In Germany, the anti-immigrant left is on the rise. Will it hold back the far right – or help it? 

2023/11/02 Leave a comment

Of note:

Sahra Wagenknecht is a 54-year-old politician who, until recently, was a member of the struggling leftwing party Die Linke. She is also a household name in Germany. A figure with undeniable charisma, she’s a stalwart on television talkshows, where her ability to present sometimes radical opinions as though they were common sense makes for lively discussions and entertaining viewing. Now, with the launch of her own party – named after herself – Germans may soon get the chance to vote for her too. Does she stand a chance – and what does the fanfare about the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) tell us about the direction of German politics?

In part, at least, people pay attention to Wagenknecht because she’s long had a penchant for radical positions. When she first came of political age, even Die Linke was concerned that she was a Stalin apologist. But Wagenknecht’s politics have changed with age. Her communism has been tempered by some expressions of admiration for the free market. She’s also become increasingly critical of immigration, Germany’s Covid-19 policies, sanctions on Russia, climate protesters and “lifestyle leftists”, as Wagenknecht dubs many advocates for racial and gender equality. Unsurprisingly, Die Linke hardly seems sorry to see her go: “It’s like with the grandmother who has cancer,” Dietmar Bartsch, co-chair of the party’s parliamentary committee, told Der Tagesspiegel. “You know she’s going to die, but you’re still sad when the time comes.”

There aren’t many new ideas in Wagenknecht’s political platform, though the way they are combined could be novel. Her economic plans are sprinkled with conspiratorial references to foreign monopolies, and she calls for a substantial increase in the minimum wage, but at their core her proposals are broadly similar to other centre-left policies. Her rhetoric about immigration, however, comes straight from the far-right AfD’s playbook. “There shouldn’t be any neighbourhoods,” she said in a 2021 interview, “where natives are in the minority.”

Wagenknecht’s politics clearly resonate with the German public. A recent survey of German voters found that 14% would vote for a Wagenknecht party, putting it just one point behind the governing Social Democrats (SPD) and two points ahead of the Green party. It speaks to the breadth of Wagenknecht’s coalition that, if initial polls are to be believed, she would take votes not only from her own former political home, but also from the centre-right CDU, the left-leaning Greens and the pro-business FDP. Most of all, though, Wagenknecht is trying to appeal to a section of AfD voters. Much of the party’s success in recent elections, she claims, comes from Germans who “don’t vote for the AfD because they’re rightwing. They vote for the AfD because they’re angry.” Wagenknecht’s attempts to siphon off the AfD’s protest voters currently seems like the only viable plan to mitigate the far-right party’s electoral success.

The reaction of the AfD has been surprisingly muted. There must be some disappointment: Björn Höcke, the party’s chair in the eastern state of Thuringia, has been practically begging her to join for months. But even if initial estimates are correct, the AfD would still be left with a compelling 17% electoral share, putting it second only to the CDU. Moreover, Wagenknecht’s populist, anti-immigrant rhetoric goes a long way towards legitimising the AfD’s own favourite electoral strategy. More troubling yet, if her party is as successful as early polls indicate, there will be fewer paths left to form majority governments without either the AfD or Wagenknecht, at a state or federal level. “A truly alternative left,” Höcke said in a recent statement, “could have an important function in the reconfiguration of the German party system.” Wagenknecht may take votes away from the AfD, but she may also make it possible for it to take political power if coalition partners find themselves forced to choose between two populist parties.

Germany’s main political parties are weak. The electorate is divided and governing coalitions, which have so far worked to keep the AfD out, have been increasingly divisive and ineffectual as a result. Infighting and incompetence have prevented the government from fulfilling many of its electoral promises. It is hardly the first to struggle: Germany’s politicians have been promising to streamline its often cumbersome bureaucracy, improve the country’s technological infrastructure and foster a more robust tech sector for decades. But political squabbles and a lack of imagination have prevented any meaningful change. Now, with a recession looming, resentment about the ineptitude of the political class is likely to grow even more pronounced.

Wagenknecht’s platform is still developing, but it isn’t likely to be all that different from the other parties’. The core governmental promises of better social services, a stronger economy and less bureaucratic hassle are shared across the political spectrum. The AfD and the Greens both campaign on increasing funding for education. Wagenknecht will, too. It won’t be surprising if she issues invectives against immigrants and climate activists.

But she’s hardly the only one who has figured out that you don’t necessarily need sound policy solutions or real leadership if you play on people’s resentments. Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, recently announced his plans to “deport on a grand scale”, while the leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, has gone on a veritable tirade, accusing Berlin neighbourhoods of not being adequately German and demanding that new immigrants to Germany declare their allegiance to Israel. With the world increasingly unsettled by violence in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as by the ongoing series of climate crises, German politics is making a sharp turn in a nationalist-populist direction. And Sahra Wagenknecht could soon be accelerating that journey.

Source: In Germany, the anti-immigrant left is on the rise. Will it hold back the far right – or help it?

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Australia cannot strip citizenship from man over his terrorism convictions, top court says

2023/11/02 Leave a comment

Of note:

Australia’s highest court on Wednesday overturned a government decision to strip citizenship from a man convicted of terrorism.

The ruling is a second blow in the High Court to the law introduced almost a decade ago that allows a government minister to strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship on extremism-related grounds.

The ruling also prevents the government from deporting Algerian-born cleric Abdul Benbrika when he is released from prison, which is expected within weeks.

Source: Australia cannot strip citizenship from man over his terrorism convictions, top court says – The Associated Press

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Canada’s ‘leaky bucket’ of immigration? More newcomers are choosing to leave Canada for greener pastures

2023/11/01 Leave a comment

Flip side of immigration levels, the number of immigrants leaving. Important new analysis:

More recent immigrants are leaving Canada for greener pastures, a new study says.

The findings suggest the phenomenon is especially prevalent between four and seven years after newcomers have received their permanent residence.

Although the number and ratio of people leaving each year varied, over the course of 25 years, accumulatively about 20 per cent of immigrants in each cohort ultimately left Canada, said the report, “The Leaky Bucket: A Study of Immigrant Retention Trends in Canada.”

However, the so-called onward migration rate spiked to 31 per cent in 2019 when 67,000 departures were reported.

“While the fairy tale of Canada as a land of opportunity still holds for many newcomers, this study points to burgeoning disillusionment,” said the report released Tuesday by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) and the Conference Board of Canada.

“After giving Canada a try, growing numbers of immigrants are saying ‘no thanks,’ and moving on.”

As Canadians turn their attention to the number of immigrants welcomed to Canada amid worries over housing costs, access to health care and other government services, the report sheds light on what researchers call “onward migration,” where people leave their home country, settle in a second and then move again.

Based on the 2021 longitudinal immigration database, which links immigration data with tax data, the study tracks immigrants’ departures by using their lack of fiscal activity, such as income, as a proxy for an individual’s presence or absence in Canada.

Those included in the study were granted permanent residence between 1982 and 2018, and must have been at least 18 years of age when they came to Canada and filed income taxes here at least once since their arrival.

Averaging across each of the 1982-2018 cohorts, it found that onward migration in the first year sits just below the average annual rate of 0.9 per cent. However, the rate rises quickly and peaks around year five, with an average of 1.33 per cent of the arrival cohort leaving that year. It then declines steadily, falling back below 0.9 per cent by year 11.

However, the annual first-year onward migration rate spiked from 0.8 per cent in 2016 to 1.18 per cent in 2019, representing a significant surge compared to the average 0.9 per cent.

“The trend has been toward an increased onward migration rate,” said 18-page report. “More recent cohorts have sustained elevated onward migration rates for a greater number of years. This has led to higher cumulative onward migration for recently arrived cohorts.”

The extent of onward migration does ebb and flow. Over a 15-year period, those who arrived in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as the ones who came in 2004 — the last cohort where the 15-year post-arrival data was available — all had a higher rate of departures.

The average cumulative onward migration rate, for example, was 18 per cent for cohorts who arrived in the 1980s, compared to the 21 per cent among those who were granted permanent residence in the first half of the 1990s.

The report findings are in line with a conservative estimate by Statistics Canada that found 15 to 20 per cent of immigrants leave the country within 10 years after arrival and a recent Star story that found more recent immigrants are contemplating leaving.

Generally speaking, said the ICC and Conference Board report, the benefits of immigration can only be realized over time, when newcomers stay, thrive and contribute to the country.

“Retention should be a key performance indicator for Canada’s immigration strategy, given the central role that immigration is meant to play in supporting population and economic growth,” it said.

Researchers agreed the longitudinal immigration database is not perfect, because it wasn’t designed to measure onward migration and may not capture those who don’t file income taxes for whatever reason and who are not linked properly with the tax data.

There could be many reasons why newcomers choose to leave Canada, whether it’s due to challenges they face in their economic integration, their lack of sense of belonging, opportunities arising in other countries or even individual or family preferences.

“Many of these are beyond the control of Canadian policymakers,” the report said. “But policymakers can influence immigrants’ experiences in Canada.”

It recommends the federal government closely monitor onward migration among newcomers, invest in settlement services and programs to support immigrant integration, help employers hire and retain immigrant workers, and put money in infrastructure to meet population growth.

Source: Canada’s ‘leaky bucket’ of immigration? More newcomers are choosing to leave Canada for greener pastures

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Keller: The Liberals broke the immigration system. But better is always possible

2023/11/01 Leave a comment

Particularly scathing commentary in the Globe, calling for lowering of permanent resident levels but silent on temporary residents:

This week, when it releases its new immigration targets, the Trudeau government has an opportunity to begin rethinking immigration policy.

For the past eight years, the Liberal plan has been about sharply and steadily increasing permanent immigration, while enabling even sharper increases in temporary immigration – with the two interconnected streams powered by huge jumps in the number of foreign students.

Why? The government’s reasons are a combination of faith and politics.

Faith that accelerating the country’s population growth will somehow spark higher per-capita economic growth and higher living standards – a faith belied by economic theory and evidence.

The Liberals also wanted to politically anchor themselves to the left of the Conservatives on the issue, and perhaps plant the seeds of a nascent wedge. This even though the Conservatives, who never miss an opportunity to attack the Liberals over so much as a misplaced comma, have always studiously avoided criticizing Liberal immigration plans.

The Liberal approach to immigration is having major economic consequences, many of them negative. Yet for years, there has been no national conversation critical of the Liberal approach. The topic is taboo. That’s what happens with issues of faith.

So let’s talk about what a rational immigration system would look like: It would start with acknowledging that the long-standing principles, goals and methods of the Canadian immigration system, created long before the Trudeau government came into office, are sound.

The key principle is that immigration should be designed to benefit Canada economically. The main goal should be choosing immigrants who offer the greatest benefit to Canada, by being mostly more educated and more skilled than the average Canadian, and thus likely to be more productive and earn higher wages. The right method for selecting these economic immigrants is the points system.

A government that wanted maximum benefits for Canada would have taken the above and doubled down. Instead, the Liberals have spent the past eight years watering it down.

In so doing, the Liberals have undermined the country’s long-standing pro-immigration consensus. Recent polls suggest that somewhere between a plurality and a majority of Canadians want lower levels of immigration.

But that does not make Canadians “anti-immigration.” It just means they’re questioning the Liberal government’s immigration policy. Canadians are no more anti-immigration than someone who declines dessert after a hot-dog-eating contest should be accused of suddenly having become anti-food.

Last week in Toronto, a shared bed for rent was advertised for $900 a month. Not a room in a shared apartment. A shared bed in a shared room. Half of a 60-inch-wide mattress. Yours for just $10,800 a year.

This is happening in one of the world’s most bonkers housing markets, where a record shortage of places to live is meeting an immigration policy that celebrated a record of more than a million people coming to the country last year. This year’s numbers are likely to be higher; in the first six months of 2023, the temporary-resident stream alone brought in nearly 700,000 people.

This is happening even as the Bank of Canada’s high-interest-rate policy is trying to slow inflation by reducing economic activity, with one of the main transmission mechanisms being discouraging borrowing for new housing construction.

An immigration policy based on faith says there’s no connection between a sudden population surge and the price of rent. Basic arithmetic has other ideas.

Ottawa should lower its immigration targets, at least for the next few years. The current target for 2025, half a million new permanent immigrants, is nearly double the level of 2015.

Canada was not anti-immigration in 2015. Canada was not anti-immigration under the Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Pierre Trudeau, when immigration was even lower. And Canada will not be anti-immigration next year if, in response to facts not faith, immigration is a bit less than this year.

Next step: Ottawa has to get back to properly using the points system to select the most highly skilled, highly educated and highly remunerated economic immigrants.

What has instead happened under eight years of Liberal government is that the temporary-immigration stream has exploded. Most of the people in that stream are coming to flip burgers, stock shelves and deliver food. Big business loves this endless supply of minimum-wage workers. The rest of us should be less enthused.

One of Canada’s biggest problems, and a growing drag on our living standards, is low productivity growth. Canadian businesses don’t invest enough in new technology and innovation – the things that spell more goods and services produced for each hour of work. A bottomless barrel of low-wage labour further discourages Canadian business from making those capital investments.

And a lot of low-wage labour is arriving through the booming student visa stream – which has been quietly converted from a selective program for luring the best and brightest to a no-limits scheme allowing universities and especially colleges to, in effect, sell Canadian citizenship. This, too, has to be scaled back and smartened up.

Better is always possible, as someone once said. Hint, hint.

Source: The Liberals broke the immigration system. But better is always possible

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HESA: Canada’s First National Minister of Higher Education

2023/11/01 Leave a comment

Usual insightful analysis by Alex Usher on the planned changes to study permits announced by Minister Miller, particularly the risks associated with rating education institutions and “calibrating” the PGWP in line with labour market needs, given lack of IRCC expertise in these areas, not to mention the operational challenges:

Last Friday’s, Marc Miller, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Canadian Citizenship (IRCC), announced three changes to the International Student Visa program (link here).  You may have seen a small news alert about it (see here or here).  But it seems that almost nobody caught the full import of the announcement. 

The announcement started out ok, with Miller again swatting down rumours of a cap on international student visas and comparing the idea to “performing surgery with a hammer”.  Miller then announced – or re-announced, or semi-announced, depending on your point of view – three things.

First, starting December 1, 2023, every designated learning institution (DLI) will be required to confirm every applicant’s letter of acceptance directly with IRCC.  This is good.  It’s what pretty much every other country in the international student business has been doing for a couple of decades, and the only reason we haven’t done it before is Ottawa’s catastrophic inability to undertake IT projects (plus, you know, sheer bureaucratic inertia).  Assuming they can launch on time – and I wouldn’t bet the farm on it – top marks, 10/10

Second, the Government re-iterated its desire to launch its deeply under-theorized plan to rank and rate institutions, whose utter incoherence I outlined back here.  The difference is that they’ve changed the language from “trusted institutions” to “recognized institutions” and the implementation date has been moved back to next fall, which gives us all a few extra months to convince the feds that this idea remains infeasible.

So far, so boring.  But pay attention: the third element is a big one.  I’ll quote it verbatim, while adding emphasis where appropriate:

In the coming months, IRCC will complete an assessment of Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP) Program criteria and begin introducing reforms to better calibrate it to meet the needs of the Canadian labour market, as well as regional and Francophone immigration goals.

Well, now.  Let’s think about how this might work. 

“Calibrating” the PGWP program with the labour market would require two things.  First, it requires IRCC to decide what skills the labour market “needs” (or, more formally, which occupations will be “in demand” over the coming years.  The feds sort of have this through ESDC’s Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS), although its worth remembering that this system has its limitations (remember when the system claimed that “university professors” was an occupation facing imminent shortages?  Good times.)  And of course, COPS was just one way of determining future skills shortages: other methodologies, like the one developed by the former Brookfield Institute (now TMU/Dais) can provide quite different answers. 

But that’s not really the hard part here.  We have a lot of different projection systems, but the government of Canada has never used any for the purpose of policy implementation.  In this case, the government would basically have to have enough faith in whatever methodology they pick to say “yes” or “no” to individuals or institutions over something as important as who gets into the country and who does not.  It can model itself on some other countries – Australia’s National Skills Commission maintains a list of in-demand skills for immigration and education purposes,– but it’s a fundamentally new role for this ministry – or indeed anyone in the federal government.  I have my doubts it will go smoothly.  No, the hard part is working out how exactly to link labour market information to the PGWP program.  And I am pretty sure it is going to be something along the lines of “occupation X, meet program Y”: that is, PGWP will only be available for specific programs of study.

This ought to be…interesting.

I mean, the feds’ logic is clear.  What they really want to do is strike hard at rural/small-town Ontario colleges offering loads of “Global Business” diplomas through PPP arrangements with private colleges in the GTA.  since the areas near these schools are the epicentre of the housing shortage that’s currently affecting southern Ontario and tanking Liberal re-election projects.  Nobody thinks the diplomas actually have much educational or social value – and the public perception of them is that they are a backdoor route to immigration (personally, I disagree, I think they are a front-door to immigration, but a back-door to a Temporary Foreign Worker Program, but that’s as may be).  So why not use federal immigration rules to wipe them out?

Well, for one, it’s not 100% clear how the Government intends to link data on occupations to data on programs in a way which is defensible.  At the more technical end of the spectrum, occupations and programs line-up reasonably well, but in humanities, social sciences, business and indeed a lot of the biological sciences, the line from program to employment is a lot looser, and it’s not clear how a crosswalk can be driven.  So, while it should be easy enough to “prove” that Global Business doesn’t have many direct routes to the labour market, it’s not obvious (to me at least) how you can do that in a way that doesn’t sideswipe every faculty of arts and business in the country.

In brief, I foresee both a titanic amount of lobbying around what kinds of methodology will be used to determine “in-demand” skills and a titanic amount of chicanery as institutions re-classify their programming to meet whatever rules and standards the government eventually chooses to set for the PGWP program.   In fact, I think you can guarantee that as of Friday, these two items right now are at the top of the to-do list of every non-GTA college in Ontario, because these new rules have the potential to disrupt their largest income source and drive them to the wall, financially.

And remember, all of this potential change and financial consequences is being driven by the feds, not the provinces.  Specifically, it’s being driven by the freaking Ministry of Immigration, whose understanding of the higher education system might charitably be described as “diddly-squat”.  And yet, despite this lack of institutional expertise, right now Marc Miller is the closest thing Canada has ever had to a National Minister of Higher Education.  Through his unworkable ranking system, he’s claiming the right to distinguish “good” from “bad” institutions, and through the PGWP revisions he’s claiming the power of life and death over hundreds – maybe thousands – of university and college programs across the country.  It’s both unprecedented and absurd.

Provinces only have themselves to blame for this: whatever power over higher education the feds now have exists because of the provincial cheeseparing that drove institutions to seek international students in the first place.  No international student boom, no terrifying leverage placed in IRCC’s hands.

What a country.

Source: Canada’s First National Minister of Higher Education

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Encore trop d’obstacles pour les immigrants dans l’industrie de la construction

2023/11/01 Leave a comment

Of note. Likely similar difficulties in other provinces with the exception of language:

Difficultés avec la langue, complexité des démarches, problèmes liés au statut temporaire. Même en pleine pénurie de main-d’oeuvre, des immigrants qualifiés doivent affronter de nombreux obstacles qui freinent leur intégration dans l’industrie de la construction. C’est ce que relève une étude menée entre 2021 et 2022 auprès de quelque 250 répondants — immigrants, employeurs et acteurs du milieu, comme des syndicats — effectuée par des organismes de recherche-action affiliés à l’Université de Montréal.

Tout juste avant la pandémie, la Commission de la construction du Québec (CCQ), en partenariat avec la Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrants et Conseil emploi métropole, avait décidé d’explorer de plus près la relation des immigrants avec cette industrie hautement réglementée. La CCQ a donc demandé au Centre de recherche et de partage des savoirs InterActions et à l’équipe de recherche ERASME d’en dresser le portrait.

Un portrait qui pourrait notamment nourrir les échanges actuels sur la réforme de la loi R-20, pilotée par le ministre du Travail, Jean Boulet, au moment où les associations patronales demandent plus de flexibilité au milieu. Selon les plus récentes données de l’Institut de la statistique du Québec, il y avait somme toute peu d’immigrants dans l’industrie de la construction en 2017, à peine 8,2 % de la main-d’oeuvre, ce qui place le secteur au 13e rang sur 14 parmi les autres industries, telles que le transport et l’entreposage (22,8 %) ou l’hébergement et la restauration (17,8 %).

« Mon premier constat c’était : “Mon Dieu que c’est compliqué pour les immigrants !” », a déclaré Marie-Jeanne Blain, professeure d’anthropologie et chercheuse principale de cette étude menée en collaboration avec Lucio Castracani.

À commencer par la lourdeur des démarches de reconnaissance professionnelle, un important frein à l’accès au marché du travail. « Savoir où il faut aller chercher la correspondance de mon diplôme… Savoir quelles cartes il faut pour travailler. Pourquoi il faut des cartes ? Tout ça, c’est compliqué à comprendre au début », relate Jérémie, un immigrant charpentier-menuisier qui témoigne dans l’étude.

Pour Mme Blain, ce n’est pas l’information qui manque, mais l’accompagnement personnalisé. « Par exemple, il y a plusieurs voies d’entrée pour faire reconnaître ses acquis. Juste de savoir par laquelle on passe, c’est compliqué », affirme-t-elle. « Ça n’existe pas, une personne-ressource spécialisée pour les immigrants en construction. »

Difficultés et découragement

Toute cette complexité semble aussi décourager certaines entreprises, qui cherchent de la main-d’oeuvre prête à travailler sur-le-champ. « Il y a des employeurs qui voudraient que le travailleur soit opérationnel demain matin », dit la chercheuse. Et parfois, souligne-t-elle, après des mois de démarches pour recruter un travailleur à l’étranger, celui-ci peut se voir refuser son permis de travail par un agent des services frontaliers à l’aéroport. « On a eu des cas où des employeurs avaient embauché cinq travailleurs, mais il n’y en a que deux qui ont réussi à passer », dit-elle. Tant pour l’employeur que pour le travailleur migrant, la prise de risques est grande, ajoute-t-elle.

D’où la recommandation de simplifier les démarches pour le recrutement à l’étranger et d’offrir des services d’accompagnement aux entreprises. « Pour l’agriculture, je crois qu’ils ont des visas spéciaux », a mentionné dans le rapport Jean-Philippe, un employeur qui a tenté — en vain — de recruter en Amérique latine. « Je ne sais même pas si ça existe pour la construction, mais je suis sûr que c’est plus simple en agriculture qu’en construction. »

Les travailleurs temporaires sont quant à eux à la merci des délais et des procédures pour l’obtention et le renouvellement de leur permis de travail. Certains programmes, comme la Reconnaissance des acquis et des compétences, sont moins accessibles pour des immigrants non permanents, qui doivent souvent faire une croix sur leur reconnaissance professionnelle.

Le statut temporaire peut aussi ouvrir la porte à des abus. Recruté par une entreprise de Chaudière-Appalaches comme travailleur temporaire avec un permis fermé, Carlos, un soudeur d’origine mexicaine, s’est rendu compte que lui et d’autres collègues ayant le même statut étaient moins bien payés que les autres soudeurs, bien qu’ils effectuaient exactement les mêmes tâches.

« On a eu un cas d’un travailleur qu’[un employeur] avait fait venir d’Amérique latine et qui, une fois arrivé ici, a été mis à pied parce qu’il ne parlait pas français », souligne Marie-Jeanne Blain.

Le français, facteur discriminant

La langue française a d’ailleurs été pointée comme un élément influençant énormément l’intégration d’un travailleur migrant. « Ça fait consensus. La communication joue un grand rôle », a indiqué la chercheuse. C’est d’abord le cas pour les employeurs, pour qui la maîtrise du français se présente comme une question de santé et de sécurité au travail.

Quant aux immigrants, la non-maîtrise de la langue de Molière peut être un « facteur discriminant », tant pour la reconnaissance des compétences — la traduction des documents, notamment, coûte très cher — que l’accès et le maintien à l’emploi et l’avancement professionnel. « [Elle] peut entraîner un processus de marginalisation professionnelle », révèle l’étude, qui documente des cas où des immigrants allophones n’ont pas été en mesure d’intégrer le secteur réglementé et protégé par des syndicats.

Diego, un résident permanent péruvien, raconte avoir voulu profiter du fait qu’il avait son certificat de compétence pour sortir de l’industrie « non régie » après avoir fait une formation en santé et sécurité de l’ASP Construction. Il en a été incapable en raison de son niveau de français. « Ils me disent […] : “Si je t’envoie faire un mur, ou faire une coupe ou quelque chose… Tu ne vas pas savoir comment faire” », témoigne-t-il dans l’étude.

Pedro, lui, dit ne jamais s’être senti intégré dans son équipe de couvreurs. « Tu peux avoir beaucoup de connaissances, mais si tu ne connais pas la langue, ils ne vont jamais bien t’intégrer. Ça sera toujours un enjeu. »

Une trentaine de recommandations découlent du rapport commandité par la CCQ, allant d’un accompagnement individualisé pour les immigrants jusqu’à la création de ponts entre les divers acteurs, ceux de l’industrie, mais aussi les institutions publiques et les organismes communautaires. « Je ne mets pas mes lunettes roses, mais j’ai été agréablement surprise de constater la bonne volonté des partenaires et de voir à quel point les employeurs voulaient bien faire les choses », conclut Marie-Jeanne Blain, qui espère que ses travaux pourront inspirer la réforme prochaine de la loi.

Source: Encore trop d’obstacles pour les immigrants dans l’industrie de la construction

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Canadians’ support for immigration is slipping, polls show. Some say misinformation is partly to blame, Spectaculaire bond de la résistance à l’immigration au Canada

2023/11/01 Leave a comment

More coverage of declining public support for current high levels of immigration. Starting with the Toronto Star (arguably, there has been greater misinformation by the advocates of high levels of immigration than from those advocating caution):

A pair of new polls point to a continuing decline in Canadians’ support for immigration — findings one pollster describes as a “clarion call” for the federal government.

The two surveys were released Monday, ahead of the expected unveiling this week by Immigration Minister Marc Miller of the government’s latest immigration plan, which will set the number and composition of the various classes of permanent residents welcomed to Canada over the next three years.

The federal government’s current immigration plan, unveiled in 2022, aimed to bring in 465,000 new permanent residents this year, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025. The Immigration Department is on track to meet the 2023 target.

Over the past year, amid surging interest rates and the increasing cost of living, Canada’s high immigrant intake has been tied to the housing crisis as well as a strained health-care system and per-capita productivity.

The poll by the Environics Institute for Survey Research and Century Initiative found the number of respondents who agreed “immigration has a positive impact on the economy of Canada” has dropped 11 per cent from last year and reached its lowest level since 1998.

Lisa Lalande, CEO of Century Initiative, said the data is a “clarion call” for proactive economic planning, improved integration policies and investments in infrastructure such as housing in order to preserve the confidence of Canadians.

“Immigration makes us a more prosperous, diverse, resilient and influential country — but only if we do the work to grow well,” said Lalande, whose group advocates for responsible population growth.

The separate poll of 1,500 people by the Association for Canadian Studies and Metropolis Canada revealed similar trends. It found 57 per cent of respondents in Greater Toronto felt there are too many immigrants, compared to 41 per cent in Montreal and 49 per cent in Vancouver.

Respondents in Greater Toronto were also most likely to feel there were too many refugees admitted to Canada, with 55 per cent of them agreement with the statement, followed by 40 per cent among those from Montreal and 39 per cent of those from Vancouver.

“These surveys were indicative of a shift in sentiment around the numbers of immigrants coming to the country, a lot of which, I think, is connected to issues around housing,” said Jack Jedwab, president of the ACS and Metropolis.

Those sentiments are fuelled in part by the lack of knowledge among Canadians of the country’s immigration landscape, he said.

Thirty-seven per cent of participants in the survey thought Canada received more than 250,000 refugees a year, when only about 76,000 were accepted. They also overestimated the number of permanent residents admitted to the country, with 27 per cent of people believing that Canada had already been taking in 500,000 newcomers a year.

The misinformation speaks to the need to better educate and inform the public about Canada immigration, Jedwab said.

“Policymakers have to pay more serious attention to how we manage immigration and manage opinion around immigration,” he said. “They need to explain to people why immigration continues to be so vital to the future of our country.”

At an event on Friday, the immigration minister said discussions about the upcoming immigration plan were ongoing but hinted that reducing immigrant intake was not an option, even though he said he understood the public concerns.

“This is one of the most significant economic vehicles to our country, but we need to do it in a responsible way,” Miller told reporters. “The net entrance into the workforce is 90-plus per cent driven by immigration, so any conversation about reducing needs to entertain the reality that would be a hit to our economy.”

The Environics and Century Initiative report showed 44 per cent of Canadians said they were strongly or somewhat in agreement with the statement, “there is too much immigration to Canada,” up 17 percentage points from a year ago, the largest one-year change recorded on this question since the annual survey started in 1977.

It said those who agreed with this statement were most likely to cite concerns that newcomers may be contributing to the current housing crisis (38 per cent of this group give this reason) compared to only 15 per cent in 2022.

Respondents continued to identify inflation, cost of living, the economy and interest rates as the most important issue facing the country. Overall, just 34 per cent of people said they were happy with the way things are going in Canada, down 13 percentage points from last year.

The silver lining is that the negative public sentiments toward immigration do not appear to have translated into Canadians’ feeling about immigrants themselves, the survey said.

Forty-two per cent of respondents said immigrants make their community a better place, compared to just nine per cent who believed newcomers make it worse, with the rest saying it makes no difference. Those with a positive view cited local diversity, multiculturalism as well as the role immigrants play in economic and population growth.

Of the various admitted classes of permanent residents, the respondents also want the federal government to prioritize those with specialized skills and high education, followed by refugees fleeing persecution and overseas families of Canadians.

Temporary foreign workers in lower-skilled jobs and international students were ranked the lowest, with only about one-third of people saying those two groups should be a high priority, the report found.

The 2024-26 immigration plan is expected to be tabled in Parliament on Wednesday.

Source: Canadians’ support for immigration is slipping, polls show. Some say misinformation is partly to blame

In Le Devoir:

L’appui aux cibles d’immigration actuelles est en chute libre. Entre 2022 et 2023, la proportion de Canadiens susceptibles de dire qu’il y a trop d’immigrants dans le pays a bondi de 17 points de pourcentage, ce qui vient renverser radicalement une tendance qui remonte à des décennies.

Quelque 27 % des Canadiens considéraient l’an dernier que « le Canada accueille trop d’immigrants ». Cette année, ils sont 44 % à affirmer une telle chose, une croissance record de 17 points.

Ces données sont tirées d’un sondage probabiliste en partie réalisé et financé par l’organisme Initiative du siècle, qui promeut l’idée d’une population de 100 millions d’habitants d’ici 2100.

« On a déjà vu des périodes où l’opinion restait en mouvement, mais là, c’est un saut. On peut dire que c’est du jamais vu », explique Andrew Parkin, l’un des chercheurs de cette étude. Il faut remonter au début des années 2000 pour observer une telle frilosité à l’égard des seuils d’immigration.

Ce changement d’opinion touche autant les Canadiens les plus fortunés (+20 %) que les immigrants de première génération (+20 %). Il touche aussi les partisans libéraux (+11 %), néodémocrates (+9 %) ou encore conservateurs (+21 %).

Économie et crise du logement

Ce n’est pas le malaise culturel que peuvent susciter les néo-Canadiens qui cause cette volte-face dans l’opinion publique, souligne le rapport. C’est plutôt le contexte économique difficile et la pénurie de logements qui fondent cette nouvelle réticence.

« Ça ne veut pas dire que les immigrants sont la cause de la crise du logement ou du manque de logements abordables, soutient Andrew Parkin. C’est plus : “Est-ce que c’est le bon moment pour avoir plus d’immigration étant donné qu’il y a une crise du logement ?” C’est une nuance. […] Le contexte économique touche tout le monde également. Ça touche aussi les immigrants, qui cherchent aussi à acheter une maison. »

Malgré tout, une majorité (51 %) de Canadiens rejettent encore l’idée que les niveaux d’immigration seraient trop élevés. Et ils sont très peu nombreux à voir l’immigrant comme un problème en soi.

« Certains disent qu’on utilise la crise du logement comme excuse pour se tourner contre les immigrants. Ce n’est pas ça. Le nombre de Canadiens qui disent que l’immigration empire leur communauté, c’est juste 9 %. Au Québec, c’est 4 %. »

Le Québec plus ouvert

Le Québec suit la tendance canadienne, mais demeure le territoire où le sentiment général reste le plus ouvert aux nouveaux arrivants. Environ un tiers (37 %) des Québécois considèrent que les immigrants sont trop nombreux, contre 50 % en Ontario et 46 % dans le reste du Canada.

La vision du Québec sur cette question a grandement évolué depuis les années 1990. Pas moins de 57 % des Québécois considéraient en 1993 que les immigrants « menaçaient la culture du Québec » ; ils ne sont plus que 38 % à avoir cette opinion aujourd’hui.

Le Canada a franchi cette année le cap des 40 millions d’habitants, en raison notamment d’un flux migratoire toujours plus important.

Source: Spectaculaire bond de la résistance à l’immigration au Canada

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The Conversations About the War in Gaza We Ought to Be Having

2023/10/31 Leave a comment

Worth reading:

The conflict in Israel and Palestine has thrown American campuses and society into turmoil.

We are both deans of public policy schools. One of us comes from a Palestinian family displaced by war. The other served in Israeli military intelligence before a long career in academia. Our life stories converged when we were colleagues and friends for 10 years on the faculty of Princeton University. Notwithstanding our different backgrounds, we are both alarmed by the climate on campuses and the polarizing and dehumanizing language visible throughout society.

Universities should state hard truths and clarify critical issues. As leaders of public policy schools, we train the leaders of tomorrow to think creatively and boldly. It starts with countering speech that is harmful, modeling civic dialogue, mutual respect and empathy, and showing an ability to listen to one another.

Universities should not retreat into their ivory towers because the discourse has gotten toxic; on the contrary, the discourse will get more toxic if universities pull back.

Faculty and students on some campuses across the country have reported feeling unsafe in light of verbal and physical attacks. Activist groups and even student groups are screaming past one another instead of listening and engaging with the other side. The polarizing talk in media, political and campus circles create an environment lacking in sophistication and nuance.

For example, chants like “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are commonly perceived as calls for the annihilation of the state of Israel. What’s more, the position these chants represents completely ignores the fact that the majority of Palestinians have rejected this stance since the 1993 Oslo Accords, and leaders of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have consistently called for a two-state solution. Furthermore, the claim that all Palestinians in Gaza are responsible for Hamas lacks empirical support.

Condemnation of the Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas — and calling it out as an act of terrorism — shouldn’t be avoided out of risk of offending Palestinians and their supporters. Not condemning the terrorist attacks is a failure of a moral core, and by no means should condemnation of terrorism be viewed as incompatible with believing in Palestinian rights and statehood, alongside Israel. Terrorism is, by common understanding, an attack on all humanity.

We teach our students to deal with policy predicaments that start with tough questions that require understanding opposing ideas. The uncertainty about what the future of Gaza will look like, whether the peace process can be revived and how the security and safety of Israelis and Palestinians will be achieved — these are, to be sure, hard questions with solutions that do not fit on placards.

While campus groups and all Americans enjoy freedom of speech, educators at universities must respond to speech that is harmful, hateful, untrue or lacking nuance and historical context. Free speech only works when there is vigorous counter speech.

As deans, we also know that in this volatile political environment, we must ensure that our campuses have places where each side can air their opinions and even come together and hold difficult conversations without fear of retaliation. Examples of this include webinars that our respective schools held in the wake of the attacks featuring a diversity of voices, including academics and policymakers, Israelis and Palestinians, Democrats and Republicans. That must start with the core element of civic engagement and civil disagreement.

Campuses must protect free speech, but equally advocate for mutually respectful dialogue. That obligation is both especially important and especially demanding in our current political and societal landscape.

A discussion of the actions that states should take in self-defense is worth convening, as well as one on the conduct of warfare in a dense urban environment. Israel’s response should be directed at eliminating the threat posed by Hamas, not at innocent civilians in Gaza. What that means in practice is a matter for debate. Calling out Israel for its bombing of civilian areas in Gaza shouldn’t be avoided out of risk of offending Israelis and their supporters.

There is no better place for these discussions than a university campus. But sponsoring this kind of debate takes courage.

As educators, we at times have to make our students uncomfortable by challenging their preconceptions and encouraging them to think through their positions using data, evidence and logic. It is unrealistic to believe that individuals can put their emotions away. But if a university doesn’t encourage students to reflect on how their own emotions shape, and occasionally distort, their analysis of the world around them, where else could they possibly learn this?

Even prior to the current violence, the Arab-Israeli conflict was an intensely uncomfortable topic to discuss, and, unfortunately, some schools may try to solve that problem by omitting it from their curriculums. Journal editors may be wary of wading into such hotly charged topics. This gap has left an intellectual vacuum filled by hate speech, antisemitism, Islamophobia and other stereotypical tropes on campuses and crowded out rigorous empirical analysis and reasoned discussions. Add to that a polarized media establishment, political landscape and social media, and no wonder we’ve seen the conversation on campus devolve into a verbal war of platitudes and talking points.

We remain hopeful, however. Over the past few weeks, we’ve also witnessed a vibrant student body eager for more information around these issues.

Universities play a vital role in shaping the conversation. Polls show that universities still enjoy a higher level of trust by the public than many other institutions, although it is dwindling. We have unique access to the world’s best intellectual minds and financial resources to support them.

We will squander this trust and legacy if we stay on the sidelines.

 Amaney Jamal and Keren Yarhi-Milo: Dr. Jamal is the dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Dr. Yarhi-Milo is the dean of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Source: The Conversations About the War in Gaza We Ought to Be Having

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Ibbitson: All of us could do with a check of the words we’re using

2023/10/31 Leave a comment

Indeed. 13 ridings are more than 5 percent Jewish compared to 114 who are more than 5 percent Muslim, hence the tension within the Liberal party:

Justin Trudeau has been stalwart in supporting Israel during the current crisis, despite divisions within the Prime Minister’s Liberal caucus. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives are unequivocally pro-Israel. The NDP, though more ambiguous in its position, also condemned the horrific attacks by Hamas of Oct. 7.In

But Canada is changing, politically and demographically. Some who defend the rights of Palestinians use language that is plainly antisemitic. People are saying hateful things during pro-Palestinian demonstrations. For supporters of Israel and of Jews everywhere, the future darkens.

…

words we use should reflect on their own words as well.

Source: All of us could do with a check of the words we’re using

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Yakabuski: Fin de la récréation pour Trudeau

2023/10/31 Leave a comment

Hard hitting but merited:

Depuis l’attaque des militants du Hamas contre Israël du 7 octobre dernier, le premier ministre Justin Trudeau se garde soigneusement de dévier de la position américaine sur le conflit, qui menace de se propager à d’autres pays du Proche-Orient.

Son refus d’appeler à un cessez-le-feu crée des remous au sein du caucus libéral. Pas moins de 23 députés libéraux ont signé une lettre lui demandant que le Canada « se joigne au nombre croissant de pays qui demandent un cessez-le-feu immédiat ». M. Trudeau leur a répondu cette semaine en se disant favorable « à l’idée de pauses humanitaires », qui permettraient l’acheminement d’aide aux civils piégés à Gaza tout en n’empêchant pas Israël de reprendre son assaut sur le territoire palestinien dans le but d’éliminer le Hamas.

Sa déclaration, mardi, est arrivée presque simultanément à celle du secrétaire d’État américain, Antony Blinken. Devant l’Organisation des Nations unies, à New York, il a, lui aussi, appelé à des pauses humanitaires.

Depuis son arrivée au pouvoir, en 2015, le gouvernement de M. Trudeau semble élaborer sa politique étrangère en fonction des désirs des clientèles ethniques de certaines circonscriptions clés, notamment de la banlieue de Toronto et de Vancouver. Dans beaucoup de cas, ses positions n’attirent pas l’attention du public en dehors de ces enclaves ethniques, où l’appui — ou pas — de la population sikhe, tamoule, chinoise ou autre peut tout changer entre une victoire ou une défaite des libéraux lors d’élections fédérales.

Puisque leurs mots et leurs actions ne pèsent pas beaucoup sur la scène internationale, les gouvernements canadiens, sauf de rares exceptions, ont tous traditionnellement eu le luxe de concevoir leur politique étrangère comme un bidule à faire gagner des votes. Toutefois, cette approche s’est retournée deux fois contre le gouvernement Trudeau dans la dernière année.

Il a longtemps cherché à minimiser les allégations d’ingérence chinoise dans les élections fédérales de 2019 afin de ne pas se mettre à dos les électeurs chinois des circonscriptions baromètres de Toronto et de Vancouver. Mais ce scandale a fini par lui éclater au visage, avec les révélations dans les médias des avertissements répétés sur l’ingérence chinoise que lui aurait lancés le Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité.

On est en droit de se demander si M. Trudeau aurait fait une sortie aussi dramatique pour annoncer que l’Inde serait impliquée dans l’assassinat d’un militant séparatiste sikh commis en banlieue de Vancouver en juin dernier s’il ne se préoccupait pas autant du sort des libéraux dans les circonscriptions où la population sikhe est majoritaire ou presque. La réaction du gouvernement indien à ses propos menace maintenant les relations du Canada avec le pays que tous nos alliés cherchent à courtiser pour contrer l’influence chinoise dans le monde.

Dans le dossier du conflit entre Israël et le Hamas, M. Trudeau, contrairement à certains de ses députés, ne peut pas contredire nos alliés sans qu’ils s’en aperçoivent. Tout comme pour la guerre en Ukraine, les enjeux de ce conflit sont trop importants pour que le premier ministre ose aller à contre-courant.

Certes, des divisions existent aussi au sein même de l’alliance occidentale, comme en témoigne la difficulté qu’ont les pays de l’Union européenne à s’entendre sur une position commune. Seul le premier ministre espagnol, le socialiste Pedro Sánchez, qui lutte pour sa survie politique après avoir perdu les élections en juillet, a jusqu’ici exigé publiquement un cessez-le-feu. Mais, dans son cas, toute autre position ferait éclater la coalition de partis de gauche qu’il essaie de préserver afin de garder le pouvoir et d’éviter la tenue d’élections, qui pourraient mener à sa défaite définitive.

Le président américain, Joe Biden, n’est pas prêt à appeler à un cessez-le-feu, même s’il dit déplorer les conséquences des actions militaires d’Israël contre le Hamas pour la population de Gaza et qu’il milite pour une accélération dans la livraison d’aide humanitaire. D’abord, parce qu’il sait que le Hamas, un groupe terroriste qui se consacre à la destruction d’Israël, ne respecterait jamais ses conditions. Ensuite, parce que toute clémence envers cette organisation serait perçue comme une invitation, pour les ennemis des États-Unis, à commencer par l’Iran, à semer la terreur à travers la région et le monde.

Tout au plus M. Biden demande-t-il à Israël d’exercer une certaine prudence en menant sa campagne contre le Hamas. Il sait pertinemment que cette situation est un bourbier géopolitique qui risque de plomber sa présidence et de mener à de multiples conflagrations militaires ailleurs au Proche-Orient et dans le monde. La dernière chose dont il a besoin, c’est de voir un gouvernement canadien soucieux de plaire à l’opinion publique lui compliquer davantage la tâche, déjà si délicate. M. Trudeau semble l’avoir compris.

Source: Fin de la récréation pour Trudeau

Filed under foreign policy, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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