May: The Day of [Budget] Sacrifice

2025/11/03 Leave a comment

Good piece:

….The budget, he [Daniel Quan-Watson] says, also marks a sharp philosophical turn. For a decade, the public service operated on a “do everything” instinct – fix every injustice, chase every big ambition, launch every initiative.
 
That era is over.
 
“It’s not that yesterday’s priorities don’t matter,” he says. “It’s that some things matter even more today. You ask, ‘Where are the injustices?’ You get one – maybe six, but it isn’t 22.”
 
“We’re not going for stars now – we’re going for low-orbit satellites. And if you catch one, you’ll be lucky.”
 
This is the moment to lead. As Anil Arora, Canada’s former chief statistician puts it, the public service needs doers, not more talkers.
 
“For too long, leadership has been about coming up with ideas, putting them out there and walking away. That won’t cut it anymore. The country doesn’t just need policy – it needs people who can implement and deliver. This is real. This is our moment. Step up when the country needs you.”

The warning signs of decline. All this comes against a backdrop of a public service – while still among the world’s best – is showing cracks. Jocelyne Bourgon is a former clerk. She is one of the architects of the 1995 program review and has advised governments around the world. She’s taken a hard look at how Canada’s public service stacks up globally. Her conclusion: it’s slipping.

The warning signs are there. Morale is down. Fewer public servants feel valued. Citizens report declining satisfaction with government services – from health care and passports to Phoenix pay, digital procurement, and CRA call centres. Canada’s e-government ranking tells the same story: we were third in the world in 2010. Now we’re 47th.
 
Bourgon (above) calls this an inflection point – a moment to act before the decline deepens. And with the Carney government signalling major downsizing and operational shifts in the budget, the public service is about to face that challenge head-on.

Source: The Day of Sacrifice

This CSPS is a very good reference document. Have highlighted the lessons learned but a must read for those interested in governance and program reviews. Found the tech observation particularly of interest:

Lessons from Past Spending Reviews

  • Lesson 1: Review impacts are not well tracked or understood.
  • Lesson 2: Spending reviews have not presented detailed analysis of the service-level impacts to Canadians.
  • Lesson 3: It is generally difficult to determine the impact of spending reviews on services to different populations in Canada.
  • Lesson 4: Program reductions tend to be undone over time.
  • Lesson 5: Spending reviews affect the federal workforce through job losses, expected productivity gains, uncertainty around change, and other morale-related considerations.
  • Lesson 6: Several second-order observations from this review have implications for how future spending restraint may be carried out.

These observations are not directly related to the mechanics of reviews, but could constrain fiscal or other policy in a way that changes the shape or importance of spending reviews. The following observations fall into this category.

  • Lesson 7: Canada is unlikely to further increase free trade in the same dramatic manner as with the 1991 launch of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
  • Lesson 8: Raising consumption taxes (i.e. HST) remains a broad-based option for increasing revenue.
  • Lesson 9: Canada’s public service uses roughly the same labour mix to run its programs as it has since 1946.

Technological developments during the past 80 years, if not the past 30 years, should have reduced the labour requirement. Computers, digital automation, and internet communications have made direct services easier to provide to Canadians. Forms and databases automate many tasks with higher accuracy, e.g. security checks, benefit applications, tax returns. Yet, the same number of Canadians is served by each public servant after decades of efficiency measures in spending restraint. Why is this? An un-nuanced early result appears to be that programs are more complex, as is the work to deliver them, even while the inflation-adjusted value delivered to each Canadian has not changed much in the last fifty years. However, some of this complexity may be unnecessary.

  • Lesson 10: Federal operations have legislative or policy barriers that reduce the full benefit of technological advances and maintain or increase complexity.

Source: CSPS: Canada’s Federal Spending Reviews – Lessons

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Ottawa’s immigration cuts have eased pressure on housing and labour markets: TD Economic report

2025/11/01 Leave a comment

Supply and demand in action:

Ottawa hitting the brakes on population growth by drastically cutting incoming immigration has eased the pressure on social and economic infrastructure, according to a newly released report from TD Economics.

Last year, notes TD, government policymakers acknowledged that the influx of immigration was too high relative the ability of Canada’s social and economic infrastructure to cope. Unemployment rose more than a full percentage point between 2022-2024, while businesses struggled to keep up with a rapidly expanding supply of workers. Meanwhile, housing affordability was being stretched to its limits.

“In response, the government introduced an immigration plan to right-size non-permanent residents (NPRs) and permanent resident (PR) targets to allow for some ‘catch up’ in the needed infrastructure,” writes Beata Caranci, senior vice president and chief economist, and Marc Ercolao, economist.

“That policy shift is evident by a massive tapering in Canada’s population growth from a multi-decade high of 3.2% in Q2-2024 to just 0.9%.”

Now, the TD economists says, the question is whether the policy shift will achieve the intended outcomes for housing and the labour markets.

“The short answer is yes.”

How has Ottawa’s policy change affected the housing market?

Reducing the number of immigrants can relieve housing market pressures a few ways, they write.

In the rental market, drastically slower immigration bears out TD’s softer rent growth forecast of 3-3.5 per cent in 2026, which is roughly half the growth rate of 2024.

Lowering the cap on newcomers has also lowered condo demand for both homeownership and the secondary rental market. It has also caused downward pressure in asking rents across major cities, write Caranci and Ercolao.

The largest shifts were observed in B.C. and Ontario due to a higher proportion of temporary foreign workers and students. Those markets also have the highest supply of condo units where the secondary market was previously attractive to investors.

“Calculating the impact of immigration flows on home prices is a more nuanced exercise. For one, NPRs have limited participation in the ownership market. And when they do, NPRs usually opt for condominium units. So a reduction in NPR inflows carries the greatest weight on this segment of the market.”

Aside from NPRs, write the TD economists, the data shows that recent immigrants are slightly more active in homeownership during their initial years in Canada, with a preference for detached homes. By their fifth and sixth year, they note, immigrant ownership rates tend to converge toward 50/50 toward renting….

Source: Ottawa’s immigration cuts have eased pressure on housing and labour markets: TD Economic report

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The Trump administration is turning back the clock on refugee protections 

2025/11/01 Leave a comment

Stating the obvious:

…In the decades since, both Canada and the United States have emerged as leaders in refugee protection, most significantly through resettlement programs with global reach. Canada’s refugee determination system is often hailed as the “gold standard.” Yet we are in a time of lessening access to claims protection, reductions in Canada’s private refugee-sponsorship program, and a hardening of the border as a barrier via the expansion of the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement. These moves, alongside the swift changes in the United States, will have widespread and devastating impacts on people who desperately need protection.

The Trump administration’s suggestions for a privileged form of asylum for white and politically aligned refugees is not new – it is a throwback, and one that undermines decades of progress. Governments need to call the Trump administration to task for the gross politicization and racialization of international refugee protection. And they need to do so by addressing their own hypocrisy as well. 

Laura Madokoro is an associate professor of history at Carleton University. Shauna Labman is the executive director of the Global College at the University of Winnipeg.

Source: The Trump administration is turning back the clock on refugee protections

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Trigger for new immigration powers ‘intentionally not defined’ in border bill: Diab

2025/11/01 Leave a comment

Not reassuring as some guidelines or principles would be useful:

Immigration Minister Lena Diab says the definition of a “public interest” event that would allow her department to pause or revoke immigration applications is “intentionally not defined” in new legislation.

Diab told the House of Commons immigration committee today the definition was left open-ended in the government’s new border security bill, C-12, to allow Ottawa to respond to unforeseen events.

“It is intentionally not defined in the legislation, as I said, to allow for maximum flexibility for the government to respond in a range of unforeseen circumstances that threaten the public interest,” Diab told the committee. 

Diab was asked repeatedly during the committee hearing when the government would be permitted to use the new powers to pause immigration applications or cancel existing documents.

The minister said they could be deployed in a national security emergency or health crisis, adding the government could have made good use of the power to pause immigration applications during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tara Lang, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada director general of integrity policy and programs, told the committee the public interest power also could have been used for a mass extension of healthcare worker visas during the pandemic.

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner repeatedly asked Diab to explain what safeguards exist in the legislation to prevent the power change or revoke immigration documents en masse from being abused. 

“You want Parliament to give the government the ability to kick mass groups of people out, undefined, who they don’t like. That’s what it sounds like to me,” Rempel Garner said. 

“How could I go to ethnic groups in my community and say I could vote for this? This is actually bananas and so anti-Canadian. So what are those specific safeguards?”

Diab replied that these powers would “only be used in exceptional circumstances. She said the use of the powers would have to be Charter compliant and the decision would have to be made in consultation with other ministries and cabinet. 

More than 300 civil society organizations, including civil and migrant rights groups, have called on the government to withdraw this legislation due in part to the proposed power to mass cancel immigration documents. 

Justice department officials at the committee said that it’s their opinion the legislation being put forward is Charter compliant. 

The rationale for using these powers would be published in the Canada Gazette and through a cabinet order, with specific reasoning on why the powers are being used and who is affected.

Lang said that while the powers could be used to revoke an immigration document, they would not remove someone’s legal status in Canada as that is a different process. 

Lang added that if people feel they are “improperly named” in one of these orders there is an opportunity for them to request to the immigration department that they be removed from the order revoking or modifying a document. 

Source: Trigger for new immigration powers ‘intentionally not defined’ in border bill: Diab

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Reichhold | Québec doit respecter les droits fondamentaux en immigration permanente et temporaire

2025/11/01 Leave a comment

Quebec settlement sector perspective:

…Les politiques d’immigration, animées par un esprit utilitariste tant au fédéral qu’au Québec, renforcent ainsi les discriminations systémiques des programmes existants et des processus d’accès à la résidence permanente.

La planification de l’immigration temporaire et permanente doit rompre avec le discours anti-immigrant grandissant dans le monde et à nos portes, qui débouche sur la mise en œuvre de procédures arbitraires et répressives envers toute personne racisée. Québec doit offrir des voies d’accès à la résidence permanente dont les étapes sont lisibles et prévisibles. Cela suppose aussi d’améliorer les moyens pour l’accès à la francisation, avec une responsabilisation des employeurs, ainsi que les subventions pour les organismes travaillant auprès des personnes migrantes et immigrantes. Il faut montrer aussi que le Québec est prêt à intervenir auprès des employeurs abusant de la vulnérabilité des personnes migrantes et immigrantes.

Nous voulons renouer avec l’esprit d’une société qui revendique la justice sociale et une égalité réelle entre ses habitants. C’est pourquoi nous exigeons d’afficher notre volonté d’accueil. Les personnes migrantes et immigrantes ont en effet toujours contribué à la richesse de notre « société distincte ».

Amel Mokhtar et Stephan Reichhold, Le premier est membre du Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants (CTTI); le second est directeur général de la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI), et la Campagne québécoise pour la régularisation et la justice migrante.*

Source: Idées | Québec doit respecter les droits fondamentaux en immigration permanente et temporaire

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Lang: Ottawa’s bureaucracy has too many managers who are busy managing their own bloat

2025/11/01 Leave a comment

One of the interesting nuggets in this analysis is that the growth appears highest among ADMs as the overall growth since 2015 has been relatively stable, ranging from 2.9 to 3.0 percent of all public servants:

…Seventy years ago, British historian C. Northcote Parkinson coined “Parkinson’s Law,” which helps explain this staggering growth of the public service and its executive class. Observing the expansion of the British Colonial Office, which occurred alongside the decline of the British Empire, Parkinson pointed out that the ranks of the public service tend to grow regardless of the volume of work to be done. He attributed this to two claims: “An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals” and “Officials make work for each other,” in other words, there is a natural tendency to multiply subordinates to sustain the rise of officials, which in turn creates demand for more and more officials. As Parkinson put it, “Far more people have taken far longer to produce the same result. No one has been idle. All have done their best.” 

Ottawa’s bureaucracy is well aware of the problem, even if it hasn’t done much to fix it. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, recent attempts at work-force reduction have targeted term and casual employees, while the share of permanent positions, such as those occupied by executives, has reached a decade high. 

A report by the Public Service Management Advisory Committee could have been lifted directly from Parkinson’s playbook: “New [executive] jobs at all levels are created, in many cases without a significant change in the organization’s mandate.” The result is “dilution and duplication” leading to “unnecessary layers of decision-making and unclear accountabilities. It slows down productivity and creates workplace conflicts.” Former clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick has raised concerns that Ottawa’s “pyramid of executives” are slowing decision making and impeding communication.

Businesspeople will recognize the pathology. When companies multiply vice-presidents, decisions slow, accountability blurs and egos multiply faster than outcomes. But in the private sector, profit and loss eventually impose discipline. In government, the taxpayer funds the experiment until someone yells “enough is enough.” …

Source: Ottawa’s bureaucracy has too many managers who are busy managing their own bloat

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Trump caps refugee admissions at record low – with most to be white South Africans

2025/10/31 Leave a comment

Sick:

The Trump administration will limit the number of refugees admitted to the US to 7,500 over the next year, and give priority to white South Africans.

The move, announced in a notice published on Thursday, marks a dramatic cut from the previous limit of 125,000 set by former President Joe Biden and will bring the cap to a record low.

No reason was given for the cut, but the notice said it was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest”.

In January, Trump signed an executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Programme, or USRAP, which he said would allow US authorities to prioritise national security and public safety.

The previous lowest refugee admissions cap was set by the first Trump administration in 2020, when it allocated 15,000 spots for fiscal year 2021.

The notice posted to the website of the Federal Register said the 7,500 admissions would “primarily” be allocated to Afrikaner South Africans and “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands”.

In February, the US president announced the suspension of critical aid to South Africa and offered to allow members of the Afrikaner community – who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers – to settle in the US as refugees….

Source: Trump caps refugee admissions at record low – with most to be white South Africans

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CBC hired 84 percent racialized, Indigenous, or disabled while having job vacancies for top talent: Internal report

2025/10/31 Leave a comment

Telling that the commentary only mentions the overall diversity numbers for context at the bottom of the article, highlighting the representation gaps that CBC like other organizations are trying to address:

The CBC far exceeded its “equity representation” target in the last fiscal year, with 84.1 percent of new hires being “Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, and racialized people,” according to the public broadcaster’s new corporate report. In the “reflecting contemporary Canada” subsection, the report shows the CBC had aimed for 65 percent of new hires to fall within the three groups, but surpassed it by 19 percentage points.

Some employment lawyers believe the CBC’s fixation on race and disabilities in its hiring process is limiting the broadcaster from accurately reflecting the Canadian population, and could fall into hiring discrimination.

“Moving away from merit-based hiring is a disaster no matter what the makeup of your organization is,” said Puneet Tiwari, a Toronto-based employment lawyer. “If an employer wants a more diverse workplace, it should be an equal opportunity employer, but still hire based on merit. As an Indo-Canadian whose grandparents came here in the 60s, I’ve seen more representation across all media outlets.”

CBC hiring doesn’t appear to reflect the overall ethnic demographics of the country. Canada’s most recent census data from 2021 showed that approximately 4.9 percent of Canadians were Indigenous, 26.5 were visible minorities (with 67.4 percent being white), and 27 percent had disabilities. The country’s demographics and population has dramatically changed in the last four years through immigration, however, increasing from 38.1 million in 2021 to 41.7 million in 2025.

…Out of CBC’s total workforce as of June 2025, employees self-identifying as Indigenous were 2.1 percent, 11.3 percent were persons with disabilities, and 20.7 were visible minorities….

Source: CBC hired 84 percent racialized, Indigenous, or disabled while having job vacancies for top talent: Internal report

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McWhorter: Those flubs of Mamdani’s name aren’t necessarily what they sound like

2025/10/31 1 Comment

Always interesting:

…I once heard two colleagues grumbling about the ways that people mispronounced their names. One of those colleagues was Italian; the other was a Black Muslim. They took it as an unquestionable sign of disrespect. I thought they could have eased up a little, given that they themselves surely had occasion to screw up unfamiliar names. It’s quite difficult not to.

If Mamdani is elected mayor, mispronunciations of his name will diminish, and soon sound very dated. Repetition and practice will assure that his name gets more respect than Kosciuszko’s. But in the here and now, it’s worth not leaping to conclusions about why someone might jumble the sounds. Between the human mouth, the power of habit and the vagaries of spelling, “Zor-han Mandami” is an inevitable first step toward, as Mamdani put it, getting it right.

Source: Those flubs of Mamdani’s name aren’t necessarily what they sound like

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Most Canadian workers support equity efforts despite some backlash: report

2025/10/31 Leave a comment

Of note. Not clear from the article if any significant variations by types and sectors of employment:

A majority of Canadian workers say they view equity, diversity and inclusion favourably, according to a new report, even in the face of some backlash. 

The report from the Future Skills Centre and researchers at the Diversity Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University found that 54 per cent of Canadian workers view EDI favourably, while 27 per cent were neutral, and 16 per cent viewed it negatively. The survey was conducted by Environics Institute.

Workplace EDI initiatives in Canada and the U.S. have faced “intensifying scrutiny and backlash” amid policy shifts in the U.S., which have had spillover effects in Canada, the report said.

“Most Canadians do not view it (EDI) as a matter of political correctness or wokeness. They view it as an important foundation of Canadian values and culture,” said Wendy Cukier, one of the report’s authors and a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Toronto Metropolitan University.

“Increasingly, we’re seeing evidence that most businesses and non-profits and government organizations recognize that it’s fundamental to their success, particularly in times of disruptions.”  

In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order putting a stop to diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the U.S. government.

Some companies have scaled back equity-related efforts as well, the report said, highlighting moves by Meta, Amazon and Target in the U.S. In Canada, the authors highlighted changes Shopify Inc. made by disbanding its dedicated diversity team and law firm McCarthy Tétrault pausing a specialized hiring program for Black and Indigenous law students. …

Source: Most Canadian workers support equity efforts despite some backlash: report

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