Ottawa’s shutting-out of startup founders is shutting down Canada’s future

2026/01/14 Leave a comment

Hard to square “rigorous integrity checks” with speed in decision making. Government generally has a poor record in assessing business immigration programs:

…We are not the only country wrestling with the politics of immigration. Even as the United States turns inward and raises barriers for skilled workers and entrepreneurs, its technology dominance still rests disproportionately on immigrant founders and their teams. 

This should be Canada’s moment: to position ourselves as the destination of choice for the world’s builders, especially in the sectors that will determine our economic sovereignty – artificial intelligence, quantum computing, defence and dual‑use technologies, life sciences, energy transition and advanced manufacturing.

It is not too late to correct course. Ottawa must treat the shutdown of the Start‑up Visa Program not as a restart but a fast pivot. That pivot must include a fast‑track, by‑invitation pathway for founders with credible backing to build from Canada, with rigorous integrity checks rather than paralyzing backlogs. Anything less will send the most ambitious entrepreneurs elsewhere.

Yung Wu is a serial entrepreneur and the former chief executive of MaRS Discovery District.

Source: Ottawa’s shutting-out of startup founders is shutting down Canada’s future

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Horak: The protests in Iran echo past uprisings. But this time, they feel different, Regg Cohn, Ebadi and Akhavan

2026/01/14 Leave a comment

Some of the better analyses of the situation in Iran, starting with former Canadian diplomat Dennis Horak:

…Notwithstanding the challenges the regime faces, it would be foolish to underestimate the repressive abilities of the Iranian security apparatus to protect the Islamic Republic. The forces stacked up against the protesters are formidable; the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in particular, is brutal and experienced, and its leadership has strong vested interests in maintaining the status quo, including vast economic holdings. They, like the protesters, have something to fight for, and they have the weapons. The regime will not be going quietly. 

The regime is also bolstered by the fact that the exiled opposition movement continues to be fractious, and thus offers little hope as a viable alternative. While the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, has gained more visibility this time around, he carries a difficult legacy that will make it hard to rally around him, notwithstanding the effectiveness of his communications team. 

It is difficult to predict how this will all turn out. Most revolutions fail, until they don’t. But it is likely that some measure of change is coming this time, even if the current revolt is put down. It is hard to see how the status quo in Iran is sustainable. It will take more than vague promises of economic reform of the sort uttered by President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday to placate current or future protesters. Fundamental reform will be required, beginning with policy shifts on the nuclear front and an end to regional meddling to allow for the lifting of crippling sanctions and draw the country back from the radical, revolutionary fringe. 

To achieve this, there will need to be profound changes in how the regime functions, if there is not to be regime change. The question is: can Iran have the former without the latter? 

Dennis Horak was Canada’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen from 2015 to 2018 and chargé d’affaires in Iran from 2009 to 2012.

Source: The protests in Iran echo past uprisings. But this time, they feel different

Regg Cohn | As protests grow, Iran finds itself more isolated than ever

…And so revolution is in the air again, just as it was nearly five decades ago in the twilight of the shah’s despotic rule. Iran’s tortured history teaches cruel lessons of false hope and false starts.

In 1979, secular leftists and religious rightists joined forces to topple the shah of the day, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The clerics, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, hijacked the revolution and declared an Islamic Republic.

They were usurpers, not liberators.

Pahlavi, who went into exile in 1979, was the son of an army officer who had crowned himself shah in 1925. Pahlavi fled the country in 1953 in a dispute with the democratically elected parliament — only to be restored to power in a CIA-backed coup days later.

Now, all these years later, his son — declared crown prince at age seven — is claiming the mantle of leadership from exile.

As Iranians try one more time to break free of the Islamic Revolution, nearly half a century after it supposedly liberated them, the last thing they need is to be tethered to a pretender to the throne. The people of Iran will chart their own path, cheered on by supporters in the diaspora but without taking orders from them — lest another revolution face another hijacking.

Iranians are fighting for liberation, not usurpation.

Source: Opinion | As protests grow, Iran finds itself more isolated than ever

As Iran cracks down on protesters again, the world cannot be silent

…The continuing heroism of the Iranian people is a reminder of the tremendous potential for the future of a rich civilization that produced the first human-rights declaration 2,500 years ago in the cuneiform text of clay cylinder of Cyrus the Great, which is now housed in the British Museum. The scenes unfolding in Iran today demonstrate that 50 years of totalitarianism has not extinguished this powerful legacy, expressed in the ancient belief that in the end, light will triumph over darkness. Now, the world community must support this awakening and stand in solidarity with those who remind us of the astonishing resilience of the human spirit.

Shirin Ebadi is the founder of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre in Iran and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. Payam Akhavan is the Human Rights Chair at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, a founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, and a former UN prosecutor at The Hague.

Source: As Iran cracks down on protesters again, the world cannot be silent

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ICYMI – Revealed: How international student spots are being distributed — unevenly — across Ontario

2026/01/13 Leave a comment

Good and useful data:

…Previous efforts to understand how PALs were distributed across the province were hindered by confidentiality claims and concerns about the impact on competitive advantage, but data obtained through an FOI request provides a detailed breakdown of 2024 allocations and usage, as well as this year’s allocations. Usage data for 2025 is not yet available.

In 2024, Ontario was allocated a total of 235,000 PALs, with a target of 141,000 permits.

Ontario’s public colleges were given 189,416 PALs but used only 55 per cent of them. Public universities, by contrast, used 82 per cent of their 35,460 allocation.

Ontario determined its first year of PAL allocations based on 2023 study permit levels, with exceptions for Algoma University and 13 colleges, including Conestoga, which received fewer permits.

Within the college sector, usage varied widely, with Humber distributing nearly all of its PALs, while Northern College used just 28 per cent. Northern, which had to shutter a private partnership as part of the federal policy changes, has since experienced layoffs, but the loss of international student has been broadly felt across Ontario’s college communities, with more than 10,000 faculty and staff let go and more than 600 college programs suspended or cancelled.

Among public universities, the University of Toronto handed out the largest number of PALs (6,165) in 2024, while the likes of Trent, Guelph, Ottawa and Waterloo universities used nearly all of their allocation. An outlier was Nipissing University, which used only 11 per cent of its PALs.

… What about this year?

In 2025, Ontario’s PAL allocation took a deep cut, falling to 181,590, which had to include, for the first time, graduate students.

Reflecting that, as well as the overall decrease, the province’s public colleges received 113,793 PALs while 57,685 went to universities.

The inclusion of PhD and master’s applicants meant, in some cases, individual numbers rose: U of T, which had 6,395 PALs the year before, received 12,338 this year.

Going into 2026, graduate students attending public institutions will be exempt from the PAL requirement but will be included in the overall cap allocation. So once again, the numbers for individual schools in 2026 will look different….

Source: Revealed: How international student spots are being distributed — unevenly — across Ontario

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ICYMI: Newcomers seeking permanent residency face uncertainty, frustration over Ontario immigration changes

2026/01/13 Leave a comment

Fixing problems after the fact rather than more due diligence in program planning or earlier corrective measures should be the goal:

…Lou Janssen Dangzalan, an immigration lawyer in Toronto, said misrepresentation and fraud has plagued OINP with “unsavory agents or ghost consultants and sometimes even licensed representatives” padding applications with problematic documentation. 

But Dangzalan said it is still a “disruptive and drastic” move to the applicants and the businesses to cancel the trades stream entirely.

“This is purely a political policy choice,” he said.

“I do applaud the Ontario government for acknowledging that there’s a problem, but I’m not sure if basically using a hammer to kill a fly would be a good idea in a house of glass.”

Dangzalan said realistically, applicants should start planning for a possible future where they may need to leave Canada.

“But that doesn’t mean that their PR journey is necessarily over right there. Leaving Canada doesn’t mean that you’re already automatically excluded from the Canadian experience class.”

He said if people have to leave and wait in their home countries for PR, they can work toward gaining skilled work experience there, which can bump their scores, and boost language scores, including by learning French. 

“So, 2026 is going to be tough for a lot of people… 2026 is going to be a year of enforcement… IRCC’s going to scrutinize every single application with more diligence than they ever did before.”

“From a large policy perspective, this is a crisis… There’s still an immigration arms race. A lot of candidates are available who are very fantastic candidates and Canada is going to need this, especially at a time where Canada is trying to wean itself away from its dependence from the United States.”

Source: Newcomers seeking permanent residency face uncertainty, frustration over Ontario immigration changes

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ICYMI: The government is still not hiring enough disabled people: PSC report

2026/01/13 Leave a comment

Of note (I await the EE report to assess the impact of the cuts on EE groups):

…The report found that public servants with disabilities “were consistently under-represented in acting appointments in comparison to their representation in the public service.”

In comparison, all other equity groups (Indigenous people, women and visible minorities) were represented on par or exceeded their representation in acting appointments….

The report also found gaps in other equity groups, particularly with the upkeep of Indigenous applicants, who had been applying to public service jobs in numbers that were lower than their overall workforce availability.

Around 2.8 per cent of applicants to the public service in 2024 to 2025 identified as Indigenous, while their workforce availability was 4.1 per cent….

Source: The government is still not hiring enough disabled people: report

Filed under employment equity, Government Tagged with

An impatient Mark Carney would rather bypass the public service than reform it

2026/01/12 4 Comments

Public service reform is a thankless task politically and takes an inordinate amount of time, effort and political support. Needed but rarely executed given previous failures like UCS.

Former deputies need to share some of their concrete experiences with efforts in public service reform and lessons learned, rather than more general diagnostiques and recommendations. More on the how and less on the why:

…Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Sabia took over as Clerk of the Privy Council with decades of business experience under his belt. That makes him an oddity in Ottawa, where most senior bureaucrats have never worked outside the capital, much less outside government.

Therein lies the problem that Mr. Carney and Mr. Sabia face as they try to inject new dynamism into a public service that has long operated according to the principles of risk minimization and strict adherence to procedure. The senior bureaucracy is almost exclusively composed of individuals who climbed the ranks during an era of increasing centralization of power and policymaking in the Prime Minister’s Office. Their skill set revolves around keeping the dust down, rather than disrupting the status quo. 

As in any organization, however, disruption is a necessary component of innovation. And the federal public service is desperately in need of it. 

“[N]otwithstanding the massive increase in hiring over the last decade, too few public servants have been hired for the leading-edge skills required for modern government,” write former PCO clerk Kevin Lynch and ex-PCO official James Mitchell in their newly published book, A New Blueprint for Government. “When Amazon can deliver a package to almost anyone in Canada the next day, public expectations for government service standards increase accordingly. Yet those expectations are too often not being met.”

Source: An impatient Mark Carney would rather bypass the public service than reform it

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Canada’s immigration system is favouring these kinds of applicants — even over others who score higher

2026/01/12 Leave a comment

More of the preference for French-speaking immigrants in express entry, diluting the CRS:

French-speaking candidates made up 42 per cent of the people invited for permanent residence last year via Canada’s flagship skilled immigrationselection system, which favours applicants fluent in French and is upsetting those who aren’t.

In total, 48,000 of the 113,998 applicants picked under the Express Entry system were chosen for their ability in French. They were selected in periodic draws from the talent pool where candidates post their profiles, and are awarded points out of a 1,200 maximum and ranked based on age, education, work experience and other attributes.

The prioritization of francophone immigration outside Quebec has frustrated non-French-speaking candidates and critics, especially now that Ottawa has slashed the overall intakes of permanent residents in coming years. Many question if this makes sense when candidates without French are passed over despite higher ranking scores.

The deliberate effort is in part to redress the decline in the demographic weight of French-speaking Canadians outside Quebec — down from 6.1 per cent in 1971 to about four per cent today — and ensure the long-term vitality of these minority communities that are key to “Canada’s bilingual and multicultural character.”

“Human capital really isn’t a concern for the francophone draws,” said Calgary-based immigration consultant Mandeep Lidher. “With a score in the high 300s, you’re definitely less educated and you could say less likely to succeed in the Canadian labour market or economically establish yourself.”

In response to the criticism, the Immigration Department pointed out that only top-ranking eligible candidates are selected through the francophone draws. Since selected candidates must meet general eligibility criteria, it said “they demonstrate the ability to economically establish and succeed in the Canadian labour market.”

Ottawa has reduced its permanent resident intakes from 485,000 in 2024 to 380,000 in 2026, while raising the portion of the French-speaking newcomers outside Quebec in the mix from six per cent to nine per cent, and to 12 per cent in 2029….

Source: Canada’s immigration system is favouring these kinds of applicants — even over others who score higher

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Jamie Sarkonak: The federal judge determined to dismantle Canada’s immigration safeguards

2026/01/12 Leave a comment

Judicial appointments matter and have impact. Column would have been more balanced if it had more examples of rejections:

In 2013, Toronto lawyer Avvy Yao-Yao Go described herself as a “loudmouth activist for politicians to contend with.” She was an advocate of chain migration, a former member of the Ontario law society’s equity committee, a vocal critic of journalists and politicians, and once, she even tried to force the government to pay reparations to descendants of Chinese-Canadians impacted by the head tax (after losing one appeal in this process, her organization accused an appeal judge of racism; the complaint was tossed out).

Ideally, she wouldn’t be in charge of waving migrants into the country from a judicial seat. Nevertheless, Go was made a Federal Court judge in 2021 and much of her job is playing immigration gatekeeper. The results are what you’d expect, and they’re not favourable to Canadians….

Go doesn’t wave every single asylum seeker through; her record includes rejections, too. But her decisions in the last year alone show a pattern of leniency for rule-breakers, country-shoppers and, for lack of a better term, bulls–tters. Each instance takes state capacity away from cases that truly matter. It might be that Go feels the need to hold the door open for others, but it’s the rest of us who have to pay for the riff-raff who accept the invitation.

Source: Jamie Sarkonak: The federal judge determined to dismantle Canada’s immigration safeguards

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Bouchard | Des vœux pour le Québec de 2026 [immigration]

2026/01/12 Leave a comment

A noter:

…Il y aurait beaucoup à faire sur le front de l’immigration. Il faudrait d’abord restaurer les programmes d’aide à l’intégration que le gouvernement vient d’abolir. Il faudrait gérer plus efficacement les effectifs à recevoir. Le Québec est ici victime, dit-on, de normes fédérales. Pourquoi ne pas les ignorer ? La crise qui s’ensuivrait sans doute serait bienvenue. Elle montrerait que le Québec peut se redresser et rejeter le rôle du quémandeur sans cesse éconduit.

Plus fondamentalement, le gouvernement Legault manifeste des attitudes et tient parfois un discours malveillant à l’égard des immigrants, dont il fait un bouc émissaire commode pour cacher ses fautes. Ici également, il y aurait un important travail à faire. Il n’est plus possible de légiférer comme si le Québec n’était composé que d’une majorité francophone….

Source: Idées | Des vœux pour le Québec de 2026

… There would be a lot to do on the immigration front. First, the integration support programs that the government has just abolished should be restored. The number of staff to be received should be managed more effectively. Quebec is here a victim, it is said, of federal standards. Why not ignore them? The crisis that would follow would probably be welcome. It would show that Quebec can recover and reject the role of the constantly rejected beggar.

More fundamentally, the Legault government shows attitudes and sometimes makes a malicious speech towards immigrants, of whom it makes a convenient scapegoat to hide its faults. Here too, there would be a lot of work to do. It is no longer possible to legislate as if Quebec were only composed of a Francophone majority….

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Temporary foreign workers switch jobs and earn more after becoming permanent residents, study finds

2026/01/12 Leave a comment

Of note, not terribly surprising but good to see the data behind it:

…The research, which was conducted by economists at universities in Toronto and Chicago, found several benefits for workers who transitioned to permanent residency status.

Temporary foreign workers who were granted permanent residency in Canada between 2004 and 2014 – and thus were no longer on closed work permits which tied them to a single employer – saw an earnings increase of 5.7 per cent three years after they obtained PR status. 

The workers directly benefited from being able to switch positions, the researchers found. There was a “sharp” and “immediate” increase in the probability of a job-to-job transition of 21.7 percentage points over the three years, the paper estimates. And many of those workers switched into better-paying industries. 

“Our main question of interest when we began this research was: what is the effect of being on a closed permit relative to an open permit?” said Kory Kroft, a professor of economics at University of Toronto, and one of the paper’s authors. 

“The main takeaway is once you relax the restrictions, you see a big increase in job mobility. You find that immigrants who were clustered at low-wage jobs quickly sorted themselves into higher-wage jobs.” 

The TFW program is a key immigration stream in Canada that allows employers to hire mostly low-wage foreign workers on a temporary basis in sectors where the government determines there is a shortage of domestic labour, such as agriculture….

Source: Temporary foreign workers switch jobs and earn more after becoming permanent residents, study finds

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