Keller: The Trudeau government needs more than words to restore the immigration consensus

2024/02/28 Leave a comment

Keller continues his well founded critique of immigration policies and highlights, as others have done, the mismatch between immigration and housing (I would add healthcare and infrastructure) timelines and the need to downsize temporary migration and other measures:

… Ending the severe mismatch between housing demand and supply, in this decade rather than the next (or the one after that), means addressing the cause of the spike in demand. It means significantly downsizing the temporary foreign worker program, downsizing and smartening up the student visa program, and things like reintroducing visa requirements for Mexican tourists, which the Trudeau government removed in 2015, and which has led to tens of thousands of refugee claimants arriving at Canadian airports.

Canada had an immigration consensus from the 1960s to 2015. The Trudeau government broke it. Mr. Miller can restore it. But des belles paroles won’t be enough.

Source: The Trudeau government needs more than words to restore the immigration consensus

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L’explosion de l’immigration temporaire crée «une impression de perte de contrôle»

2024/02/28 Leave a comment

Money quote: “Mais la multiplication des mesures a été faite sans prise en compte de l’impact cumulatif de ces mesures” (But the multiplication of measures was made without taking into account the cumulative impact of these measures):

L’appétit pour les immigrants dits « temporaires » plutôt que pour ceux dits « permanents » bouleverse le marché du travail au point où « ça donne aujourd’hui une impression de perte de contrôle », selon une étude de l’Institut du Québec (IDQ) parue lundi.

L’explosion du nombre d’immigrants temporaires sur le sol québécois n’est plus un secret. Il s’est accru de 46 % l’an dernier, pour un total de 528 034 personnes installées au Québec et de plus de 2,5 millions au Canada. Cette augmentation massive n’est pas le fruit du hasard, mais celui d’une multiplication des voies d’entrée autorisées par les gouvernements.

« Il y a un cumul de mesures pour faciliter la venue d’immigrants temporaires à l’intérieur de programmes bien connus. Mais la multiplication des mesures a été faite sans prise en compte de l’impact cumulatif de ces mesures », explique la coautrice de l’étude, Emna Braham, aussi directrice générale de l’IDQ. « Ça donne aujourd’hui une impression de perte de contrôle. Sauf que les leviers existent pour corriger le tir, autant à Québec qu’à Ottawa. »

Qualifiés ou non, formés ici ou non, bon nombre de ces immigrants temporaires espèrent un jour s’installer pour de bon au Québec. Et puisque devenir un résident permanent passe de plus en plus par le statut de temporaire, « on risque de se retrouver avec des goulots d’étranglement », prévient Emna Braham….

Source: L’explosion de l’immigration temporaire crée «une impression de perte de contrôle»

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Cape Breton U tripled its international recruitment. Students say they pay the price.

2024/02/28 Leave a comment

A poster child for how education institutions have gone overboard in international student recruitment and numbers:

…Figures obtained through access to information legislation show that in 2018, Cape Breton University hired 53 agents to recruit international students. The next year, that number leapt to 142, and then in 2020 it hit 179. The school cut back to 102 recruitment agents in 2021, and then to 70 and 53 in the following years.

In 2018, the year Nguyen arrived from Vietnam, there were 1,982 full-time international students at the school, making up 48 per cent of the university’s population, figures from the Association of Atlantic Universities show. Now, there are nearly 7,000 international students at the school, three-quarters of the university’s population.

That’s more than a fifth of the entire population of Sydney, N.S., the coastal community where the university is located.

The university doubled its revenue in that time, from $69.1 million in 2018 to $139.5 million last year, according to financial statements available online. International students pay around $20,000 each year in tuition and fees at the school.

Nguyen said the community quickly became strained as more students arrived. Jobs became scarce and students crowded into rentals, many of which were in need of repair. CBC News reported that Rajesh Gollapudi, a business analytics student at the school, died in a fire in 2022 in a house he shared with seven other people. Court documents show the landlords have been charged with several fire safety infractions, and they are scheduled to enter a plea in March in provincial court.

Public buses between Cape Breton towns became packed with students, who had to live farther away and plan their days around sporadic rural bus schedules and long commutes, Nguyen said. Some live in their cars because they can’t find housing, or they live in Halifax and make the long drive to Cape Breton….

Source: Cape Breton U tripled its international recruitment. Students say they pay the price.

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Groups fighting anti-Black racism file complaint against Canadian Human Rights Commission

2024/02/28 Leave a comment

No surprise:

A coalition of human rights groups advocating for Black and racialized Canadians has lodged a formal complaint against the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) for discriminating against its own employees.

The coalition also outlined a number of actions Monday it wants the federal government to take to combat what it calls “systemic discrimination within its structures.”

“We’re relying on the Canadian Human Rights Commission to play a role in the fight to dismantle systemic discrimination, not to be the perpetrator in all of this,” Nicholas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat (BCAS), said in Ottawa Monday.

The coalition said it has asked the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) to review the CHRC’s accreditation with the group.

GANHRI is an umbrella organization that coordinates policy and action between the United Nations and domestic human rights organizations.

The coalition said it wants Canada’s human rights body reviewed by GANHRI for violating international human rights law and failing to adhere to the Paris Principles.

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993, the Paris Principles are a set of principles national human rights organizations have to follow to access the United Nations Human Rights Council and other bodies.

The CHRC receives and investigates complaints from federal departments and agencies, Crown corporations and private sector organizations such as banks, airlines and telecommunication companies. It decides which cases will proceed to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

Racism within the CHRC

Last spring, the Canadian government’s human resources arm, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBCS), reported that the CHRC had discriminated against its own Black and racialized employees.

The TBCS came to that conclusion after nine employees filed a policy grievance through their unions alleging that “Black and racialized employees at the CHRC face systemic anti-Black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination.”

“The organizations remain hopeful that this action will lead to significant reforms within the CHRC, ensuring it can effectively safeguard human rights and foster an inclusive society,” the coalition said in a statement released Monday.

The coalition said it does not wish to see CHRC’s funding cut but wants it to fulfil its role of combating systemic racism.

“We would like to see appropriate funding, and the government not cut funding for the [CHRC] as any type of remedy to address any shortfalls,” Thompson said.

The coalition is calling on the federal government to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to allow complaints to go directly to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, rather than through the CHRC.

The coalition also wants the CHRC’s role changed so that it acts to support people making complaints before the tribunal.

The group said it wants the Employment Equity Act amended “to better reflect intersectionality and to specifically include Black and other equity-deserving groups as designated groups.”

The coalition said it also wants the federal government to appoint a Black equity commissioner to serve as an officer of Parliament with powers akin to that of the Auditor General of Canada. The commissioner would be tasked with ensuring equity across “all levels of government and the public service,” the coalition said.

The coalition said it also wants public servants found to have committed acts of discrimination to be held accountable for their actions.

Criticism of the federal action plan

Last week, President of the Treasury Board Anita Anand announced the first steps of the Liberal government’s action plan to support Black public servants.

It includes boosting the number of Black counsellors providing mental health support to public servants and their family members to 60 across the public service.

Anand also announced the launch of an executive leadership program for Black executives to improve career development services for Black public servants.

The coalition criticized the move on mental health services, saying it would have preferred for the department to work with Black public servant groups to develop the initiatives.

“Black employee networks within the federal government [as well as unions] were not consulted on that … announcement about the employee assistance program,” Thompson said. “We’re very, very concerned about that. That approach has to change.”

The coalition includes the BCAS, the Canadian Black Nurses Alliance, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Red Coalition, the National Union of Public and General Employees, the Federation of Black Canadians and the Black Canadians Civil Society Coalition.

Later Monday, Anand conceded that her government has “a lot of work to do in terms of building trust with public servants from the Black community.” She said she did reach out to the community before her announcement last week.

“In advance of that announcement, I and my team engaged in consultations with a number of Black public servants,” she said. “Consulting with Black public servants is at the heart of what we are doing as we come forward with supports for Black public servants.”

Source: Groups fighting anti-Black racism file complaint against Canadian Human Rights Commission

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J.L. Granatstein: Leaving the old country behind

2024/02/27 2 Comments

While the examples of diaspora politics and imported conflicts are valid and real, surveys such as the GSS indicate that by and large, multiculturalism is not a barrier to integration. But these conflicts do increase the challenges, as the Israel Hamas war and related increases in hate crimes demonstrate:

…What was going on? Clearly, the old country ties remained strong in immigrants to Canada. Ethnicity is a powerful force, naturally enough, but official multiculturalism encouraged ethnic communities to retain their identities. There were language schools funded by Ottawa, in addition to newspapers, community centres, and dance troupes. The money flowed because there were votes out there waiting to be harvested.

What was not going on was any effective effort by the state to turn immigrant communities into Canadians. Naomi Klein, (not someone I usually quote approvingly), wrote in 2005 after terrorist attacks in London “that the brand of multiculturalism practiced in Britain (and France, Germany, Canada …) has little to do with genuine equality,” she said. She continued:

It is instead a Faustian bargain, struck between vote-seeking politicians and self-appointed community leaders, one that keeps ethnic minorities tucked away in state-funded peripheral ghettoes while the centres of public life remain largely unaffected by seismic shifts in the national ethnic makeup.

Surely she was right, as we can readily observe when our parties scramble for ethnic votes in the suburban areas of the nation’s large cities.

Most Canadians believe immigration is important for Canada, the present difficulties notwithstanding. But polling also shows that most also believe that we must make Canadians of those who come here. It is not enough to leave them alone in the hope that they will quietly assimilate into accepting our values—peace, order and good government, civility, equality, tolerance, respect for rights—and that if they wish to join us they must understand and accept this. Canada is part of Western Civilization, not a community of communities, as Joe Clark put it, not a post-national state, as Justin Trudeau proclaimed. We are a well-established pluralist, democratic, secular nation.

To paraphrase the American writer David Rieff in the New York Times some years ago, the multicultural fantasy in Canada was that, in due course, assuming that the proper resources were committed and benevolence deployed, immigrants would eventually become liberals. As it was said, they would come to “accept” the values of their new countries. It was never clear how this vision was supposed to coexist with multiculturalism’s other main assumption, which was that group identity should be maintained. But by now that question is largely academic: the Canadian vision of multiculturalism, in all its simultaneous goodwill and self-congratulation, is no longer sustainable. And most Canadians know it. What they don’t know is what to do next.

Stephen Marche was right in saying that the old country must be left behind. It is long past time that Canadians figure out how to make this work.

Source: J.L. Granatstein: Leaving the old country behind

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Hepburn: Having immigrant engineers and physicians driving Ubers is a national disgrace:

2024/02/27 Leave a comment

Not much new here, largely ignores uncontrolled temporary workers and students, and some points are more assertions than evidence-based:

The Canadian dream – for prospective Canadians and for those of us born here – is that Canada welcomes people from all over the world and integrates them successfully, creating substantial economic gains for newcomers, their families and also for Canada. That dream is only possible if immigrants can navigate the barriers to full employment.

For now, Canada is the lucky recipient of a record number of immigrants, but that luck is not likely to last. The countries we rely on most for immigrants are experiencing declining birth rates and, in some cases, rising GDP and opportunities.

Countries like Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland, with faster-growing productivity, more wealth per capita, or higher quality of life for immigrants, are increasingly perceived as more attractive destinations for resettlement.

The abundance of international talent seeking permanent residency here is likely temporary, unless Canada makes some overdue changes to support newcomer productivity. It’s an opportunity we cannot afford to waste.

Source: Having immigrant engineers and physicians driving Ubers is a national disgrace

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Rioux | Le tabou de l’immigration

2024/02/27 Leave a comment

Rioux on what he perceives as the denial of the left (which of course is matched by denial on the right), making reasoned discussion more difficult. That being said, I would rephrase his “rien n’apparaît plus urgent que de rapatrier l’immigration du champ de la morale à celui de la politique” to à celui des questions concretes comme le logement et système de santé:


…C’est à partir des années 1970 qu’une gauche morale, embourgeoisée et néolibérale, soulignent les auteurs de l’étude, devint ouvertement multiculturaliste et abandonna toute idée de réguler l’immigration.

Le Rassemblement national n’avait plus qu’à cueillir l’électorat populaire, abandonné de tous. Au point où il est justifié de se demander si, malgré les étiquettes qu’on lui colle, ce parti ne s’inscrit pas aujourd’hui dans la tradition des grands partis populaires de gauche.

Mais il n’est jamais aisé d’admettre son erreur. C’est pourquoi, en France, celle qu’on appelle encore la gauche a plutôt choisi de s’enfoncer dans le déni alors même que la moitié de ses électeurs, pourtant de moins en moins nombreux, continuent à penser qu’il y a trop d’immigrés en France.

Là-bas comme au Québec, rien n’apparaît plus urgent que de rapatrier l’immigration du champ de la morale à celui de la politique.

Source: Chronique | Le tabou de l’immigration

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Raj: Why Canada’s consensus on immigration is fraying

2024/02/26 Leave a comment

The unfortunate all to common mistake of conflating concerns over unbridled temporary migration with overall permanent resident migration, as well as the distinction between concern over the practicalities of housing, healthcare etc to a rapidly increasing population, driven more by temporary immigration. Raj completely misses the point (and I suspect Poilievre understands the distinction).

Abacus in its regular polling also appears to ignore this distinction:

Money quote:

Anti-immigration sentiment used to be politically taboo. Election after election, a majority of voters told party leaders they wanted more immigrants, not fewer. That vision of a Canada welcoming newcomers with open arms, however, is increasingly challenged. Unless governments address a growing perception that unbridled migration is making the country worse off, we may be walking towards a darker, more divisive path, one that makes us less wealthy in the long run.

Source: Why Canada’s consensus on immigration is fraying

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Empty desks, international students and the quest for Canadian work permits 

2024/02/26 Leave a comment

Excellent reporting on what the private colleges and those in partnership with public colleges looks like in practise. More reporting like this is needed, and one has to ask where the federal and provincial governments were in allowing this to develop, along with those immigration advocates and academics who largely neglected this growth.

Major policy and program fail:

On a desolate industrial park off a highway north of Toronto stands the Vaughan campus of Flair College of Management and Technology. The boxy façade of the business college is adorned with images of students cooking, at a computer screen, or wearing virtual-reality goggles. Yet the only sign of real life is a woman smoking a cigarette on the steps next door. It is a school day in late January, but the college doors are locked.

Flair’s other campus is in a Brampton strip mall that advertises an optometrist, a dental hygienist and a vascular institute. This at least looks open.

There are two pieces of paper taped to a wall. One directs the visitor downstairs to a busy clinic offering “Immigration Medicals,” the other to Flair College, toward a suite in the basement where no one has quite bothered to move in. Only one room, as big as a decent-sized bedroom, resembles a classroom with chairs and a desk at the front, where a woman sits glued to her phone.

The women’s washroom has no soap or bathroom tissue. There are two television boxes and a desk in an empty office that looks as if it has never been used. One classroom is empty, except for a couple of desks stacked against the wall. There are no students, just a queue from the immigration medical clinic snaking into the corridor…

Source: Empty desks, international students and the quest for Canadian work permits 

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Mito: Canada needs to end repatriation of Islamic fighters

2024/02/26 Leave a comment

Understandable perspective of a Yezidi survivor. But revocation is problematic as countries will export their problems to other countries, as the UK revocation of Jack Letts, a former UK citizen who spent his life in the UK before becoming “Jihadi Jack,” became the subject of efforts by his parents to use his Canadian citizenship by descent to allow him to return to Canada.
I hope the courts are sensible in affirming the limits to repatriation:
As a Yezidi survivor of the 2014 genocide committed by the Islamic State (IS), I have serious concerns regarding public safety as Canada repatriates former IS terrorists. Since the IS’s defeat in Syria in 2019, the Canadian government has been grappling with cases involving Canadians who left to join the group. Some of these citizens have been repatriated, while others remain in IS camps under the control of Kurdish forces in Syria.
In 2015, the Conservative Party of Canada passed Bill C-24, a law allowing Canada to revoke the citizenship of Canadians who joined the IS. Some legal scholars oppose such laws, likening the revocation of citizenship to historical practices of exile and banishment. Countries, including Australia and the U.K., that have implemented similar laws have encountered legal challenges, as these laws can either render a person “stateless” (without any citizenship) or establish disparate treatment between individuals with dual citizenship and those with only one.
As a solution, the Liberals revoked the portion of Bill C-24 that allowed the stripping of citizenship from dual citizens who joined a terrorist organization. Without the power to strip citizenship, the government has opted not to repatriate Canadian citizens held captive by Kurds in IS camps. Government lawyers claim it would be “unprecedented and unprincipled” to assist these detained suspects and assert that “there is no legal obligation, under the Charter, statute or international law for Canada to provide consular assistance, including the repatriation of its citizens.”
However, a lawsuit has led the Federal Court to order the government to repatriate at least four men accused of being IS fighters. These individuals, who allegedly participated in crimes against humanity, knowingly left Canada to join IS. However, due to their use of false names and a pervasive lack of evidence, it remains doubtful that they will face justice in Canada or at the International Criminal Court if they return home for trial. The CBC quotes a former CSIS analyst as saying he “doubts any of the adults returning would face justice for any crimes they may have committed,” because “the witnesses aren’t here, the evidence isn’t here.”
Repatriating former IS members without prosecution is an injustice to Yezidis and all others who survived their crimes against humanity. The only path left for justice is for the government to reimplement Bill C-24 in full, allowing Canada to strip the citizenship of suspected IS members, leaving them in the prison camps where they belong. Further to that, Canada should pass a new law that does not require a legal conviction but rather a hearing in something equivalent to a closed tribunal. A legal process has too high a burden of proof in a war zone, such as the conflict in Syria and northern Iraq.
The situation Canada faces, whether to bring IS fighters back home, is not just about politics; it’s about real people who have suffered unimaginably. Canada must find a way to bring justice to survivors like the Yezidis and to protect its citizens. Putting Bill C-24 back into action and creating a special court-like system could help ensure IS members are held accountable without legally complicating things, given our government’s limited evidence against these fighters.

As someone who has experienced IS cruelty first-hand, I ask Canada to make careful and strong choices. We must ensure that those who cause suffering cannot just walk away, and we must remember and honour all the people who were hurt or lost.It is a tough path, but it’s the right thing to do.

Saif Mito is a Mount Royal University student in Calgary and a Yezidi survivor.

Source: Opinion: Canada needs to end repatriation of Islamic fighters

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