Conestoga is a foreign student mecca. Is its climb to riches leading it off a cliff?

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

The poster child for the abuse of the international student program reflecting complicity of the federal government, Ontario government, and educational institutions. Good in-depth reporting:

The smell of South Asian spices wafts from the “Blends and Curries” food counter.

Conversations in Hindi and Gujurati flood the bustling hallways, which quickly get packed as students pour in and out of classes.

Cliques of Indian youth, who appear to make up a majority of the student population, take full advantage of common areas to study, lounge around or wait for class to begin.

Everywhere you look at the main campus of Conestoga College, there’s ample proof of an explosion of international students.

The school has become a poster child for aggressive international student recruitment.

Its efforts have brought in a flood of new money — a stark contrast to the financial pressures students themselves face — but also raised questions within the institution about the sustainability of that growth, and the motivations behind it.

And as the federal government seeks to stem international student flows with a two-year cap on study permits, even the immigration minister has singled the college out.

The southwestern Ontario college had 37,000 study permits approved and extended in 2023 — the most in Canada — which marks a 31-per-cent increase from the previous year.Click here to post your thoughts

Its student population has more than doubled in four years to about 45,000, and international students now vastly outnumber domestic ones. The main campus in Kitchener, Ont., alone is now home to more than 20,000 students.

Faculty and students seem to agree things have gone too far.

“No organization can grow at that pace, and do it right, that quickly,” said Leopold Koff, a union leader representing faculty, counsellors and librarians at Conestoga.

Faculty members have turned into nomads with no fixed desks, a change the union says was prompted by the college’s desire to build more classrooms to accommodate a larger student population. The college says the change reflects a post-pandemic hybrid working model.

At the student union office, more than a hundred students come in and out within an hour to grab a free snack — one of many programs Conestoga Students Inc. offers to help a growing number of food-insecure students.

Instructors are complaining that many students lack fundamental skills, which in turn makes their jobs more difficult, said Koff.

“They don’t have the basic three Rs: reading, writing, arithmetic,” he said.

Making matters worse, Koff said students have been too busy working to focus on their studies. He singled out Ottawa’s decision during the pandemic to temporarily allow international students to work more than 20 hours a week.

“That is opening up a huge catastrophe for the students,” he said. “They will take advantage of that. … They need the money.”

Vikki Poirier, another union leader who represents support staff, conceded the college has hired more people to keep up with the school’s growth.

But she said new hires need time to get up to speed, and in the meantime, staff are facing massive workloads as they process more students.

Both union leaders said they have raised concerns with the school’s administration — but they don’t feel heard.

“Our perception of administration of the college these days … is that it’s a river of money. And if you get in the way of that river of money, you’re going to be plowed over,” Koff said.

Conestoga’s finances have been generously padded by international student tuition fees, which can sometimes be three times more than those for Canadian students.

Financial statements show the public college had a $106-million surplus for the 2022-23 year. That’s up from just $2.5 million in 2014-2015.

Conestoga declined a request to interview its administration.

In a statement, the college defended its recruitment levels.

“Colleges and universities across the country have been welcoming international students as part of their financial viability strategy given the flatlining of public funding in recent years,” the statement said.

“Students who come to Conestoga from other countries have enabled us to reinvest our surplus in new buildings and in-demand programs, both of which drive economic growth. Domestic and international students now enjoy best-in-class facilities funded by the surplus.”

Conestoga also touted the contribution its students make to the regional economy and the role they play in filling labour shortages. It also defended its admissions standards, noting its requirements are “similar to, or higher, than other colleges.”

The individual stories of international students at Conestoga suggest many of them are experiencing hardship, at the same time as the college amasses a fortune.

While some students are lucky enough that their parents can afford to pay for their tuition and living expenses, others must take out loans and rely on employment to pay their bills.

Bijith Powathu and Fredin Benny both took out educational loans in India to pay for their first-year tuition.

Now, they’re working full-time jobs at a factory and warehouse, respectively, to pay for their second-year fees.

The young men said balancing work and school means sleep often goes to the wayside.

When Powathu is scheduled for a night shift at his factory job in Mount Forest, Ont., he drives 85 kilometres directly to class in the morning.

“Straight from work I have to come here to manage. Sometimes sleepless nights,” Powathu said.

Many Indian students describe how challenging it is to find work back home, where youth unemployment is sky-high. According to the Centre for Indian Economy, the unemployment rate for youth aged 20 to 24 in India was 44 per cent between October and December 2023.

But jobs are becoming harder to find for young people in Canada, too.

Nelson Chukwuma, president of Conestoga Students Inc. said that’s top of mind for students right now.

“Our students are having a hard time finding jobs,” he said.

Some Conestoga scholars attribute the scarcity to the increase of students in the region.

“A couple years ago, the condition was different. But now it is entirely changed. Mainly the job market,” Powathu said, describing the plight of his unemployed peers.

“So based on that, they just want to go back (home).”

Several students with anxious faces described handing out resumes on a consistent basis since arriving to Canada last September, with no success. They said there’s significant guilt in relying on their parents for support.

Chukwuma used to be an international student himself, and he has watched the campus change over time — and that change has been dramatic over the past five years amid unprecedented growth.

“We don’t think it’s sustainable,” he said.

Although his organization has financially benefited from the higher enrolments, Chukwuma said it is constantly playing catch-up when it comes to meeting students’ needs.

“I think the college needs to definitely re-evaluate their strategy because (of) the flack that we’ve gotten, not just from the professors (and) staff, but also just from the community,” Chukwuma said.

He noted that local governments didn’t have the housing and transit infrastructure to accommodate the influx.

Conestoga said it invested in eight new properties last year to address housing needs.

Many at the college also lay blame at the feet of long-term provincial underfunding coupled with few federal limits on the international student population.

For decades, a cost-of-living financial requirement tied to student permits sat at $10,000 — an amount that significantly underestimates the amount students spend on basic housing and food.

As part of a broader effort to rein in the number of temporary residents in Canada — a political liability for the Liberal government because of its impact on housing affordability — Immigration Minister Marc Miller has more than doubled the amount to $20,635.

Miller also announced that work permits for international students’ spouses would only be available for those in master’s or doctoral programs.

And in January, Miller announced that Canada would impose a two-year cap on study permits, reducing the number of new study visas by 35 per cent.

At Conestoga, this will mean a massive reduction. The Ontario government has allocated the public college just 15,000 permits out of its national share — less than half of what was approved the previous year.

While many international students have applauded the changes, the shifting goalposts are also causing anger.

One 29-year-old Nigerian student said the spousal work visa change means his wife and two daughters can’t join him in Canada as he expected.

“I’m so angry,” said the student, who did not want to be named because of concerns he could face repercussions.

“You brought me here and told me I can bring them. Now I’m here and you’re telling me I can’t bring them.”

Another federal rule change could have a significant impact on those who are working full time.

Miller announced on Monday that the temporary waiver to the limit on work hours would expire as scheduled on Tuesday. In the fall, the federal government plans to implement a new cap of 24 hours a week.

“To be clear, the purpose of the international student program is to study and not to work,” Miller said.

The immigration minister said the new cap reflects the fact that the overwhelming majority of international students work more than 20 hours a week. At the same time, it keeps students from prioritizing work over school, he said.

“We know from studies as well that when you start working in and around 30-hour levels, there is a material impact on the quality of your studies,” Miller said.

For international students such as Powathu and Benny, it’s going to mean working about 16 hours less every week — a significant financial impact.

Prior to the announcement, Powathu and Benny both said a return to 20 hours would be untenable.

Asked if they’d survive, both said: “No.”

Source: Conestoga is a foreign student mecca. Is its climb to riches leading it off a cliff?

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Canada urgently needs an equitable immigration system

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

The activist view, with little awareness of the practicalities:

…It is time to embrace a new vision of immigration. Rather than viewing it as a strategy to meet short-term labour market or demographic needs, we must recognize its key role in building a more equitable world, grounded in shared well-being. The 2021 mandate letter on regularization offers a stepping stone to develop a progressive immigration system. 

Canada has implemented regularization and permanent residency fast-tracking programs a number of times in the past. However, these have been limited in scope with many conditions. The success of broad regularization programs in Italy, Spain, and Germany highlight that inclusive large-scale regularization—including at a scale of 500,000 people or more—is not just feasible, but offers long-term benefits to migrant families and the host countries. Canada needs to expand on this success.  

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) led by the United Nations Network on Migration can serve as a guidepost for an inclusive human rights-based immigration framework. The GCM calls on member states to ensure the “protection and fulfillment of the human rights of all migrants, regardless of their migration status, across all stages of the migration cycle.” It also emphasizes the need to expand pathways for safe and regular migration, especially for vulnerable migrants. In 2020, Canada signed on to become a “champion” country to implement the GCM. 

We urge the Canadian government to honour the GCM commitment and its mandate on regularization. We call on the immigration minister to urgently enact comprehensive regularization so that no undocumented person is left behind. It is important that we prioritize and support undocumented people from marginalized backgrounds through the regularization process instead of excluding them with unfair requirements that they are barred from engaging in. At the same time, we need to build accessible pathways to permanent residency for temporary migrants; and irrespective of whether they apply for permanent residency or not, it is crucial that all temporary migrants are supported with equitable rights, protections, and services. 

This is what migrant justice organizations, settlement agencies, labour unions, and advocates across Canada have been calling for. This is the necessary path that Canada needs to take to become a global champion for legislating an equitable and just immigration system. 

Yogendra Shakya is a research and policy analyst focused on immigrant issues. Axelle Janczur is the executive director of Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services. 

Source: Canada urgently needs an equitable immigration system

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International student work in Canada: 24 hours per week

2024/05/01 Leave a comment

Better than the 30 hours floated, not as good as returning to 20 hours. Likely compromise to manage competing views:

International students will be able to work off-campus for up to 24 hours per week starting in September, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced Monday.

The Liberals temporarily waived the 20-hour cap on work hours for international students during the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to ease labour shortages.

That waiver expires Tuesday.

“Looking at best practices and policies in other like-minded countries, most of them limit the number of working hours for international students. Canada’s rules need to be aligned or we will find our programs attracting more and more applicants whose primary intent is to work and not study,” Miller said.

“To be clear, the purpose of the international student program is to study and not to work.”

The new work limit comes as the federal government clamps down on a surge in international student enrolments across the country.

Critics have warned that allowing international students to work full-time could turn a study permit into an unofficial work visa, which would undermine its purpose.

However, the federal government is also hearing from international students who say they need to work more to pay for their studies.

Miller said his government is setting the cap at 24 hours because that seems “reasonable,” and would allow students to work three full eight-hour shifts a week.

He also noted that internal work by the department shows more than 80 per cent of international students are currently working more than 20 hours a week.

The work hours limit will return to 20 hours per week until September, when the government can implement a permanent change to make it 24 hours.

There are no limits on the number of hours international students can work when they’re not actively enrolled in class, such as during the summer.

The Canadian Press reported earlier this year that officials in Miller’s department warned the government in 2022 that the temporary waiver could distract students from their studies and undermine the objective of temporary foreign worker programs.

Miller previously floated the idea of setting the cap permanently at 30 hours a week. However, on Monday, the immigration minister said that would be too close to full-time hours.

“We know from studies as well that when you start working in and around 30-hour levels, there is a material impact on the quality of your studies,” he said.

Miller extended the waiver on work hours in December because he didn’t want the change to affect students during the school year itself.

Source: International student work in Canada: 24 hours per week

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Douglas Todd: Clever film brings home exploitation of foreign students in Canada

2024/04/30 Leave a comment

Of note, timely:

Vancouver filmmaker Shubham Chhabra throws a lot into his short movie Cash Cows about international students from India stressing to make a go of it in Canada.

There’s the student, Rohit Sharma, whose boss in Canada doesn’t intend to pay him because he thinks he’s doing him a favour. There are the five male international students sharing one small basement suite in Surrey because rents are extreme. There is confusion about handing over up to $45,000 to dubious immigration consultants, but still needing jobs as security guards and pizza-makers.

Being a foreign student while working in well-off Canada, en route to obtaining prized status as a permanent resident, isn’t exactly “living the dream,” even though one character in the film claims that it is.

Cash Cows is fictional but based on the experiences of Chhabra, who came to B.C. in 2015, as well as his closest friends from India, source of Canada’s largest cohort of international students.

The film sets its dramatic-comedy tone from the get-go, with opening images of unsuspecting cows being ground down and devoured as juicy hamburger or steaks.

While international students face multiple stresses in Canada, including extreme tuition fees and often shoddy educations, Cash Cows highlight the way they’re exploited by employers. It’s a problem that has been spreading since the federal Liberal government increased the number of international students in Canada to 1.3 million from 225,000 over the last decade.

The pivotal scene in Cash Cows, which has been shown at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival and won an award for best screenplay, features a foul-mouthed boss, Jaspreet Singh, excoriating Rohit for daring to expect to actually be paid for working more than six months as a night security guard at his car dealership, called Brown Brothers.

‘I’m doing you a favour. Why the f–k do you expect everything for free?” shouts the boss, who has agreed to sponsor Rohit for permanent resident status. The employer warns the student that if he asks too many questions he could have him deported. No longer naïve, Rohit realizes he has to endure indentured labour.

Cash Cows is fundamentally about how some employers, and in some ways politicians and educational institutions, are treating foreign students and other temporary residents as “commodities rather than as a sustainable human resource,” Chhabra said.

While the filmmaker personally feels it’s a “privilege” to have studied at Langara College and now be working as an assistant director for the TV series Family Law, he wants his short film, and a longer documentary scheduled for release this spring, to help viewers understand the spectrum of experiences of international students.

He’s aware an untold number of employers are taking advantage of foreign students, whose families back home, like his, will often sacrifice a great deal so their offspring can gain a foothold in Canada.

In India, the vision of getting into Canada on a study visa “is super-idealized in movies, TV shows and music videos,” Chhabra said. While unpleasant truths are sometimes mentioned in India’s media, most young people fly to Canada with incredible optimism.

Reality can be shocking for many, Chhabra says, “despite Canada being one of the best countries in the world.” Exploitive employers in Canada have many schemes, including not paying student employees at all, or expecting them to repay some of their salary.

“One of my friends was stuck in a seven-year-employment scam, where he was paying back almost 30 per cent of his paycheque.” He did so, Chhabra said, because the boss had promised to sponsor him as an immigrant.

“It’s 100 per cent illegal,” said Chhabra. When the friend obtained permanent residency, “he quit the job the first day he could. He got his trucker’s licence, which is what he wanted to do, and he’s now super-happy, making real money, working hard.”

Chhabra’s own story inspired the key conflict depicted in Cash Cows. The manager at a fast-food outlet he was working for in Vancouver was finding convoluted excuses to underpay him, alleging he was in training. Chhabra challenged him.

“He gave me this long spiel about how grateful I should be. And I went back to work,” Chhabra said.

Another moment in Cash Cows is based on the experience that one of his friends had as a security guard. The student, already unpaid, was forced by his boss to come up with the money to compensate for a vandal smashing an automobile window with a rock while he was on night duty.

In addition to the scams featured in Cash Cows, reports are arising of many others in Canada. They include employers taking secret kickbacks from foreign students and other non-permanent residents to create jobs for them, some of which don’t really exist. Another controversy emerged this week, with news of a 650 per cent increase in five years in the number of foreign students applying for refugee status.

In the midst of all the schemes and conflicts, which are dividing opinion among Canada’s South Asian population, Chhabra said he hopes Cash Cows helps viewers understand the different ways young people on study visas are trying to survive and prosper in a new land.

He intended to do so while avoiding heavy-handedness: “I wanted to make something light-hearted, yet grounded in reality, with a little message.”

One way the film has a bit of fun is by bringing alive the way many foreign students end up crammed together in tiny basement suites.

That is exactly what Chhabra and his friends had to do. For a long time Chhabra and two male friends shared the same double bed, sleeping in shifts and sometimes at the same time. While Chhabra’s Canadian girlfriend has described the practice as “so weird,”  he says it’s considered fine in Indian culture.

More seriously, in the past year Chhabra worries the national discussion of migration in Canada has hit a “tipping point,” where non-permanant residents such as foreign students are now being seen in a more pessimistic light, particularly in regard to contributing to pressure on housing and rental prices.

And while Chhabra wants to fight against the negativity, in some ways he can understand why in January Immigration Minister Marc Miller imposed a two-year cap on study permits.

“We see all the negatives, like everyone else,” said Chhabra. “And we want to work together to make it better.”

Source: Douglas Todd: Clever film brings home exploitation of foreign students in Canada

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Visible minorities have difficulty accessing the labour market

2024/04/29 Leave a comment

While some interesting comparisons between Quebec and the rest of Canada, some of the methodology is odd. Why pick the 15-24 cohort given than many are in college or university rather than the 25-34 cohort which I and others use to avoid that issue.

While the general contrast between visible minorities and not visible minorities is valid, it ignores some of the equally significant differences between visible minority groups.

Still interesting to note the persistence of gaps between Quebec and Canada:

…More and more newcomers to the job market will be members of a visible minority. The case of young Canadian-born visible minorities merits special attention, with the goal of preventing their socioeconomic exclusion and the potential consequences for social cohesion.

In a context where Quebec and the rest of Canada rely on immigration to address the labour shortage, logic would dictate that we first realize the full potential of those already present. The integration into the workforce of Canadian-born individuals from ethnocultural minority groups, particularly the young, must be among the priorities of policymakers so as to avoid a situation where integration difficulties are passed on from one generation to the next. Failing this, a growing share of the population risks being marginalized.

Governments, the business community and all relevant stakeholders must work together on this in order to permanently eliminate the barriers hindering the economic integration of these young individuals and preventing them from fully contributing to the progress of society.

Source: Visible minorities have difficulty accessing the labour market

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Keller: The Trudeau government’s promise of 3.87 million new homes is next to impossible

2024/04/29 Leave a comment

I and others have been noting that time needed to increase housing means further revisions to the number of immigrants, temporary and permanent, is needed:

…An extraordinarily high share of our national wealth is already invested in housing rather than in productive business assets. In 2022, 37.9 per cent of Canada’s gross fixed capital formation – investment in assets – was tied up in dwellings. That’s the highest level in the OECD.

And the Trudeau government’s unreachable building target may aim too low. To achieve affordability solely through more housing, CMHC last year said the number of homes needed could be almost six million. CIBC economist Benjamin Tal pegs the shortfall at closer to seven million.

The logical conclusion is that we can’t build our way to affordability, at least not any time soon. Ottawa has to lean harder on the demand side of the equation. That means significantly reversing the unprecedented spike in the number of temporary residents. Population growth has to come down – way down.

Source: The Trudeau government’s promise of 3.87 million new homes is next to impossible

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Yakabuski: Ottawa’s noble plan to fast-track francophone immigrants seems doomed to fail

2024/04/29 Leave a comment

Sadly likely true:

….Still, it is far from clear Ottawa’s francophone immigration policy can achieve its ambitious goals. For starters, it pits Quebec and the federal government against each other in seeking to attract newcomers from the same (and rather limited) pool of French-speaking immigrants. Quebec chooses its own economic immigrants and puts a premium on French skills.

What’s more, many francophones who immigrate to another Canadian province may end up moving to Quebec soon after they arrive here. Many may find that their image of a bilingual country where francophones can thrive in any province is shattered upon arrival, and opt to relocate to Quebec.

More to the point, given Canada’s rising overall immigration numbers, Ottawa would need to adopt even more aggressive targets to stabilize the francophone population outside Quebec. Indeed, the House of Commons official languages committee last week recommended a 12-per-cent target for French-speaking immigrants outside Quebec this year, rising to 20 per cent by 2036, “to rebalance the demographic weight of francophones in Canada.”

Alas, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon is not likely to run out of ammunition any time soon.

Source: Ottawa’s noble plan to fast-track francophone immigrants seems doomed to fail

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Don Kerr: Canada’s population growth is exploding. Here’s why

2024/04/27 Leave a comment

Good analysis but late to the party like a number of others:

As a professional demographer who has carefully followed Canada’s demographic evolution over the past three decades, I am shocked by some of the most recent demographic data released by Statistics Canada. From 1991 through to 2015, the year in which the current government was first elected, the annual growth in Canada’s population grew in a predictable manner at an average of roughly 320,000 persons per year. 

Following 2015, that growth has rapidly accelerated. Following a temporary dip in population growth due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Canada’s population growth reached just over half a million in 2021 (509,285 persons), close to a million in 2022 (930,422), and then an astronomical 1.27 million persons in 2023. 

Put another way, whereas for several decades Canada’s population growth rate hovered at about 1.0 percent annually, this rate has more than tripled in a few short years, up to 3.2 percent in 2023. 

In even starker terms, the 2023 rate of population growth is like adding a new Saskatchewan to Canada’s total population in slightly less than a single calendar year. As of 2023, there is not a single country in the G7 or in the OECD that has a population growth rate even close to Canada’s. Population growth in the U.S., for comparison, is currently at about 0.5 percent. Even prior to the recent upturn, Canada’s rate of population growth was actually the highest in the G7 and among the highest in the OECD. 

Most astoundingly, in making international comparisons, Statistic Canada now points out that Canada in 2023 is among the 20 fastest-growing countries in the world, ranked beside several very high fertility countries, largely situated in sub-Saharan Africa. While Canada’s current population growth of 3.2 percent is obviously not sustainable, a constant growth rate of 3.3 percent would imply a doubling in Canada’s total population in under 25 years.

The last time Canada saw a growth rate comparable to this was fully 67 years ago. In 1957, Canada was close to the height of its baby boom, with a birth rate close to four births per woman. Slowly over decades this growth rate gradually declined as fertility rates fell (no abrupt shifts here).1  

Most recently, Canada’s growth has almost entirely been the result of international migration (97.6 percent) as the rate of natural increase (births minus deaths) has continued to decline steadily. Hence, the pace at which Canada’s population grows, in a predictable manner, can be seen as a function of Canada’s immigration policy—meaning, then, that this is a policy problem that the federal government, in consultation with the provinces, can solve itself by setting and regulating immigration targets. This includes both permanent immigration (economic, family, and refugee classes) as well as the increase in non-permanent residents (international students, temporary work permits, and asylum claimants). 

The question remains as to how we have gotten into this situation in the first place. When Sean Fraser was first appointed to the Trudeau cabinet as immigration minister in the fall of 2021, Canada’s growth rate was roughly 1 percent. By the time he was shifted from immigration to housing and infrastructure in the summer of 2023, Canada’s growth rate had climbed to its current heights. As many commenters have pointed out, it is somewhat ironic that the minister appointed to fix the issue of housing affordability was the minister of immigration who allowed this unprecedented growth in population. 

In the summer of 2023 when Canada’s population was growing at a rate that had not been seen for almost 70 years, Fraser attempted to downplay the link between population growth and rising housing costs, saying that the solution to the country’s housing woes should not involve closing the door to newcomers. 

The data from both Statistics Canada and the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) belie the minister’s baffling assertion. Canada’s demographic growth has clearly outpaced its housing stock. Coming out of the pandemic, housing starts climbed to 271,000 in 2021, the highest number recorded for half a century, only to drop slightly in 2022 and 2023. In total, Canada witnessed about 800,000 housing starts over the 2021-2023 period, whereas over this same period, Canada’s population grew by over 2.5 million. The fact that the CMHC forecasts fewer than 224,000 starts in 2024 and only 232,000 in 2025 does not bode well for housing affordability in Canada, particularly in the context of continuing rapid population growth. 

Having said all this, it seems that the federal government has finally woken up to this issue and is now committed to reducing this growth. Current immigration minister, Marc Miller, has made overtures towards slowing Canada’s population growth—even potentially back down to historically sustainable levels. Most importantly, Miller recently announced that the proportion of “non-permanent residents” (NPRs) in Canada will be reduced from its current level of fully 6.2 percent of the total Canadian population down to 5.0 percent over the next three years. For context, NPRs were only about 3.1 percent of Canada’s population in 2021. [mfnBy NPRs, the federal government is referring to international students, persons in Canada on temporary work permits, as well as asylum claimants.[/mfn]

As the government has already capped and reduced the number of international students, a sizeable share of this reduction will occur among persons with temporary work permits. Over 60 percent of Canada’s population growth in 2023 was a by-product of the increase in the number of NPRs. If immediately implemented, Canada could shift from admitting an additional 800,000 NPRs in 2023 to seeing a decline in the number of NPRs by perhaps -160,000 in 2024 (serving to reduce Canada’s rate of growth). Merely with this reform, and continuing with its current commitment to welcoming roughly half a million landed immigrants yearly over the next several years, Canada’s growth rate could return to sanity. The issue remains as to how successful the government will be in implementing this reform.

The dramatic shift in Canada’s rate of population growth has inevitably had important consequences, and not all of them positive. Take, for example, the increasing strain on the country’s already-burdened health and social services. In policy terms, a steady, gradual upturn in population growth is far better for planning future labour force, housing, and infrastructure needs.

Overall, Canada will be well served into the future by returning to and maintaining a predictable rate of population growth and avoiding the rather abrupt shifts experienced most recently. A majority of Canadians have long been supportive of Canadian immigration policy. The recent mishandling of this file has jeopardized this consensus. Hopefully not irreparably. 

Don Kerr is a demographer who teaches at Kings University College at Western University. From 1992-2000 he worked in the demography division at Statistics Canada.

Source: Don Kerr: Canada’s population growth is exploding. Here’s why

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Premier Legault ups pressure on Trudeau to deliver on immigration power promise

2024/04/27 Leave a comment

So it goes:

Premier François Legault is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make good on a commitment to turn over more powers over immigration to Quebec.

And Legault said he does not share Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre’s Plamondon’s gloomy forecast of Quebec’s future in the Canadian federation. He questioned the PQ’s leader’s credentials noting “not so long ago Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon was not even a nationalist.”

“I respect the opinion of Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon but I disagree,” Legault said at a news conference following an announcement that the government will create a new national museum of history in the Quebec capital.

“I still think that we can manage, with the federal government, to get more power to better defend our identity.”

He then went on to remind Trudeau of commitments he made at a March 14 meeting in Montreal. Legault said Trudeau was open to finding solutions to the growing number of temporary immigrants in Quebec — they now number 560,000 — which are heavily taxing Quebec’s health, education and housing systems.

It was after that meeting that Legault said Trudeau was open to discussing the addition of immigration visas on more countries, such as was done recently to make it more difficult for workers from Mexico to come to Canada.

The prime minister expressed openness to discussing the idea of giving Quebec a say on the admission of temporary workers and that some be refused when they seek to renew their permits to work here, Legault said. The premier added Trudeau said he would entertain new rules ensuring more of the workers speak French.

“It doesn’t make sense to have 560,000 temporary immigrants, it doesn’t make sense,” Legault said Thursday, turning up the heat on Trudeau. “We do not have the welcoming capacity plus 180,000 asylum seekers. Mr. Trudeau said he would look at different ways to transfer power or have a pre-approval by the Quebec government.

“He promised me a new meeting before June 30 so I will wait and see the situation, but right now I’m a bit scared about the situation. It’s important that Mr. Trudeau makes a concrete gesture to reduce this number.”

Legault, who has made his encounters with the media scarce in the last few weeks, responded as well to a speech St-Pierre Plamondon delivered at a party council meeting April 14 in Drummondville.

St-Pierre Plamondon painted a gloomy picture of Quebec’s future in Canada, accusing the federal government and Trudeau of cooking up a plan to erase Quebec. He said the only solution to save Quebec’s language and culture is a referendum on independence, which he promised to hold should he form a government in 2026.

On Thursday, Legault responded by noting St-Pierre Plamondon has changed his views many times. He noted St-Pierre Plamondon has said that nationalism is not necessarily the solution and the PQ’s approach to selling sovereignty was “childish,” because it believes the reason Quebecers are not overwhelmingly in favour of independence is because the movement has not explained its ideas enough.

“He’s the one who started quoting my past statements,” Legault said Thursday defending his attacks. “What we need to remember is that not very long ago Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon was not even a nationalist. He found being a nationalist was not a good idea.”

Source: Premier Legault ups pressure on Trudeau to deliver on immigration power promise

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Employers boost recruitment of temporary foreign workers, despite softer labour market

2024/04/25 Leave a comment

Of note (should decline given recent government changes):

Canadian companies ramped up their recruitment of temporary foreign workers last year, even as the labour market softened and the unemployment rate drifted higher.

During the last quarter of 2023, employers were approved to fill more than 81,000 positions through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, according to figures shared by the federal government with The Globe and Mail. It was easily the largest quarter for approvals since Ottawa made several employer-friendly changes to the program in the spring of 2022.

For the year, employers were approved to fill roughly 240,000 job vacancies, an increase of 7.5 per cent from 2022 – and more than double what was permitted in 2018.

The federal government is now trying to clamp down on temporary migration to the country with various changes that include tighter restrictions on the TFW program. Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said that Canadian companies have become “addicted” to temporary foreign labour….

Source: Employers boost recruitment of temporary foreign workers, despite softer labour market

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