateur du Canada, Pierre Poilievre, a appuyé cette demande et l’a incluse presque mot pour mot dans sa plateforme pour le Québec.

La gestion du Programme de mobilité internationale (PMI) compléterait les pouvoirs du Québec sur l’immigration temporaire. Il est vrai que c’était l’intention des négociateurs de l’accord en 1991 que le Québec gère l’ensemble de son immigration, incluant l’immigration temporaire, comme expliqué à quelques reprises dans ces pages, notamment par André Burelle, le négociateur fédéral, et par l’autrice de ces lignes, avec le constitutionnaliste André Binette, dans Le Devoir du 6 février dernier.

Il est donc d’autant plus surprenant qu’on ne retrouve plus, dans le cahier de consultation en vue de la consultation publique prévue en septembre sur la planification de l’immigration au Québec pour la période 2026-2029, aucune trace de revendication de plus de pouvoirs pour le Québec. Dans la section 5, Demandes du Québec envers le fédéral, le PMI est présenté tout simplement comme un programme « sous la responsabilité exclusive du fédéral ». Même chose dans la description des responsabilités partagées en immigration temporaire. On ne parle plus de l’esprit de l’accord en matière d’immigration temporaire.

Il convient sûrement au gouvernement du Québec de pouvoir mettre le gros du fardeau pour la baisse de l’immigration temporaire sur le dos du fédéral. Il est pourtant triste de constater que le gouvernement abandonne des négociations avec le gouvernement fédéral dans ce domaine. Surtout quand le moment semble si propice.

Anne Michèle Meggs, Ancienne directrice de la planification et de la reddition de comptes au ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration.

Source: Et si on réduisait les chevauchements entre Ottawa et Québec en immigration ?

Does the Legault government always want more powers in immigration? If so, it would be a good time to discuss it with the federal government.

We recently learned that the Federal Minister of Finance and National Revenue, François-Philippe Champagne, in a letter to his colleagues, demanded an “ambitious” examination of their programs and activities with a view to significantly cut back on spending. One of the proposed ways to achieve this would be to reduce overlaps with the provinces. Another would be to get rid of programs, when possible.

If there is one area where overlaps abound between Quebec and the federal government, it is that of immigration. Each person who wishes to settle in Quebec, temporarily or permanently, goes through the processes of both governments at a given point in their journey, usually paying fees each time. There are some exceptions. People who obtain a temporary federal work permit under the International Mobility Program and do not apply for permanent residence do not have a step to take with the Quebec government

Reducing overlaps would be a huge relief, in terms of cost and time, for people arriving in Quebec. The delays created by these splits are very stressful and can be endless.

In addition, Quebec would finally control more levers in terms of immigration. Isn’t that what the government has been demanding since coming to power? In September 2019, during the federal election campaign, Prime Minister François Legault asked candidates to commit to allowing Quebec to decide alone essentially all of its immigration, specifying the “refugees and people accepted under the family reunification program” and the complete management of the temporary foreign workers program.

In April 2022, when he himself was heading for elections, he said that the success of the French in Quebec requires a repatriation of “all powers” in immigration, a repeated demand in June, insisting that a strong delegation of Caquist deputies would help him convince the federal parties of the importance of ceding all powers in immigration. He even threatened to organize a referendum on the subject, and then retracted in February 2024, saying that it was not necessary, before bringing the idea out of his pocket in April of the same year. In fact, in 2024, Mr. Legault twice asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to repatriate all immigration powers.

Earlier this year, during the federal campaign, Mr. Legault was more specific in his request. In its letter to the leaders at the March 27, 2025 race, we can read: “In the immediate future, the Quebec government asks you to respect the spirit of the Canada-Quebec Agreement on immigration and the temporary admission of aubains, by granting Quebec the power to select and set the thresholds of the International Mobility Program, except for asylum seekers. He was delighted when the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, supported this request and included it almost word for word in his platform for Quebec.

The management of the International Mobility Program (PMI) would complement Quebec’s powers on temporary immigration. It is true that it was the intention of the negotiators of the 1991 agreement that Quebec manages all its immigration, including temporary immigration, as explained on a few occasions in these pages, in particular by André Burelle, the federal negotiator, and by the author of these lines, with the constitutionalist André Binette, in Le Devoir of February 6.

It is therefore all the more surprising that we no longer find, in the consultation book for the public consultation scheduled for September on the planning of immigration in Quebec for the period 2026-2029, no trace of claiming more powers for Quebec. In section 5, Quebec’s requests to the federal government, the PMI is presented simply as a program “under the exclusive responsibility of the federal government”. The same goes for the description of shared responsibilities in temporary immigration. We no longer talk about the spirit of the agreement on temporary immigration.

It is surely up to the Quebec government to be able to put the bulk of the burden for the decline in temporary immigration on the federal back. It is sad, however, that the government is abandoning negotiations with the federal government in this area. Especially when the time seems so auspicious.

Anne Michèle Meggs, Former Director of Planning and Accountability at the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration.

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Why One of the Causes of Falling Birthrates May Be Prosperity

2025/07/25 Leave a comment

Interesting and I think good analysis:

…People in rich countries have fewer children

There are many factors that can contribute to lower fertility rates. China and India, for example, both had decades-long government programs designed to lower their birthrates. And experts have suggested that many other aspects of modern life — birth control, shifting marital patterns, increased career and education opportunities for women, and perhaps even smartphones — could also play a role.

But the statistics are very clear. As economies get richer, children get rarer. Today, nearly all developed countries have fertility rates between 1.2 and 1.8 births per woman, significantly below the “replacement level” of 2.1 that allows populations to remain stable over time.

The social and economic changes of the last 50 years mean that many people now have more choices, and the ability to freely make them. In the past, laws that banned contraception and abortion and limited women’s ability to own property often caused families — and women in particular — to have more children than they wanted.

But that is not the whole story. Survey data shows that around the world, people consistently have fewer children than they say they would like to have. Gallup opinion polling has found that Americans’ ideal number of children per family has averaged about 2.5 since the late 1970s, even as the actual fertility rate has fallen much lower. Financial concerns are the most commonly cited reason for this gap.

What’s going on here? It may seem paradoxical that people would claim to be less able to afford children as their countries become richer. But as economies grow, several things happen.

Wages rise, which means that the opportunity cost of unpaid activities like parenting also goes up. The more parents can earn in paid work, the more of a sacrifice it becomes to spend their time on unpaid parenting instead.

Parenting also becomes more labor-intensive, because developed countries tend to put a greater premium on education and human capital, which require more effort and attention from parents. In most developed countries, parents now spend roughly twice as much time on child care as they did in the 1960s.

There are also big changes that take place as developed countries build a social safety net. In less-developed economies, children often work for family farms and small businesses from a young age, then support parents in their later years. But as countries get richer, they tend to tax working adults to pay for retirees’ benefits. That means today’s children grow up to support everyone’s parents, not just their own, but individual parents still bear the vast majority of the costs of raising children. That puts parents at a financial disadvantage in comparison to their peers who have fewer or no children.

The end result: As countries get richer, parenting shifts from being a way to save for retirement and be better off financially to being an obstacle to financial well-being.

Even the most generous welfare states do very little to defray those costs. Nordic countries, which are famed for their subsidized child care and maternity leave, for example, actually have some of the highest parenting costs in Europe, once parents’ time and out-of-pocket costs are taken into account.

Of course, becoming a parent is not strictly an economic decision. Children bring joy and meaning, and the loving bonds between a parent and a child, or between siblings, are among the most rewarding human relationships. But even the most loving and dedicated parents are still subject to economic reality.

Even if they have one child or two, they may decide not to have more, because they love the ones they already have and want to give them the best lives possible. That might explain why more than three-fifths of the decline in birthrates comes from people having fewer children, not from people opting to remain childless, a recent working paper found.

The problem or the cause?

For those who believe women should return to traditional gender roles, falling fertility has become a convenient way to argue that women’s participation in the work force is a threat to the survival of humanity. But the reality, unsurprisingly, is more complex.

Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist who won a Nobel Prize in 2023 for her work on women in the work force, found in a recent working paper that birthrates have fallen especially steeply in countries like Japan, South Korea and Italy, where economic growth rapidly sent more women into the workplace, but gender attitudes failed to adjust to that shift. In those countries, women began working more hours outside the home, but men did not do more housework or child care, leaving women with a heavy double burden.

In that situation, Dr. Goldin writes, “women must reduce something,” and that something turned out to be children. In South Korea, for example, fertility rates plummeted from an average of six children per woman in the late 1950s to just 0.75 in 2024 — the lowest in the world….

Source: Why One of the Causes of Falling Birthrates May Be Prosperity

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Premiers push for more power over immigration as Ford takes aim at federal minister 

2025/07/25 Leave a comment

Best commentary to date below by Campbell Clark:

Premiers say they plan to take more control over immigration as Ontario Premier Doug Ford criticized the federal Immigration Minister and said he would be issuing his own work permits in the province.

At the conclusion of the three-day premiers’ meeting on Wednesday, provincial and territorial leaders called for an increase to economic immigration levels to meet their labour needs and said they would use powers under the Constitution to seize more control over immigration, including to issue work permits.

Mr. Ford, who is wrapping up his time as chair of the Council of the Federation, which comprises all 13 premiers, criticized federal Immigration Minister Lena Diab, accusing her of not being on the same page as Prime Minister Mark Carney on giving premiers more autonomy over immigration.

“We need the Prime Minister to be very, very clear with his minister. She needs to work with the provinces and territories to fix Canada’s immigration system and make it more responsive to economic and market needs,” Mr. Ford said at the closing press conference in Ontario’s cottage country.

Support among the Canadian public for rising immigration has dropped in recent years. To address that and to alleviate pressure on housing and public services, the previous government of Justin Trudeau reduced targets for the number of permanent and temporary residents – including international students – that Canada will accept. 

On Wednesday, the premiers stressed that provinces and territories – and not Ottawa – are best placed to gauge whether migrants are needed to fill jobs. They said they would use a seldom-invoked power under Section 95 of the Constitution, which allows provinces to make laws on immigration, including to issue work permits. 

“I’ll speak for Ontario. We will be issuing our own work permits. We aren’t going to sit around and wait for the federal government,” Mr. Ford said.

At the press conference, Quebec Premier François Legault said there are now consistent demands from each province to have more jurisdiction over immigration. He said that when it comes to processing asylum claims, “it makes no sense that it takes three years to assess a file, whereas in other countries, such as France, it takes three months.”

This puts a strain on public services and housing, and he said he was glad the federal government is “at long last” acting to reduce backlogs in the asylum system. Ottawa has introduced the Strong Borders bill which, if it becomes law, would restrict who could claim asylum and give Ottawa more power to cancel applications.

Mr. Ford said Ontario has a large number of asylum seekers living in hotels who are healthy and willing to work, but unable because work permits take too long. Last year, there were close to 100,000 asylum seekers in Ontario, he said….

Source: Premiers push for more power over immigration as Ford takes aim at federal minister

Regg Cohn’s take:

…After trumpeting his friendship with Carney , Ford made it clear that he wants everyone singing from the same song sheet. Now, after buttering up the PM for months and signing MOUs with his fellow premiers, Ford is calling in his first IOU.

He complained publicly and pointedly that Diab “wasn’t on the same page as her prime minister — we need the prime minister to be very, clear with his minister, she needs to work with the provinces and territories to fix Canada’s immigration system.”

There’s no time to waste — or wait.

“I’ll speak for Ontario — we will be issuing our own work permits,” Ford asserted.

“I have a tremendous amount of asylum-seekers that are up in Etobicoke and in the hotels. They’re healthy, they’re willing to work hard, working people, but they’re waiting over two years, and they’re just sucking off the system, non-stop,” he continued.

Source: Opinion | Being Mark Carney’s buddy won’t release Doug Ford from the pull of political gravity

Campbell Clark and Mikal Skuterud’s excellent critique:

…But Mr. Trudeau’s last immigration minister, Marc Miller, took some strong steps in 2023 and 2024 to repair some of the damage. He capped the number of foreign students and slashed the number of provincial nominees.

That hasn’t fixed all that ails the immigration system, but it was a step forward. 

But on Wednesday, the premiers asked Ottawa to undo it. They want the numbers of provincial nominees to be doubled, to bring them back up to their previous level.

Premiers like to be able to tell local businesses they can deliver workers. Or to tell aging communities newcomers will arrive.

But Waterloo University economics professor Mikal Skuterud notes that it is a bit of a mirage. “There’s no way to restrict the mobility of immigrants, nor should we want to,” he said. That leads to potential immigrants seeking the provincial program with the lowest standards but moving elsewhere.

The premiers’ own justification for asking for bigger numbers of provincial nominees – that they know their own labour markets better – is itself a good reason to reject their request.

Using immigration to try to plug holes in labour markets, by recruiting foreigners to fill current job openings, is a failed approach. By the time they arrive, those occupations might not be in high demand. They might be outdated in a few years. Micromanaging the labour market doesn’t work. Supply and demand, and the adjustment of wages, takes care of that.

That’s why Canada’s economic immigration system turned to a different approach almost 25 years ago to focus on human capital. A system was developed that granted points for criteria such as education, experience and language skills.

That’s one of the things that Mr. Trudeau’s government mucked up. It introduced new categories, often for short periods, that gave more points to certain types of workers who didn’t meet the points standards, including hairdressers and estheticians.

That was on top of the expanding provincial nominee programs. Quebec has had powers to select immigrants since the 1970s, intended as a power to preserve its language and culture. But after 2001, other provinces made agreements with Ottawa for nominee programs. Most have lower criteria that squeezed out applicants with more points for their human capital.

All those things have turned an economic-immigration system that was supposed to be based on predictable scores into a hodge-podge of programs built on the desires of lobby groups. 

To potential immigrants, that made Canada’s immigration system look random.

“The consultants and immigration lawyers love this because it complicates the system and makes it more like a lottery, or something that has to be gamed,” Prof. Skuterud said.

A foreign student or temporary worker might not meet the criteria for permanent residence, but they might one day become eligible under a new category or provincial program. That encourages people who might be ineligible for permanent residence to take a gamble on coming to Canada as a temporary resident – and it doesn’t always work out.

We don’t need more of that complicated mess. We need less of it. …

Source: The last thing Canada needs is premiers mucking up immigration even more






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Rempel Garner: For youth, AI is making immigration cuts even more urgent.

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see if the annual levels plans makes any reference to expected impacts of AI. Valid concerns and need for further thinking about appropriate policy responses, shorter and longer-term:

…So at writing, the only consensus on what skills will make someone employable in a five to ten year period, particularly in white collar jobs, are advanced critical thinking and problem solving ability acquired through decades of senior level managerial and product creation experience. So the question for anyone without those skills – read, youth – is, how can someone acquire those skills if AI is taking away entry level research and writing jobs? And how can they do that while competing with hundreds of thousands of non-permanent foreign workers?

While many parts of that question may remain without clear answers (e.g. whether current public investments in existing modalities of education make sense), there are some that are much more obvious. Where Canadian employers do have a need for entry level labour, those jobs should not be filled by non-Canadians unless under extremely exceptional circumstances, so that Canadian youth can gain skills needed to survive in a labour market where they’re competing against AI for work.

And translating that principle into action means that the Liberal government must (contrary to Coyne’s column) immediately and massively curtail the allowance of temporary foreign labour to continue to suppress Canadian wages and remove opportunity from Canadian youth. It’s clear that they haven’t given the topic much thought. Even their most recent Liberal platform only focused on reskilling mid-career workers, not the fact that AI will likely stymie new entrants to the labour market from ever getting to the mid-career point to begin with. While older Liberals may be assuming that the kids will be alright because they grew up with technology, data suggests AI will disrupt the labour market faster and more profoundly than even offshoring manufacturing did. Given that context, immediately weaning Canadian businesses off their over-reliance on cheap foreign labour seems like a no brainer.

But on that front, Canada’s federal immigration policy, particularly its annual intake targets, fails to account for the anticipated labor market disruptions driven by artificial intelligence. This oversight may have arisen because many of those setting these targets have had the luxury of honing their skills over decades in an economic landscape where life was far more affordable than it is today. Or, because it’s easier to listen to the spin from lobbyists who argue that they have the right to cheap foreign labour than to the concerns of millions of jobless Canadian youth. Nevertheless, the strategy of allowing Canadian youth to languish in this hyper-rapidly evolving and disruptive job market, while admitting hundreds of thousands of temporary low-skilled workers and issuing work permits to an equal number of bogus asylum claimants, demands an urgent and profound rethink.

Indifference to this issue, at best, will likely suppress wages and opportunities as the economy transitions to an AI integrated modality. At worst, it may bring widespread AI precipitated hyper-unemployment to an already unaffordable country, and all the negative social impacts associated with the same: debt, crime, and despair.

So the Liberals can either immediately push their absurdly wide open immigration gates to a much more closed position while they grapple with this labour market disruption out on behalf of Canadians, or pray that Canadians forgive them for failing to do so.

Source: For youth, AI is making immigration cuts even more urgent.

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StatsCan: Recent trends in immigration from Canada to the United States

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

Important study highlighting retention issues for high skilled immigrants to Canada:

….In recent decades, a significant decline in permanent migration from Canada to the United States has been observed. The average number of Canadian-born individuals granted U.S. permanent residency fell by 30% from the late 2000s to the late 2010s. In contrast, the number of U.S.-born immigrants to Canada has increased. Overall, Canada experienced a net loss in the exchange of permanent residents from the early 1990s to the mid-2010s. However, since 2018, the difference in permanent resident flows between the two countries has become relatively small.

Data from U.S. labour certification applications reveal that Canadian temporary workers seeking permanent employment in the United States were highly educated and concentrated in computer, mathematical, architecture and engineering occupations, though the overall educational attainment of these applicants has declined over time. By 2024, foreign-born Canadian citizens made up 60% of all Canadian citizen applicants for U.S. labour certification, and the median wage offers for these positions remained high, though slightly lower than a decade earlier.

The continued movement of highly skilled Canadians—both Canadian-born and foreign-born—into the U.S. labour market has important implications for both countries. For Canada, these findings highlight retention issues for skilled immigrants. In the United States, the influx of highly skilled Canadian workers continues to bolster key sectors, but the overall decline in Canadian immigration suggests tightening competition for global talent.

Source: StatsCan: Recent trends in immigration from Canada to the United States

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Trump Is Building a Machine to Disappear People

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

All too true:

…But how legitimate is it? Third-country deportations often sidestep due process and violate international law, under which it is forbidden for states to deport such people to any place where their life or liberty would be at risk. It is also plainly unethical, imposing additional stress on people who have undergone traumatic journeys and who are then dumped in far-off, unfamiliar places.

Several of the countries slated as deportation destinations have bleak human rights records and are unsafe for all civilians, let alone foreign deportees, who are likely to be targets of abuse and exploitation. In the worst instances, as with U.S. deportees in El Salvador, they can find themselves in jails where the authorities routinely inflict physical and psychological violence on inmates.

These deportation deals also have corrosive consequences for international politics. They encourage smaller, weaker countries to engage in transactional behavior, commodifying human life by trading immigrant bodies for cash, development aid, diplomatic support and international impunity. They may even strengthen the impunity of authoritarian regimes that violate the human rights of their own citizens. In the case of El Salvador, for example, deportees from the United States reportedly included some leaders of the criminal gang MS-13, who were thought to be in a position to expose links between President Nayib Bukele and the gang.

For nearly three-quarters of a century, a network of international instruments, institutions and norms have acted as guardrails, if imperfect ones, to ensure that refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants are treated humanely. Now it seems as though the president is looking to rewrite the rules of this system to one in which people are pawns.

By expanding the practice of forced relocation, Mr. Trump is using migrants as currency in a global network of geopolitical negotiation. His administration is normalizing the use of vulnerable people as bargaining chips to extract better deals with friends and foes alike. He is setting a dangerous precedent for other democratic countries by ignoring the moral and reputational cost of shipping desperate people into terrible conditions. As Mr. Trump works to bring this new paradigm to life, leaders the world over will be watching closely. If he can pull it off, so can they.

Jeff Crisp, an expert on migration and humanitarian issues.

Source: Trump Is Building a Machine to Disappear People

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$68M project to secure, revamp Canada’s asylum system shut down unexpectedly, documents show

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

Complex cross organization IT project. Responded to clear need for common platform across silos, even if only partially successful.

Not convinced by arguments against such projects by advocates as current systems and approaches make asylum system more costly with more complex management and oversight.

Advocates continuing to argue for “more resources” are simply denying reality:

A $68-million project led by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that was meant to revamp Canada’s outdated asylum system and enhance the integrity of the country’s borders was quietly shut down last year — an “unexpected” move for some in the government because it was only partly completed, internal documents show. 

Now, some critics fear the outcomes that were achieved may be more harmful than beneficial for people seeking protection in Canada.

IRCC’s “asylum interoperability project” began in 2019 and was supposed to wrap up by 2022. It came during a surge of asylum seekers entering Canada, putting pressure on an already struggling system that relied heavily on paper files. Its launch followed calls for major reform.

The main goals of the project was “to transform the asylum system” into a digital one, automate data and create real-time information sharing between three departments — IRCC, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB).

If these tools are so effective and being implemented, then why do we still have this backlog?- Wei Will Tao, immigration and refugee lawyer

It also hoped to “enhance integrity, security and deterrence within the asylum system,” while improving efficiency and service to claimants, documents show.

It allocated about $48.4 million to IRCC, $15.5 million to CBSA and $3.8 million to the IRB over several years to meet these goals, an internal document shows. IRCC said it had used 75 per cent of its allocated funds.

Through access to information documents, CBC News has learned the project was abandoned in February 2024 after it failed to get another extension from the Department of Finance. 

But just months after prematurely halting this project, then Immigration minister Marc Miller told the House of Commons immigration committee: “I want to reform the system. It’s not working in the way it should.”

At the time, he said Canada’s asylum and refugee system was still struggling due to volume and inefficiency.

According to records obtained by CBC, about 64 per cent of the interoperability project was accomplished. IRCC either scrapped or “deferred” the rest of the tasks to future major IT projects.

“The decision to close the project was unexpected,” reads a 2024 CBSA briefing note.

The latest IRB data shows a backlog of 288,198 pending applications as of last month — a historic high that’s nearly tripled since June 2023, when the interoperability project was well underway.

“The first question is, if these tools are so effective and being implemented, then why do we still have this backlog?” said Wei Will Tao, an immigration and refugee lawyer.

Automation, online portal among goals achieved

All three departments operate their own IT systems, “causing program integrity risks” and delays, a project document reads.

While incrementally rolling out improvements until its shutdown in 2024, the project faced “capacity issues,” “black-out periods” in IRCC’s internal application processing tool Global Case Management System (GCMS), and a “downgrade” in priorities which led to delays past its 2022 finish date, records say.

The project still managed to build an online refugee application process, and automated case creation, data entry and admissibility checks, according to documents. For IRB hearings, the project also allowed more real-time information exchange between departments.

The process to detain and remove people from Canada was also “enhanced,” according to a CBSA briefing note, citing the ability to automatically cancel valid work or study permits when a removal order is issued, among other improvements. 

But there were several wish list items the project couldn’t make happen — like a CBSA officer portal and online applications for pre-removal risk assessments (an application for people facing removal from Canada.)

Another task that was skipped — a function to “view notes associated with a claim in one place,” which would have helped officers’ workflow, CBSA records show.

In a closing note, one government official noted that “the project did deliver on every benefit identified but not all to the depth it aimed to.” 

IRCC declined an interview. The department didn’t specify which tasks it was unable to complete, but said in an email those may be part of future projects. IRCC has hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to digital modernization in the coming years.

Impacts felt, but questions remain

“The actual project itself and the fact that there’s huge funding … that came to us as a bit of a surprise,” said Tao, who’s part of a collective of experts monitoring AI and technological advances in Canada’s immigration system.

Tao said he didn’t “want to deny the positivity” of some digital advancements. But he raised questions around transparency, the kind of information being exchanged between the three departments and how it’s being used by each partner — especially because the IRB is an arms-length, independent tribunal.

“What if there’s information that’s being transmitted behind the scenes that we’re not a party to, or that could implicate our clients’ case without us knowing?” asked Tao, founder of Heron Law Offices in Burnaby, B.C.

Despite multiple followups, the IRB did not respond to CBC’s requests for information. IRCC wrote to CBC that the IRB maintains its adjudicative independence.

“We do have serious concerns about this interoperability — being yes, an efficiency tool and a way for things to be streamlined — … [but] is our ability to contest these systems being altered, or even perhaps barriered, by these tools?” Tao asked.

“Digitization is not the answer,” said Syed Hussan, spokesperson for the Migrant Rights Network. “These so-called streamline mechanisms are actually making life harder for people.”

Hussan said the digital-focused application system has “caused immense havoc” for some people with technological barriers. He also questions the “enormous focus” on sharing private information between agencies and the oversight of that.

“What is framed as a technical step forward is actually a series of policies that make it harder for refugees to gain protection,” said Hussan. “It’s part of a broader turn rightward towards Trump-like policies in the immigration system.”

Hussan said what the system actually needs is more resources for settlement organizations and claimants who need protection.

“Instead there’s actually just mass firing of federal civil servants as well as underfunding of settlement agencies and money being put into these digitization projects — which largely seem to be about streamlining removals rather than ensuring rights,” Hussan said.

Canada enforced more removal orders in the past year than in any other 12-month period since 2019 — 18,048 in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to CBSA data.

Source: $68M project to secure, revamp Canada’s asylum system shut down unexpectedly, documents show

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