TFWP: Setting the baseline to evaluate government changes

2024/09/03 Leave a comment

Just as the impact of the caps on international students is becoming apparent through monthly and quarterly numbers for post-secondary study permits, one can expect the government’s restrictions on low-wage temporary workers to start have an impact in the October-December quarter.

To better monitor and assess the impact, I prepared some charts on Temporary Foreign Workers by NOC Code. For those unfamiliar with the codes A 0 or 1: university degree, B 2 or 3: community college, apprenticeship, more than 2 years on the job, occupations with supervisory responsibilities or significant health and safety responsibilities, C 4 or 5: some secondary education, up to two years on-the-job training or equivalent, D 6 or 7: on-the-job training.

The following slides highlight the shift over the past five years. This provides a good overview and the context for articles like The sudden rise of temporary foreign workers in entry-level office jobs.

Starting with two views by NOC level, the numbers and the percentage shares which show the dramatic increase, both absolute and in percentage, of the low wage and low skilled temporary workers. Interestingly, there has been a squeezing of level C workers:

The next two slides provide the breakdown by NOC sector where sales & service and natural resources & agriculture have increased the most:

And lastly, looking at June year-over-year change and two year change, as well as from pre-pandemic 2018, showing again the greatest increase in level D occupations and, in terms of sectors, Business & Administration and Health, the latter from a low base:

Note to media: avoid year-to-date analysis in drawing conclusions as happened with Postmedia and other publications and focus on quarterly year-over-year changes.

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Poilievre says he would cut population growth after Liberals signal immigration changes coming

2024/08/31 Leave a comment

Ironically, by reversing some of their ill-advised policies that resulted in overly rapid increases in the number of temporary workers and students and, arguably, Permanent Residents levels, the Liberals have provided a pathway for a more robust discussion of immigration. Given that this is based upon the impact on housing, healthcare and infrastructure, not xenophobia and fear of the other, immigration is not really much of a “third rail,” Telling that Abacus Data didn’t include immigration in their polling on third rail issues.

In case you missed it, my earlier analysis of what one might expect under a Poilievre government,What changes a Conservative government might make to Canada’s immigration policies. In retrospect, my assessment may have been too cautious as these policy reversals by the government make further restrictions more politically acceptible:

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday he would rein in Canada’s population growth if elected, claiming the Liberal government has “destroyed our immigration system” and insisting on cuts to the number of people arriving in order to preserve a program that was once widely supported.

Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill, Poilievre said immigration was “not even a controversial issue” before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected, but a surge in international students and low-wage temporary foreign workers has ruined the “multigenerational consensus” that bringing more people to live here is a good thing.

“The radical, out-of-control NDP-Liberal government has destroyed our system,” Poilievre said. “We have to have a smaller population growth.”

Poilievre said a future Conservative government would tie the country’s population growth rate to a level that’s below the number of new homes built, and would also consider such factors as access to health-care and jobs.

That’s an imprecise metric that makes it difficult to pinpoint just how many permanent residents or non-permanent residents such as temporary foreign workers, international students and refugees would be admitted on Poilievre’s watch.

Poilievre has previously said immigration levels should be tied to housing starts. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported roughly 255,000 housing starts in July.

The federal government has already said it will admit about 485,000 permanent residents — immigrants who intend to settle here on a permanent basis — to Canada this year, with the target rising to 500,000 in both 2025 and 2026.

In an apparent reference to research from Mike Moffatt, the senior director of policy at the Smart Prosperity Institute who has studied immigration and housing, Poilievre said Canada “cannot grow the population at three times the rate of the housing stock, as Trudeau has been doing.”

The government hasn’t offered a hard target for the non-permanent resident streams but has already announced an initiative to rein in the number of international students and, at the Liberal cabinet retreat in Halifax earlier this week, announced a crackdown on low-wage temporary foreign workers (TFWs).

The number of non-permanent residents has been growing at a breakneck pace in the post-COVID era after the federal government relaxed regulations around TFWs and allowed Canada’s colleges and universities to dramatically expand the international student body.

Non-permanent resident population more than doubles in 3 years

In the last three years, the number of non-permanent residents — a category that includes TFWs, international students and asylum seekers — has more than doubled from about 1.3 million in 2021 to nearly 2.8 million in the second quarter of this year, according to data compiled by Statistics Canada.

Of that figure, 1.3 million people are in Canada on work permits, a category that includes TFWs.

The low-wage TFW sector, which has admitted workers in food services but also in sectors such as construction and hospitals, has grown from 15,817 such workers in 2016 to 83,654 in 2023, according to federal data.

The forthcoming changes to the low-wage stream will reduce the number of TFWs by about 65,000, the government has said, which brings it back to pre-pandemic levels.

Poilievre said the government has “destroyed” the TFW program by dropping a number of regulations that were designed to limit foreign workers to certain industries in areas with low unemployment.

The agricultural sector has long relied on TFWs to grow and harvest the food the country eats and exports, and Poilievre said he would preserve the program for that purpose.

But he also said he wants to “block temporary foreign workers where they are taking jobs from Canadians.”

He said he would only admit international students if they have a place to live and the means to pay for it, and possess “a real admission letter to a real educational institution.”

Trudeau said Monday the government is considering reducing the number of permanent residents Canada accepts each year — a potentially major policy change after years of increasing immigration levels on the Liberal government’s watch.

Unemployment high among newcomers

Talk of an immigration cutback comes as unemployment rates among immigrants and young people have crept up to concerning levels in recent months, according to federal data.

According to the Bank of Canada’s recent monetary report, the “newcomer” or immigrant unemployment rate now stands at 11.6 per cent — well above the overall unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent that was recorded in June.

Asked by CBC News if the government is considering broader changes to the immigration system beyond cuts to TFWs at a time of higher unemployment, Trudeau said the government is going to review its immigration levels this fall.

Asked if a reduction in the number of permanent residents is on the table, Trudeau suggested it’s an issue he takes “extremely seriously” and said that topic would be discussed among cabinet ministers.

“We’re making sure that the entire package makes as much sense as possible for the needs of Canadians and for the needs of our economy,” Trudeau said.

“We’ll be looking at unemployment rates and opportunities to make further adjustments over the course of this fall as we come forward with comprehensive level plans that will respond to the reality that Canada’s facing now and in years and decades to come,” he said.

He said immigration needs to be “done right,” and that changes may be forthcoming so that “Canada remains a place that is positive in its support for immigration but also responsible in the way we integrate and make sure there’s pathways to success for everyone who comes to Canada.”

Immigration Minister Marc Miller also said “all options are on the table” when it comes to addressing immigration levels.

He acknowledged that some people have expressed concern to him about the current pace of population growth, which is among the highest in the developed world.

Source: Poilievre says he would cut population growth after Liberals signal immigration changes coming

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Canada’s immigration system is failing recent immigrants themselves

2024/08/31 Leave a comment

Of note:

The unemployment rate for immigrants who arrived within the past five years rose to nearly 13 per cent in July, which was seven percentage points higher than the unemployment rate for workers born here. Aside from the early months of COVID-19, that’s the largest unemployment gap for recent immigrants in more than a decade, Bank of Montreal senior economic Robert Kavcic wrote in a research note.

“The reality now is that the current rate of inflow is not getting readily absorbed, which is doing no favour to the domestic job market (see youth unemployment), and no favour to those coming to Canada,” he wrote.

It’s a stark reversal from what had been a shining feature of the Canadian immigration experience. Starting in the early 2010s the unemployment rate for newcomers who arrived within the previous five years began to fall faster than the unemployment rate for Canadian-born workers, which itself was also on the decline. In fact, by 2018 immigrants who’d arrived within the previous five years were more likely to be employed than native-born Canadians.

A similar though less pronounced improvement unfolded for immigrants who’d landed five to 10 years earlier, which has since reversed. Meanwhile, by the time immigrants are here for more than a decade, their unemployment rate is largely indistinguishable from that of native-born workers.

Source: Canada’s immigration system is failing recent immigrants themselves

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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