Nadeau | «Aucun, c’est déjà trop»

2026/05/05 Leave a comment

Valid to discuss specifics rather than generalities:

…« On ne peut pas accueillir toute la misère du monde » : cette formule qui sert à se laver les mains me lève le cœur. Elle déplace la question pour mieux noyer le poisson. Au lieu de discuter de situations réelles — de personnes précises, de risques précis, de décisions précises —, elle remplace le problème par une abstraction gigantesque. Et face à une abstraction gigantesque, il devient toujours possible de conclure qu’il n’y a rien à faire, que c’est trop gros. Ainsi, la discussion est close avant même d’avoir commencé.

Cette rhétorique dit en réalité moins quelque chose sur la misère du monde que sur notre propre étroitesse morale. Elle exprime jusqu’où nous sommes prêts à ne pas voir la souffrance d’autrui.

L’immigration n’est pas une condition historique figée. Il suffit de peu, dans l’histoire, pour devoir chercher refuge ailleurs. Du jour au lendemain, des sociétés entières peuvent s’y trouver poussées. Entre 1880 et 1930, près de 900 000 Canadiens français ont émigré aux États-Unis pour échapper à la misère. La frontière entre ceux qui accueillent et ceux qui arrivent n’est jamais aussi claire qu’on veut bien le croire. Ceux qui parlent aujourd’hui des migrants comme de pestiférés oublient parfois qu’on peut vite devenir l’« immigrant » de quelqu’un d’autre.

Source: Chronique | «Aucun, c’est déjà trop»

Funny how the translation program is so literal on the gender of “formula” rather than using it:

…” We cannot welcome all the misery of the world”: this formula that is used to wash your hands raises my heart. She shifts the question to better drown the fish. Instead of discussing real situations — specific people, specific risks, precise decisions — she replaces the problem with a gigantic abstraction. And in the face of a gigantic abstraction, it always becomes possible to conclude that there is nothing to do, that it is too big. Thus, the discussion is closed before it has even begun.

This rhetoric actually says less about the misery of the world than about our own moral narrowness. It expresses how far we are willing not to see the suffering of others.

Immigration is not a fixed historical condition. It takes little, in history, to have to look for refuge elsewhere. Overnight, entire societies can find themselves pushed there. Between 1880 and 1930, nearly 900,000 French Canadians emigrated to the United States to escape poverty. The border between those who welcome and those who arrive is never as clear as we would like to believe. Those who today speak of migrants as plague victims sometimes forget that you can quickly become someone else’s “immigrant”.

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Here’s why Canada needs to ditch age‑based immigration points

2026/05/05 Leave a comment

It was the point system that was established in the 60’s and the CRS is the updated version used in Express Entry that was launched in 2015. Sloppy not to note that in the article.

The CRS was based on extensive analysis of the various factors that contributed to the success of economic immigrants. Like all government programs, it has to discriminate or more accurately distinguish between the various factors to assess eligibility.

Age also is a factor with respect to the overall aging of the population. Are there any points that she would agree are good policy?:

Canada’s Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) was established in 1967 to respond to historic racism and nationality bias in Canada’s immigration system. Granting points for age, education, official language skills, Canadian work experience and family ties, the CRS ranks applicants for permanent residency.

The federal government recently proposed changes to CRS points, including the elimination of some point categories. While family-related points are proposed for removal, age-based criteria are not.

My research delves into the legal, ethical and policy reasons why Canada should ditch age-based immigration points….

Ageist immigration policies

Age discrimination embedded in the points system also contradicts Canadian values. Currently, a person gets zero points for age if they are under 18 or over 45.

Imagine the public outcry if a person received zero points for being a woman? Or for being a racialized person? Many Canadians would rightly call out such overtly sexist and racist policies. 

Similarly, points for age undermine the merit-based foundations of the CRS. They contradict rights-based hiring practices that prohibit asking candidates their age and stereotyping older workers.

My archival research suggests the architect of the CRS, then-Deputy Immigration Minister Tom Kent, did not have a clear policy rationale for the initial age-based points. One historianhas argued: “The points system, as it was originally conceived, has as much to do with politics as with labour markets.”

There is also some internal contradiction within the points system between the decreasing points for age and the increasing points for education and work experience. The latter rely on the passage of chronological time, while the former subtracts points for it.

Age-based points are bad policy

Policymakers and public commentators sometimes justify age discrimination in the points system by claiming that older immigrants are likely to take more from Canada than they are to give. But research shows that this is empirically incorrect.

First, Canadian and Québec pension plans are contributory — benefits are calculated by lifetime earnings in Canada. For Old Age Security, people must be residents of Canada for at least 10 years to qualify, and they must have resided here for at least 40 years to receive the maximum benefit. 

As a result, immigrants to Canada receive fewer contributions and are more likely to be poor than any other group of Canadians when they retire.

Second, while some may assume older immigrants will be a burden on the health-care system, the “healthy immigrant effect” is well-documented. 

Newcomers also tend to under-use health services. What’s more, there’s a waiting period for universal health coverage. Some immigrants actually return to their home countries to access time-sensitive or culturally appropriate care.

Source: Here’s why Canada needs to ditch age‑based immigration points

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Temporary Foreign Worker Permits Are Destroying Trucking

2026/05/05 2 Comments

Another area of less expensive temporary workers being used, similar to the restaurant and food service industry:

…If the goal is to fix the transport trucking industry, and protect the workers who keep it running, the solutions are not complicated. They do, however, require political will, and perhaps most importantly, workers and unions organized and willing to fight. 

The Teamsters are calling for: a reduction in closed work permits that tie workers to a single employer; a meaningful wage floor and enforcement to ensure pay for all hours worked; pathways to permanent residency for migrant workers; stronger enforcement against employment misclassification and other labour violations; and recognition of truck driving as a skilled trade. 

All of these proposals would raise standards for migrant and Canadian-born workers alike, and should form the basis of solidarity. 

What’s happening in the trucking industry is not unique. It’s part of a broader pattern in the Canadian economy whereby employers refuse to accede to demands for better pay and working conditions (even when their own cost-cutting produces a qualitative labour shortage), instead depending on a supply of precarious and exploitable workers. 

As the Teamsters’ report makes clear, we are faced with a choice. We can continue down the current path, where labour shortages are solved not by improving jobs, but by making workers more disposable. Or, we can raise wages and improve work as the foundation of a better economy. As Burgan put it, “Trucking can’t be outsourced abroad. These jobs are here to stay. So let’s make sure they’re good jobs.”

The trucking industry, like so many others, doesn’t have a labour shortage. It has a shortage of good, union jobs. 

Source: Temporary Foreign Worker Permits Are Destroying Trucking

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Ottawa urged to open up new permanent resident program to all temporary workers

2026/05/04 Leave a comment

Predictable call by predictable advocates:

With so many temporary residents running out of legal status this year, Ottawa has been urged to immediately release details on an announced program that’s meant to grant permanent status to migrant workers in limbo — and make sure the process is fair and inclusive.

Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab has been in the hot seat, accused of failing to promptly and properly communicate about the highly anticipated program to transition temporary foreign workers with expiring permits to permanent residence.

So far, what’s known publicly is that there will be a total 33,000 spots over two years, in 2026 and 2027, targeting skilled temporary foreign workers in in-demand sectors outside major urban centres, as well as a requirement of two years of Canadian work experience.

In an open letter published Thursday on behalf of 38 community groups, the Migrant Rights Network asked Diab to release details on the program’s full criteria, eligibility rules and application process as soon as possible. It also asked that “low-skilled and low-waged” should not be excluded.

“Thousands are shut out and the most vulnerable are exploited when the government launches narrow, time-limited programs with limited information,” said Syed Hussan of the rights network….

Source: Ottawa urged to open up new permanent resident program to all temporary workers

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ENGINE OF GROWTH:HOW A CANADIAN BUSINESS IMMIGRATION COUNCIL CAN SUPPORT NATIONAL PROSPERITY

2026/05/04 Leave a comment

Never really addresses the fact that governments are inherently bad at these kind of programs and that consequently, economic outcomes are disappointing (business class immigrants pay some of the lowest taxes of all immigrants). The issues and concerns that some of us raised did not make it into the report:

Executive Summary

In May 2025, Prime Minister Carney outlined seven policy priorities for the Government of Canada including strengthening international trade relationships with reliable partners, bringing down costs for Canadians and making housing more affordable, and attracting the best talent in the world while returning immigration to more sustainable levels.

• Business immigration can support Canada’s economy in various ways. These include promoting productivity and GDP per capita growth, supporting affordability and the health care system, as well as strengthening foreign direct investment, international trade, and Canada’s fiscal standing.

• Business immigration once comprised up to one-quarter of Canada’s economic class admissions (30,000 business immigrants annually). Under its Immigration Levels Plan 2026- 2028, the federal government is now seeking to welcome 500 business immigrants per year. The federal government has stepped back from business immigration due to challenges such as backlogs and the belief that the economic benefits have been limited.

• In 2025, the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA) launched the Catalyst Canada initiative. Catalyst Canada convened 11 roundtables featuring 27 experts from across sectors to explore the future of business immigration in the country. (See Appendix II for details on this report’s methodology).

• The main conclusion of the Catalyst Canada initiative is that business immigration can help to advance Canada’s prosperity. The federal government’s main goal should be to develop a framework that enables it to test and iterate various business immigration programs until desirable policy outcomes are achieved. Employing an iterative approach will enable evidence-based policymaking and also avoid previous shortcomings of launching new programs and then abruptly shutting them down when policy objectives are not met.

• Catalyst Canada recommends the formation of a federal Canadian Business Immigration Council comprised of key government stakeholders and other experts to advise the government on business immigration program design and evaluate performance to ensure the programs can advance national economic development and prosperity objectives.

Source: ENGINE OF GROWTH:HOW A CANADIAN BUSINESS IMMIGRATION COUNCIL CAN SUPPORT NATIONAL PROSPERITY

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Success rate for basic training in Canadian military drops

2026/05/01 Leave a comment

Good intentions but problematic selection and integration processes. Some of the details are indeed disturbing…:

The success rate for basic training in the Canadian military has dropped to 77 per cent over the past fiscal year as the Canadian Armed Forces grapple with the impact of recruiting changes designed to boost enrolment, according to a leaked internal report.

That compares with a historical average of 85 per cent, according to an internal January, 2026, report by Lieutenant-Colonel Marc Kieley, commandant of the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School (CFLRS) in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. 

His report covers the first three quarters of the 2025-26 fiscal year, which began on April 1 last year.

The number of candidates requiring multiple attempts to graduate rose to 14.89 per cent, far higher than 8.44 per cent in the previous year and significantly above other recent annual rates.

The school conducts basic military qualification (BMQ) training and basic military officer qualification (BMOQ) training for the Forces.

In recent years, the federal government, in an effort boost the size of the military, has opened recruiting to foreign nationals who are permanent residents, begun accepting recruits with certain pre-existing medical conditions and dropped aptitude test requirements, among other changes….

Source: Success rate for basic training in Canadian military drops, Juno, who uncovered the memo, more sensationalist take: EXCLUSIVE: CAF training platoon with 83% non-citizens devolved into ethnic infighting

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Foreign nationals defrauded by immigration consultants entitled to compensation under new federal rules

2026/05/01 Leave a comment

Needed. Will be interesting to see the regulations and (annual?) reporting:

Foreign nationals defrauded by unscrupulous immigration consultants, including by being sold fake jobs in Canada, will be able to access compensation, under forthcoming regulations from the immigration department. 

Ottawa earlier this month issued an order to bring in regulations establishing a fund to compensate clients found to have been ripped off by licensed immigration consultants. 

The College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, which would run the fund, regulates and licenses immigration consultants, practising both in Canada and abroad. 

Foreign nationals can currently complain to the college, which adjudicates on such matters and can fine consultants, but the regulations would create a compensation fund for exploited clients.

The development follows concerns that some licensed consultants have been running scams, including selling jobs to migrants that do not exist, or charging foreign nationals tens of thousands of dollars to obtain a job available to a foreign national in Canada. …

But Toronto immigration lawyer Ravi Jain said the establishment of a compensation fund is a “band-aid solution” to the problem of wrongdoing and bad advice being given by some immigration consultants. 

He said “some immigration consultants strive to be diligent,” but the public would be best served if immigration consultants were required to work with lawyers. 

“They are practising law and even some of the good ones don’t know what they don’t know and the client is left holding the bag,” he said. 

Source: Foreign nationals defrauded by immigration consultants entitled to compensation under new federal rules

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Semotiuk: Canada’s Immigration System Is Quietly Losing Its Balance

2026/04/30 Leave a comment

One series of suggestions to deal with the current numbers, overly expansionist IMO. Administration of a “one generation rule” (he doesn’t specify what would count as a generation, normally that would be about 20-30 years) would be challenging, with the requirement for community service even more challenging:

…First, Canada should establish a clear, automatic pathway to permanent residence for long-term temporary residents. When an individual has completed two full work permit cycles—or two post-secondary study cycles—typically six years or more of lawful residence, employment, and tax contributions—a pathway to permanent residence should open as a matter of course, provided the individual has complied with Canadian laws.

At some point, time invested in Canada must count. A clearly defined pathway to permanent residence for these people is one way to demonstrate this.

Second, Canada must confront the reality of undocumented individuals living within its borders. It is estimated that about 500,000 such individuals live in Canada. Most are visa overstays; some crossed the U.S.-Canada border irregularly or entered by car, boat, or plane. Many have spent years—sometimes decades—working, contributing, and raising families in the shadows. Many are from countries they fled because of poverty, violence, or war, including Ukraine. A rational system cannot indefinitely ignore this reality. These people live in the shadows and are prevented from building ordinary lives and families. They are vulnerable to criminals, gangsters, and exploiters. Their status erodes the respect our system of justice should enjoy.

A one-generation rule should apply: individuals who have lived in Canada for a sustained period approximating a generation, demonstrated good character, and contributed to society should be granted a pathway to permanent residence. To compensate for jumping the immigration queue, they should be subject to a financial penalty and a period of mandatory community service, such as helping the sick or cleaning up their hometowns, to qualify for permanent residence. Bringing people out of the legal shadows strengthens—not weakens—the rule of law.

Third, Canada should abandon its rigid and largely arbitrary cap on annual permanent-resident admissions, currently set at approximately 385,000. That number may serve administrative planning, but it makes little policy sense in a country already hosting millions of temporary residents. The cap artificially constrains the transition of individuals who are already here, already contributing, and already integrated. Immigration policy should prioritize outcomes, not quotas. There is little substantive difference between someone living in Canada on a temporary work permit and a permanent resident, aside from the temporary status of a work permit holder.

Meanwhile, numerous studies have shown that Canada needs more immigrants. In fact, Canada does not lack immigrants. It lacks a mechanism to recognize those it already has.

Source: Canada’s Immigration System Is Quietly Losing Its Balance

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Kazemzadeh: Canada’s Arctic security depends on more than defence — here’s how immigration could help

2026/04/29 Leave a comment

The Arctic argument (only about 300 Permanent Residents in 2025, about 1,000 TRs IMP):

…Immigration and migration are usually considered part of economic policy. In the Arctic, they’re also a security strategy.

Research shows that immigration can help address demographic and labour challenges in rural and northern regions. However, attracting newcomers is only part of the equation — retaining them remains a major challenge.

Statistics Canada data shows that retention rates vary widely across regions, with northern and smaller communities often struggling to keep newcomers over the long term.

This matters for security. A temporary workforce doesn’t build resilient communities. Long-term settlement does. If newcomers to the North stay, they contribute to infrastructure development, local economies and essential services. They become part of the social fabric that supports everything from search-and-rescue operations to climate adaptation efforts….

Canada’s Arctic sovereignty has long been associated with geography and military presence. But sovereignty is now also about resilience — the ability of communities to live, work and thrive in the North.

The Centre for Immigrant Research, a Calgary-based Canadian think tank, argues in its recent work on the North that immigration and migration — when thoughtfully designed and implemented in partnership with Indigenous and territorial governments — can play a key role in strengthening regional resilience and national sovereignty.

Therefore, Canada has an opportunity to rethink its approach. While defence investments are essential, they aren’t sufficient on their own. In the Arctic, security ultimately depends on people — and on ensuring they are able to build and sustain long-term lives in the North.

Source: Canada’s Arctic security depends on more than defence — here’s how immigration could help

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Karas: Canada needs an immediate reset on immigration

2026/04/27 Leave a comment

More commentary arguing for greater emphasis on program integrity and security:

…The federal government must therefore recalibrate all immigration programs. That means stronger pre-arrival screening, improving intelligence-sharing with allies, conducting in-person interviews where warranted, and ensuring that background checks are proportionate to risk. It means holding educational institutions accountable for the students they admit. And it means enforcing existing laws when visas expire or conditions are violated.

Above all, it means acknowledging that public support for immigration depends on confidence in the system’s integrity. When Canadians believe the rules are applied inconsistently—or not at all—support inevitably weakens. A sustainable immigration program requires both generosity and discipline.

Canada can remain open without being careless. It can welcome newcomers while insisting on higher standards, better vetting, and meaningful enforcement. Failing to do so does not serve immigrants, refugees, or Canadians alike. It simply invites cynicism—and risks undermining one of the country’s most important national projects.

Source: OP-ED: Canada needs an immediate reset on immigration

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