Majority of Canadians believe Liberals’ immigration targets are set too high: poll

2024/08/31 Leave a comment

Worth reading (link to ppt: https://leger360.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Leger-X-National-Post_Politics-August-26th-2024-002.pdf). Helps understand the ongoing backtracking of the government on many of its earlier and often misguided policies:

Most Canadians believe the Trudeau government’s immigration plan is admitting too many people, but they’re less clear on the temporary foreign worker program, according to new polling.

Leger conducted the new survey, exclusively for the National Post, that showed 65 per cent of Canadians believe the Liberals’ current immigration targets are too high. The government has a target to bring in 500,000 newcomers in both 2025 and 2026.

The poll found 20 per cent of Canadians believe the target is the right number, while three per cent believe it is not enough.

Andrew Enns, an executive vice-president with Leger, said attitudes toward immigration have been hardening over the past few years.

“What’s starting to happen now is that we’re starting to see Canadians, rightly or wrongly, are connecting a few issues to immigration,” he said.

Enns’ polling shows that 78 per cent of respondents believe high immigration levels are contributing to the housing shortage, while 76 per cent said they are having an impact on health care.

The polling also reveals that 72 per cent believe Canada’s immigration policy is too generous and only 26 per cent of Canadians believe the government does a good job vetting new immigrants.

While the governing Liberals have so far left permanent resident immigration untouched, they have indicated there will be changes to the number of temporary residents such as international students and temporary foreign workers who can come to Canada.

The Liberals moved this week to cut the number of temporary foreign workers and said for the first time there will be overall caps on the number of temporary residents let into Canada in a plan promised later this year.

Enns polled on the temporary foreign worker program and found most people (57 per cent) were not familiar with it. Only 43 per cent said they were familiar with it.

Despite the gap in knowledge, 48 per cent of respondents said they thought the program was positive, while 38 per cent said it was negative.

There was considerable support for the program in Quebec, with 61 per cent of respondents agreeing it was positive.

“People just aren’t sure about the program or how it works, so you see that sort of split when it comes to the impression of the program itself,” said Enns.

The program grew considerably over the past two years when the Liberals eased some of the restrictions. The government rolled back the changes this week after the spike in numbers.

Enns said there are parts of the country where business groups have lobbied hard for the program and put forward the message that Canadians don’t want many of these jobs. Enns said that message might have had some impact, but Canadians may have come to their own conclusions about low-wage work.

“I do wonder whether or not there’s also a reflection in the population that there’s some jobs that are just hard to fill.”

Leger’s poll was an online sample of 1,602 Canadians conducted between Aug. 23 and 25.

The sample is weighted to reflect Canada’s demographic makeup, but a similar random sample would produce a margin of error of 2.45 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Source: Majority of Canadians believe Liberals’ immigration targets are set too high: poll

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

A little more than 200 Gazans have arrived in Canada under special visa program: IRCC

2024/08/31 Leave a comment

Latest numbers:

More than 200 Gazans have arrived in Canada under a special temporary residency program launched in January, according to Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

“As of August 24, 2024, 209 people have arrived in Canada under the temporary public policy,” wrote IRCC spokesman Jeffrey MacDonald in an email to the National Post.

This is a four-fold increase in arrivals since late May, when the program’s cap was expanded from 1,000 to 5,000 visas. At the time, officials said that 41 displaced Gazans had arrived in Canada, receiving visas under both the new policy and a pre-existing one.

MacDonald said that getting eligible Gazans out of the war-torn enclave is a major barrier to their resettlement in Canada.

“We have put forward names of people who passed preliminary eligibility and admissibility reviews to local authorities for approval to exit Gaza,” said MacDonald. “However, Canada does not control (how) or when someone can exit Gaza.”

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been closed since being seized by Israel in early May. Even so, MacDonald stressed that Israel has been cooperating with Canada’s request to facilitate the exit of Gazans with extended family members in Canada.

MacDonald said that 478 people who left Gaza on their own have been approved to come to Canada but did not say how many of them have made it to the country. He also disclosed that 673 temporary resident visas have been approved for Palestinians outside of Gaza since the Oct. 7 attacks, through pre-existing IRCC programs.

He did not elaborate on how many of the non-Gazan visa holders have arrived on Canadian soil, saying only that they are “able to travel to Canada.”

Source: A little more than 200 Gazans have arrived in Canada under special visa program: IRCC

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

LILLEY: Security screening tarnished by accused terrorist’s citizenship quest

2024/08/30 Leave a comment

Understandable that this case provokes these questions. No screening system is perfect after all and likely the high numbers and resulting workload increase the risk. The one bit of good news is that his citizenship could be revoked given misrepresentation at both the Permanent Resident and citizenship approval stages.

Lilley is correct in that this will likely raise questions with Gazan refugees:

When Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi first tried to come to Canada, he was rejected. That was the right answer and I wish it had stayed that way, but sadly he was not only let in but granted citizenship.

“This is the way that the investigative and national security system should work,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in his opening statement before a Commons committee on Wednesday.

LeBlanc was appearing before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, where it was revealed that Eldidi, now accused of plotting a potential terror attack, was screened by our intelligence agencies a half-dozen times. That fact alone is a damning indictment of our system and calls into question how secure our screening is as we bring in thousands of people from Gaza, an area ruled by the Hamas terrorist group.

Eldidi is the father portion of the father-son duo arrested at the end of July on terrorism-related charges. Among the charges Eldidi is facing is one for aggravated assault, contrary to Sec. 83.2 of the Criminal Code.

That section is specific to committing an indictable offence “for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a terrorist group.” The accusation is Eldidi was the star of a 2015 ISIS terror and torture video, in which he allegedly performed unspeakable acts on another man.

That this allegation wasn’t unearthed by our security services before he was granted citizenship has led to many questions. The Trudeau government, though, has spent the last month dodging those questions, but less than an hour before Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc showed up to testify, a chronology of events was released.

Eldidi first tried to come to Canada in late 2017, but was denied a visa because he was deemed a “potential non-genuine visitor.” That assessment seems to have been accurate because Eldidi wasn’t just looking to visit Canada from Egypt, he was looking to claim asylum here.

In January 2018, after submitting new information to Canadian officials, Eldidi was granted a “temporary resident visa” and was allowed to enter Canada. He arrived in the country that February via Pearson airport and in June 2018 claimed asylum.

In both his initial visa application (which was rejected) and the secondary one (which was approved), Eldidi was subject to security screening including biometrics, such as fingerprints.

After his asylum claim was made, Eldidi was subjected to biometrics and security screening again.

“Application was reviewed and a favourable recommendation was provided by security screening partners,” the government’s chronology said.

If hearing “biometrics” as a screening tool makes you feel better, it shouldn’t; it just means that we didn’t find his fingerprints in an existing database.

Eldidi worked the system to quickly move from asylum claimant to getting a work permit, then permanent resident status and finally citizenship in May. Then in June, security officials who had approved him at every step began monitoring him after a tip from our allies in France that something was up.

In July, Eldidi and his son Mostafa were arrested and accused of an alleged terror plot aimed at Toronto’s Jewish community.

Asked time and again about the failure to stop a man who allegedly starred in an ISIS torture video from entering the country, LeBlanc refused to say it was a failure. Clearly it was, though Liberal MPs on the committee tried to portray his arrest as a success.

Sure, the cops stopping an alleged terror attack before it happens is a good thing, but we are supposed to have layers of security to stop those who were allegedly involved in terrorism from coming here and getting citizenship.

Right now, the Trudeau government is in the process of bringing in thousands of people from Gaza. They are trying to assure the public that there is no threat thanks to “biometrics” and “security screening.”

Based on what you have heard about the Eldidi case, do you still feel confident or secure?

Source: LILLEY: Security screening tarnished by accused terrorist’s citizenship quest

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Urback: Justin Trudeau’s legacy will be destroying the Canadian consensus on immigration

2024/08/30 Leave a comment

All too common mistake of looking only at the top line numbers and not some of the nuances in the more detailed breakdowns. Concerns, legitimate, over levels, types and pace, are not related to fundamental beliefs that immigration is good or bad, but rather how excessively high levels of permanent and temporary immigrants exacerbate housing, healthcare, infrastructure etc.

And please, “never before have they been so prevalent, and so mainstream” is both factually and historically incorrect, when in the past anti-immigration attitudes were more race, religion and ethnic ancestry based, not on issues like housing, healthcare and infrastructure that affect immigrants and non-immigrants alike:

…Recent polling has shown a steep decline in Canadians’ support for immigration. A Nanos poll released in 2023 showed a 20-point increase from March to September in respondents who thought Canada should accept fewer immigrants. Research by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada showed similar results. A recent Leger poll indicated that 60 per cent of Canadians believe we are accepting too many immigrants. These attitudes about policy can often turn into animosity toward people – attitudes that are quick to shift, and nearly impossible to shift back. It breeds the type of xenophobia that recently led to violent clashes in Britain, and unapologetic racism in France, and inhumane border detention facilities in the United States. And it’s starting to creep out of the fringes in Canada.

Anti-immigrant attitudes have always been present in this country, but never before have they been so prevalent, and so mainstream. The Canadian consensus that existed on immigration before Mr. Trudeau’s government has all but been vanquished, and a new cap on temporary foreign workers or a few piddling restrictions on international students won’t bring it back. That will be Mr. Trudeau’s legacy, and it’s not one that he, or the country, can be proud of.

Source: Opinion: Justin Trudeau’s legacy will be destroying the Canadian consensus on immigration

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Canada ends policy of allowing visitors to apply for work permits from within the country

2024/08/30 Leave a comment

Of note, yet another correction:

The federal government has scrapped a COVID-era special measure that has been blamed for contributing to the surge of temporary residents in Canada and possibly asylum claimants at airports.

Starting immediately, the Immigration Department has ended the temporary public policy that allowed visitors to apply for work permits from within Canada, a measure to partly mitigate the financial hardship faced by visitors stuck in the country as a result of border closures and to partly fill labour shortages after the pandemic.

The special policy was to expire on Feb. 28, 2025.

The abrupt end to the measure is ”part of our overall efforts to recalibrate the number of temporary residents in Canada and preserve the integrity of the immigration system,” said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in a notice on Wednesday. …

Source: Canada ends policy of allowing visitors to apply for work permits from within the country

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Mike Moffatt: My remarks to the federal cabinet on housing, immigration, and the temporary foreign worker program 

2024/08/29 Leave a comment

Really quite striking how academics like Moffatt, Skuterud, Worswick and other have changed the discourse around immigration, focussing on selection criteria, productivity and impact on housing, healthcare and infrastructure.

Another further indication that immigration is not a third rail issue, and Moffatt speaking to Cabinet and sharing his remarks on the conservative outlet The Hub is a further illustration:

..On population growth, yesterday’s temporary foreign worker reforms are welcome news, but Canada must go much further. The TFW program, particularly the low-wage non-agricultural stream, suppresses wage growth, increases youth unemployment, creates the conditions for the exploitation of foreign workers, and reduces productivity, as it disincentivizes companies from investing in productivity-enhancing equipment. The low-wage stream should be entirely abolished, and the other streams should be substantially reformed, including creating a system of open permits.

Population growth targets, including both permanent and non-permanent residents, and housing growth targets, should all be incorporated into the annual release of the Immigration Levels Plan. The targets must be aligned, to ensure population growth does not outpace homebuilding, which will require substantial reductions in the permanent resident target over the next few years.

Like most economists, I support a robust immigration system and believe the current targets are achievable in the long run. In the meantime, however, we need to give ourselves time to allow homebuilding to catch up to past population growth, requiring a substantial reduction in the permanent resident target back to the levels of a decade ago.

We should be clear that this is not about blaming immigrants for Canada’s issues. Rather we must recognize that when we invite people to our country, we need to ensure that we have in place the conditions for them to succeed. We do them no favours, and us no favours, by setting them up to fail.

And we should be clear that we are setting people up to fail, particularly Millennials and Gen Z. Rents on new leases in Halifax are up 75 percent in the past five years. It should come as no surprise that the 2024 World Happiness Report found that Canadians under the age of 30 are the 58th happiest in the world. They are being denied a path to middle-class prosperity.

We can and must do better. Thank you for having me here today.

Source: Mike Moffatt: My remarks to the federal cabinet on housing, immigration, and the temporary foreign worker program

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Globe editorial: Immigration requires steady policy, not constant ad hoc change

2024/08/29 Leave a comment

Yes:

…The system to welcome new Canadians – the comprehensive ranking system, colloquially known as the points system – was designed to minimize political meddling. It’s the core method used to select economic immigrants, who account for about 60 per cent of all new permanent residents. Yet the Liberals, like their back-and-forth changes around temporary foreign workers, have weakened a system that prioritized newcomers with high levels of education and promising futures in Canada. Instead, they have politicized the system with a lengthening list of exceptions that does an end run around the central philosophy of the points system.

The latest proposal, as The Globe reported last Friday, is to potentially allow people who have at most finished high school and are currently in low-wage temporary foreign worker jobs a path to permanent residency. This is not what economic immigration is supposed to be. The future of Canada’s prosperity cannot be built on low-wage jobs.

The low-wage temporary foreign worker program for jobs such as those in food service was never a key pillar of our immigration system, nor should it ever be. It’s a relatively recent invention, created in 2002. The experience of a decade ago should have been a lesson: as this space wrote last year, Mr. Trudeau himself urged reform in 2014.

Loosening the rules in 2022 should have never happened. While Monday’s changes are welcome, what would be more welcome is an immigration policy that does not react to the latest news and instead focuses on long-term results.

Source: Immigration requires steady policy, not constant ad hoc change

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Kenney dubs Ottawa’s immigration policies as “gross mismanagement”

2024/08/29 Leave a comment

Funny enough, neither Kenney nor the “true” North reporter mention that Kenney also made the same mistake re temporary foreign workers before stories emerged over Canadians losing shifts in fast food outlets and replacement of computer programmers. To his credit, he quickly overhauled the program, imposing restrictions along with creating the IMP program. And of course, he was criticized sharply by then MP Justin Trudeau, who also seems to have forgotten this history:

Former Alberta premier and Conservative immigration minister Jason Kenney is attacking the federal government’s handling of immigration, with particular ire for its foreign labour policies.

While serving as the immigration and employment minister in 2012-13 under then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Kenney overhauled the Temporary Foreign Worker Program resulting in an 80% decline in low-skilled foreign workers.

Those numbers have exploded under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Statistics Canada is now reporting a 30-month high in unemployment which is particularly impacting youth who are competing with an influx of foreign labour. 

Kenney says he is “perplexed” by the federal government’s “gross mismanagement” of the immigration system, and especially the foreign worker program.

“And then the current government reversed these reforms, on top of massive increases in other streams of both permanent and temporary resident migration, in the midst of a housing crisis,” he wrote on X. “Why???”

Trudeau announced that his government would be reducing the number of foreign, low-wage workers after Canada’s unemployment hit a 30-month high of 6.4% in July. 

“The labour market has changed,” Trudeau said. “Now is the time for our businesses to invest in Canadian workers and youth.”

Temporary foreign workers do labour ranging from picking fruit, to pouring coffee, to cleaning hotel rooms. Healthcare, construction, and food security sectors won’t be impacted by the cuts. 

The prime minister’s announcement follows Statistics Canada’s July data which revealed that unemployment is highest among young Canadians, and increasingly among core-aged men.

“There’s record-high unemployment for youths, there’s record-high unemployment for, basically, very young workers,” said Chetan Dave, professor of economics at the University of Alberta.

“So having this surge or temporary foreign workers cut against Canadian workers who were looking for positions as well.”

During the pandemic, the federal government bolstered the program resulting in more than 183,000 permits effective last year – an 88% jump from 2019.

Kenney said changes he made over 10 years ago were criticised by the business community but were “ the right thing to do.”

“As I said repeatedly at the time, if there are real labour shortages, then the market response must be for employers to offer higher wages, better benefits, more training, accommodations for underemployed cohorts of the labour force, and more investment to enhance productivity,” he said. 

Source: Kenney dubs Ottawa’s immigration policies as “gross mismanagement”

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Les exigences en français pour les travailleurs temporaires se font attendre, Requirements in French for temporary workers are long overdue

2024/08/29 Leave a comment

A noter. Another government having implementation issues:

Le gouvernement de François Legault, qui avait annoncé en novembre 2023 ses intentions d’exiger une connaissance minimale du français chez les travailleurs temporaires, n’a toujours pas déposé le règlement qui le lui permettra.

Le cabinet de la ministre de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, Christine Fréchette, a confirmé mardi au Devoir ne pas avoir encore déposé les modifications réglementaires nécessaires à l’imposition de nouvelles exigences en français pour les quelque 60 000 immigrants du Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires (PTET) actuellement sur le territoire québécois. Un projet de règlement sera déposé « cet automne », a-t-on assuré.

Sur son site Web, vendredi, la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) s’était pourtant félicitée d’avoir posé « de nombreuses actions importantes […] pour mieux réguler l’immigration temporaire » depuis son arrivée au pouvoir. Parmi celles-ci : avoir « exigé la connaissance du français pour renouveler les permis de travail temporaires ».

Cela fait près de dix mois que le premier ministre, François Legault, a officialisé, en conférence de presse à Québec, ses intentions de rendre le renouvellement d’un permis de travail conditionnel à la maîtrise de la langue française.

À l’époque, la ministre Fréchette avait affirmé que les travailleurs du PTET — à l’exception de ceux qui travaillent dans les champs — devraient bientôt démontrer une connaissance de la langue de niveau quatre, c’est-à-dire être capables de « discuter avec leur entourage » de « sujets familiers ». Le gouvernement de Justin Trudeau a depuis emboîté le pas à Québec, en promettant d’appliquer les mêmes exigences aux immigrants inscrits au programme fédéral de mobilité internationale (PMI).

Après plusieurs questions du Devoir, mardi, le cabinet de la ministre de l’Immigration a finalement indiqué qu’il procéderait à la « prépublication du règlement cet automne », avec pour objectif que celui-ci entre en vigueur au cours de l’année 2025. Aucune explication n’a été fournie pour les retards constatés depuis près d’un an.

« Improvisation »

En entrevue, le porte-parole du Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) en matière d’immigration, André A. Morin, a cependant accusé le gouvernement d’avoir « improvisé » dans le dossier. « C’est toujours le même problème avec la CAQ : des grosses annonces, puis après ça, il n’arrive rien », a-t-il déploré à l’autre bout du fil. « Pour moi, c’est un autre exemple du manque de planification et du manque de contrôle de la CAQ, que ce soit dans le domaine de l’immigration, de la francisation ou de l’intégration. »

Quoiqu’exaspéré, M. Morin se dit peu surpris d’apprendre que la mesure caquiste n’a toujours pas été mise en application. Il se permet d’ailleurs une hypothèse pour l’expliquer : « En matière de francisation, le gouvernement, actuellement, est incapable de répondre à la demande », a-t-il observé, mardi. « Il y a des gens que je connais qui veulent suivre des cours, mais qui ne sont pas appelés. »

Dans son rapport annuel déposé en mai, le commissaire à la langue française, Benoît Dubreuil, avait constaté d’importants retards dans l’offre de service chez Francisation Québec. À l’époque, la moitié des demandeurs attendaient toujours de suivre leur premier cours.

Interrogé mardi, le député de Québec solidaire Guillaume Cliche-Rivard a lui aussi raillé les retards du gouvernement en la matière. « Les bottines de la CAQ ne suivent pas les babines pour la protection du français », a-t-il affirmé dans une déclaration écrite.

« Ça fait des mois que les échecs de Francisation Québec font la manchette et que les travailleurs immigrants font la file pour apprendre le français. Protéger le français, ça ne passe pas seulement par des exigences, mais aussi par des résultats positifs en francisation », a-t-il lancé.

« La CAQ se vante d’être le parti qui en a le plus fait pour l’immigration francophone. Déjà qu’elle n’imposait qu’un niveau 4 aux travailleurs du PTET, on apprend que le règlement qui devait mettre cela en oeuvre n’a pas encore été déposé », a pour sa part dénoncé le porte-parole du Parti québécois en matière de langue française, Pascal Bérubé.

Son parti, a-t-il rappelé, doit déposer cet automne « un plan de réduction des immigrants temporaires afin de diminuer la pression sur le français, notamment ».

Source: Les exigences en français pour les travailleurs temporaires se font attendre

Computer translation

The government of François Legault, which had announced in November 2023 its intentions to require a minimum knowledge of French among temporary workers, has still not filed the regulation that will allow it.

The office of the Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Christine Fréchette, confirmed Tuesday to Le Devoir that she had not yet filed the regulatory amendments necessary to impose new requirements in French for the approximately 60,000 immigrants of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (PTET) currently in Quebec territory. A draft regulation will be tabled “this fall,” it was assured.

On its website on Friday, the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) was pleased to have taken “many important actions […] to better regulate temporary immigration” since it came to power. Among these: having “required knowledge of French to renew temporary work permits”.

It has been almost ten months since the Prime Minister, François Legault, formalized, at a press conference in Quebec City, his intentions to renew a conditional work permit to master the French language.

At the time, Minister Fréchette had said that PTET workers – with the exception of those who work in the fields – should soon demonstrate a knowledge of the language of level four, that is, be able to “discuss with those around them” about “familiar subjects”. Justin Trudeau’s government has since followed in the footsteps of Quebec City, promising to apply the same requirements to immigrants enrolled in the federal International Mobility Program (PMI).

After several questions of the Duty, on Tuesday, the office of the Minister of Immigration finally indicated that it would proceed with the “pre-publication of the regulation this fall”, with the aim of it entering into force during the year 2025. No explanation has been provided for the delays noted for almost a year.

“Improvisation”

In an interview, the spokesperson for the Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) on immigration, André A. Morin, however, accused the government of having “improvised” in the file. “It’s always the same problem with the CAQ: big announcements, then after that, nothing happens,” he lamented on the other end of the line. “For me, this is another example of the lack of planning and lack of control of the CAQ, whether in the field of immigration, francization or integration. ”

Although exasperated, Mr. Morin says he is not surprised to learn that the Caquist measure has still not been implemented. He also allows himself a hypothesis to explain it: “In terms of francization, the government is currently unable to respond to demand,” he observed on Tuesday. “There are people I know who want to take classes, but who are not called. ”

In his annual report submitted in May, the Commissioner for the French Language, Benoît Dubreuil, noted significant delays in the service offer at Francisation Québec. At the time, half of the applicants were still waiting to take their first course.

Asked on Tuesday, Québec solidaire MP Guillaume Cliche-Rivard also mocked the government’s delays in this regard. “The boots of the CAQ do not follow the babines for the protection of French,” he said in a written statement.

“The failures of Francisation Québec have been making headlines for months and immigrant workers have been queueing to learn French. Protecting French requires not only requirements, but also positive results in francization, “he said.

“The CAQ boasts of being the party that has done the most for Francophone immigration. Already that it imposed only level 4 on PTET workers, we learn that the regulation that was supposed to implement this has not yet been tabled, “denounced the spokesman for the French-language Party of the Quebec Party, Pascal Bérubé.

His party, he recalled, must submit this fall “a plan to reduce temporary immigrants in order to reduce the pressure on French, in particular”.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Worswick: Ottawa needs to abolish the temporary foreign worker program

2024/08/28 Leave a comment

Worth consideration:

…While these statements, at first glance, may seem at odds, there are valid economic reasons to be in favour of skilled (permanent) immigration but opposed to less-skilled temporary foreign worker programs.

We must therefore redesign our international migration policies. Ottawa’s announcement on Monday to further restrict the temporary foreign worker (TFW)program is a step in the right direction but not enough. Canada needs to go further and abolish the program.

We need to quickly phase out the low-skill stream of the TFW program, which the government has expanded to let companies fill perceived labour shortages. Then we should merge the higher-skill part of the program into our economic immigration program.

This would retain the advantages of the TFW program for higher-skilled workers, which is that it provides for a trial period for prospective immigrants. It would also ensure the temporary foreign workers are admitted in line with the goals of the economic immigration program: that they have high-enough skills to become immigrants whose presence greatly benefits the Canadian economy.

This must be done to reverse a long-standing, concerning trend. With support from the provinces and the business lobby, the federal government has greatly increased the numbers of immigrants and the number of temporary foreign workers coming to Canada, with 2022 levels that are more than 50 per cent higher than the 2017 levels in each case (according to the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Annual Report to Parliament on Immigration). Given that these remarkable increases have coincided with both a health care crisis and a housing crisis, it naturally raises the issue of redesigning our international migration programs….

Source: Ottawa needs to abolish the temporary foreign worker program

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →