Canada is getting bigger. Are we setting the country and its newest citizens up for success?

2023/07/03 Leave a comment

Good overview of some of the issues:

Debbie Douglas was 10 when she came from Grenada to join her parents in Canada.

On her first day of school in 1973, her family had to fight with the principal, who wanted to put her back a year and have her take ESL because she spoke English with a Grenadian accent. In the end, she was allowed to attend Grade 5.

“But by the end of the first week on the playground, I got called the N-word, and it shook me to my core,” Douglas recalls. “And I looked around to see if anybody had heard and nobody said anything … In a school of 500, there were three Black kids and I don’t recall any other kids of colour.”

Despite a degree in economics from York University, her stepfather could only find a job as a financial planner. Her mother, a teacher back home, ended up working in a nursing home. 

But if you were to ask Douglas’s mother what her migration experience has been, Douglas says, she would say Canada has been very good to her family.

“My parents worked hard. We went to school. We now have a middle-class life. It’s a great migration story,” Douglas, executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, told a forum about Canada’s immigration narrative this past May.

“Great” has never meant “easy” for newcomers arriving in this country. Douglas says the stories of immigrants’ struggles and sacrifice were just often not heard.

Yet Canada has long maintained its status as a destination to which newcomers aspire. The immigration story that’s told has, for decades, been one of perceived success — both from the perspective of those forging new lives here, and from the viewpoint of a country eager to grow.

Today, that national narrative appears to be under new strains that are threatening the social contract between Canada and its newcomers.

Canada’s population has just passed the 40-million mark, and it’s growing thanks to immigration. 

Immigration accounts for almost 100 per cent of the country’s labour-force growth and is projected to account for our entire population growth by 2032.

Governments and employers from coast to coast have been clamouring for more immigrants to fill jobs, expand the economy and revitalize an aging population. The more, the merrier, it seemed, even during economic recession of recent years.

Post-pandemic, Ottawa is set to bring in 465,000 new permanent residents this year, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025 to boost Canada’s economic recovery after COVID.

Amid this push, there have been critiques that immigrants are too often being reduced to numbers — to units meant to balance the equations of our economy. While it is clear our economy needs immigration, what is it that newcomers need of Canada to ensure they can settle and thrive here? Are those needs being met?

Meanwhile, the federal government’s plan to bring in a historic level of immigrants has been met with some reservations domestically, as Canadians struggle with stubbornly high inflation amid global economic uncertainty resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and volatile geopolitics.

There is a sense of scarcity emerging in Canada, despite the country’s seemingly great wealth — whether it manifests in the housing crisis, a strained health-care system, or in the lack of salary increases that keep up to inflation. 

While a national dialogue about Canada’s immigration strategy is overdue, some fear anti-immigrant or xenophobic backlash amid news, op-eds and social-media conversation that ties immigration to the strains already being felt.

One poll by Leger and the Association of Canadian Studies last November found almost half of the 1,537 respondents said they believe the current immigration plan would let in too many immigrants. Three out of four were concerned the levels would strain housing, health and social services.

“Canada is at a crossroads in terms of being able to continue to be a leader in immigration. It’s at a crossroads in its ability to provide the Canadian dream to those who move to the country,” says University of Western Ontario political sociologist Howard Ramos. 

“It’s at a crossroads in terms of the infrastructure that’s needed to support this population, and it’s at a crossroads potentially at having widespread support for immigration.”

How Canada got to 40 million

Canada’s immigration strategy has long been about nation-building to meet both the demographic and economic aspirations of the country.

In 1967, Canada introduced the “points system,” based on criteria such as education achievements and work experience, to select economic immigrants. It was one of a series of measures that have gradually moved the immigration system away from a past draped in racism and discrimination.

The point system shifted a system that favoured European immigrants and instead helped open the door to those from the Global South for permanent residence in this country. The 2021 Census found the share of recent immigrants from Europe continued to decline, falling from 61.6 per cent to just 10 per cent over the past five decades. 

Ottawa had turned the immigration tap on and off depending on the economic conditions, reducing intake during recession, until the late 1980s, when then prime minister Brian Mulroney decided to not only maintain but to increase Canada’s immigration level amid high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment. 

“There are real people behind those numbers — people with real stories, real hopes and dreams, people who have chosen Canada as their new home,” Mulroney’s immigration minister, Barbara McDougall, said back in 1990 of a five-year plan to welcome more than 1.2 million immigrants.

The plan, too, was met with what today sound like familiar criticisms of the country’s ability to absorb the influx of people.

“We don’t think the federal government is taking its own financial responsibility seriously. The federal government is cutting back. They’re capping programs,” Bob Rae, then Ontario’s NDP premier, commented.

“They’re not transferring dollars to match the real cost, whether it’s training, whether it’s (teaching) English as a second language, whether it’s social services.”

Another big shift under Mulroney’s government was the focus on drafting well-heeled economic and skilled immigrants to Canada, which saw the ratio of permanent residents in family and refugee classes drop significantly from about 65 per cent in the mid-1980s to about 43 per cent in 1990s, and about 40 per cent now.

Mulroney’s measures severed Canada’s immigration intake from the boom-and-bust cycle of the economy. Successive governments have stuck to the same high-immigrant intake, regardless of how good or bad the economy was performing.

It has set Canada apart from other western countries, where immigration issues are often politicized. Coupled with the official multiculturalism policy introduced by the government of Pierre Trudeau in 1971 in response to Quebec’s growing nationalist movement, it has contributed to Canada’s image as a welcoming country to immigrants.

Public support for immigration has remained fairly high and Canada seemed to have fared well despite such economic challenges as the burst of the dot-com bubble from the late 1990s to mid-2000s, the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, and the economic downturn driven by the oil-price slump in the mid-2010s.

Observers, however, note the challenges and circumstances of those economic fluctuations were different than what we see today: there was enough housing stock in the 1990s and the impacts of the crashes in the financial, tech and oil markets since were sectoral, regional and temporary.

Canada’s infrastructure problem

Except in Quebec, which has full control over its newcomer targets and selection, immigration is a federal jurisdiction in Canada, planned in silo from other levels of governments that actually deliver health, education, transportation and other services. Yet the impacts of immigration are felt locally in schools, transits and hospitals. 

A lack of infrastructure investments and the rapid immigration growth have finally caught up with the country’s growth. “We spent decades not s upporting our communities,” says Douglas.

“We were not paying attention to building infrastructure. We were all under-resourcing things like community development and community amenities. We haven’t built adequate affordable housing.

“It’s now become a perfect storm. We have all these people and not enough of what is needed for everybody.”

While the majority of newcomers have historically settled in the big cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, a growing number are moving to smaller cities and towns that in some cases are not ready for the influx. The share of recent immigrants settling in the Big Three dropped from 62.5 per cent in 2011 to 53.4 per cent in 2021, with second-tier cities such as Ottawa-Gatineau, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, London and Halifax seeing significant growth.

“I don’t think it occurred to them that they need to build infrastructure to be able to welcome people in. It’s a lack of planning. It is a lack of funding,” Douglas says.

“We’ve raised these immigration numbers without paying attention to what it means, what it is that we didn’t have. We are already facing a crisis and we are bringing in more people without addressing the crisis.”

Canadian employers are champions for more economic immigrants. Half of employers surveyed told the Business Council of Canada they were in favour of raising the annual immigration targets — provided there are greater investments in the domestic workforce, as well as in child care, housing and public transportation.

Goldy Hyder, the council’s president and CEO, says many of the day-to-day challenges Canadians and immigrants face are in fact driven largely by labour shortages, whether it’s in health care, housing, or restaurants and retail.

Around the world, he says, countries build infrastructure to spur population — and economic — growth, but in Canada, he contends, it’s been vice-versa.

Hyder sees this moment as a crucial one for raising immigration targets and maintaining public support. “We are at a seminal moment in the life of this country, because we’re at a seminal moment in the life of the world right now,” he says.

Hyder says the country’s immigration policy shouldn’t be just about bringing in people, it should be part of a bigger workforce and industrial strategy to ensure skills of all Canadians and immigrants are fully utilized in the economy in order to maintain the public support for immigration.

“We need to plan better. We need to be more strategic in that plan. And we need to work together to do that: federal, provincial, municipal governments, regulatory bodies, professional bodies, business groups,” he says.

“Let’s address the anxieties that Canadians are facing. You don’t sweep them aside or under a rug. We must have honest discourse with Canadians, fact-based about what we’re trying to do to make their lives better.”

The tradeoffs that come with population growth

The case made for increased immigration is often an economic one. That said, research has generally found the economic benefits of immigration are close to neutral. That’s because when it comes to population growth, there are always tradeoffs.

While bringing in a large number of immigrants can spur population growth and drive demand for goods and services, it will also push up prices even as the government is trying to rein in out-of-control costs of living, warn some economists. 

When more workers are available, employers don’t have to compete and can offer lower wages. Further, just adding more people without investing into social and physical infrastructure such as housing and health care is going to strain the society’s resources and be counterproductive, economists say.

“For housing and health care, it takes a long time to catch up with the increased demand,” says Casey Warman, a professor in economics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, whose own family doctor is retiring. (He is now on a wait list seeking a new one, with 130,000 ahead of him.)

One of the main metrics of economic success has traditionally been a country’s overall GDP. Immigration and population growth can fuel the pool of labour and consumers and boost the overall GDP.

But there’s an emerging chorus of economists arguing that there is a better reflection of the standard of living and economic health in a country. That’s GDP per capita — productivity per person. The growth of Canada’s GDP per capita has been quite flat over the recent years, growing marginally from $50,750.48 in 2015 to $52,127.87 last year. Despite the recovery and high inflation amid the pandemic, it’s still below the $52,262.70 recorded in 2018.

Uncertainty about rapidly changing economic conditions, as well as the fast pace of technological adjustments, have also created uncertainty about what skills and labour will be in demand as the country moves forward.

“One big unknown now is how automation and especially AI is going to change the landscape for labour demand in the next five, 10 years … Is it going to decrease demand for labour?” Warman asks. 

How to adapt in the face of this uncertainty, and how immigration should be approached in light of it, is a conversation Canada needs to have, experts say.

Ivey Business School economics Prof. Mike Moffatt says that who Canada is bringing in matters as much as immigration levels, and what’s happening with the economy is nuanced.

Economic, family and humanitarian classes are the three main streams of permanent residents coming to Canada, and each group has different impacts on the economy, generally with those who come as skilled immigrants having the highest earnings and weathering economic downturns best.

The profiles of the incoming immigrants and their ability to integrate into the economy matter, says Moffatt. Bringing in foreign-trained doctors and nurses who can’t get licensed from stringent regulators, for example, won’t help address the health-care crisis.

Still, Moffatt says his critique of Canada’s immigration plan is less about the ambitious targeted numbers than the pace of the increases, as well as the short notice for provinces and cities in planning for the influx.

“Whether it be on education, immigration support programs, labour market programs, all of these things, there’s no time to adjust,” says Moffatt, senior director of policy and innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute, a think tank with a stated goal of advancing solutions for a stronger, cleaner economy.

“I do think we can have robust increases in the targets. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem, but let the provinces and cities know what you’re doing.

“There’s no collaboration. There’s no co-ordination. They are not working with the provinces and municipalities and the higher-education sector in order to come up with any kind of long-term thinking. It’s very short-term in nature.”

Should Canada cap international students and migrant workers?

Aside from questions about the immigration plan Canada has, there are also questions about the plan it doesn’t have.

The national immigration plan sets targets for the number of permanent residents accepted yearly, but leaves the door wide open for temporary residents. 

That has become a bigger issue over the years as Canada has increasingly shifted to a two-step system to select skilled immigrants who have studied and worked in Canada, bringing in more international students and temporary foreign workers than permanent residents.

According to Statistics Canada, there were close to a million (924,850) temporary residents in Canada in 2021, making up 2.5 per cent of the population.

The majority of them, including asylum-seekers, can legally work here; the remaining 8.7 per cent who don’t have work permits includes visitors such as parents and grandparents with the so-called super visa, who can stay for up to five years.

Temporary residents, who don’t have credit history for loans and mortgages in Canada, are more likely to be renters and public transit users (but eligible for some provincial health care), says Anne Michèle Meggs, who was the Quebec Immigration Ministry’s director of planning and accountability before her 2019 retirement.

“In the past, it wasn’t an issue, because we had a relatively small temporary migrant population, so we managed, even though we took the approach that we just bring them in and we don’t look after what happened to them afterwards,” says Meggs, whose book “Immigration to Quebec: How Can We Do Better” was recently published.

“That’s fine. That population wasn’t out of control. So that’s why we still successfully managed and it didn’t become a crisis.”

However, under tremendous pressure from post-secondary institutions to recruit international students, and from employers to quickly bring in foreign workers, she said the balance has tipped. To not set targets for temporary immigration is to get into trouble, Meggs warns.

“We want people to come and we want people to stay. You want things to be good for everybody, including immigrants and including children. And I think the objective has to be to make sure that everyone gets treated with dignity,” she says.

“Immigrants are not just sources of labour or sources of financing of institutions or spending money to increase our national GDP. These are people. We have to get back to talking about the immigrants and not just immigration.”

Canada ‘cannot afford to allow for polarization’

Canada immigration overall has been a success in terms of forging positive public attitudes toward immigration and the political participation by immigrants, says Andrew Griffith, a retired director general of the federal immigration department.

He feels Canada now has the maturity to have an honest and informed conversation about immigration without the fear of being labelled as racist and xenophobic. The focus of the discussion, he says, should be on Canada’s capacity to ensure a good quality of life for those who are already here and those who will be coming.

“It’s not about keeping the immigrants out. It’s more that if we’re going to do this, we have to do it right,” says Griffith. “We have to make sure we have the right infrastructure, the right housing policies and everything like that.”

Any immigration plan, Griffith says, should go beyond the intake levels but study the potential socio-economic impacts and include inputs from provincial and municipal governments.

Canada has grown to become a country of 40 million, and it has not always been smooth sailing.

But Canadians have worked hard to make immigration work for everyone and the success has come down to how the growth has been managed and how the public support for immigration has been maintained.

“We cannot afford to allow for polarization, populism and xenophobia to kick in here because it’s a very slippery slope,” says Hyder, whose family arrived in Calgary from India in 1974 when he was seven. “Other countries have seen it. It can go downhill very fast.

“Immigration is part of the arteries of our soul. It is who we are as a people.”

Source: Canada is getting bigger. Are we setting the country and its newest citizens up for success?

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Happy Canada Day!

2023/07/01 Leave a comment

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Adams: Canada is sorry – a lot. We shouldn’t apologize for that

2023/07/01 Leave a comment

Appropriate Canada Day commentary:

A lighthearted stereotype of Canadians holds that we’re prone to apologizing, and under an absurdly broad array of circumstances. When someone steps on the toes of a Canadian, the joke goes, it’s the Canadian who will say sorry.

Moose Jaw-born PGA Tour golfer Adam Hadwin just offered a textbook example of this cultural tendency at the 2023 Canadian Open. Even after being tackled by a security guard as he attempted to join compatriot Nick Taylor on the green to celebrate his winning putt, Mr. Hadwin apologized to the guard who had taken him to the ground, assuming he was an overzealous fan. They even hugged.

But Canadians also show a penchant for more serious apologies, recognizing that their country is responsible for deep historical wrongs that continue to inflict injustice today. In these cases, a serious and meaningful apology is warranted – and Canadians have tended to be supportive of such contrition. Brian Mulroney apologized for the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Stephen Harper apologized for the country’s Chinese head tax, and for its program of residential schools. Justin Trudeau has apologized for Canada’s role in the 1914 turning-away of the Komagata Maru, a ship bearing migrants from India; for turning away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the ocean liner St. Louis in 1939; and for decades of federal government discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.

I’m not a historian, but I believe Canada is a world leader in issuing apologies – at least in quantitative terms. Other countries have undergone deep reckonings around particular periods of violence, oppression or genocide, such as apartheid and the Holocaust. But when it comes to national apologies for multiple harms against multiple groups, Canada may well be the most prolific.

More recently, the presence of unmarked graves was confirmed on the grounds of several former Indian residential schools. Although, as mentioned, Mr. Harper had already apologized for the schools in 2008, many Canadians experienced fresh regret over their country and its churches for having taken many Indigenous children away from their homes and parents, in a systematic effort to obliterate Indigenous languages and cultures that has been called genocidal. After the first graves were reported in Kamloops, flags were lowered to half-mast on Canada Day from sea to sea to sea, in a national gesture of grief and remorse.

In the aftermath of these events, there was a dip in the extent to which people in this country say that they are proud to be Canadian, according to the most recent survey that Environics has done around that question since 1985. Most Canadians still feel proud to some degree – but more were feeling only “somewhat proud” rather than “very proud.” Pride in country became more muted – perhaps more apologetic.

What explains our cultural penchant to apologize? I think it is the tradition of compromise that is in much of our political history. After the British conquest of the French in Quebec City in 1759, the Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed French Canadians their right to retain their language, civil law and religion, rather than be assimilated into English Canada.

When the Lester B. Pearson government responded to Quebec nationalism with the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the 1960s, Canadians whose heritage was neither French nor British demanded recognition. Biculturalism became multiculturalism, an implicit apology for an obvious oversight. The neologism “multiculturalism” is one of Canada’s gifts to the world, and has since 1970 become central to our national identity.

For much of our history, most Canadians have experienced peaceful co-existence in a bicultural, then multicultural society (albeit one that is just beginning to work toward reconciliation with Indigenous peoples). Perhaps for this reason, a large share of the population tends not to see politics and identity as a zero-sum game, where making room for someone else means taking away space from “me” and “my group.”

Over time, Canadians have become more likely to believe there is room enough for everyone – for different peoples, cultures, histories and perspectives. That opens the door to compromise, but also makes it less risky to apologize. For what is an apology, if not an acknowledgment that there is another perspective, a valid version of the story in which one is not always the admirable hero but sometimes someone who is flawed and has done harm? If one is consumed by “status anxiety” – the fear of being diminished relative to others in society – then the lowering of oneself through apology becomes unpalatable.

When it comes to the way Canadians respond to socio-cultural change, the strain of British understatement and irony that runs through our culture is also worth noting. Wry humour and oblique expressions of dissent suit us well in our often-precarious position north of the American powerhouse. To gender our relationship (and I apologize for the stereotyping), we are the little sister to the American big brother. We must exercise our power by being smarter, not stronger, often saying the opposite of what we really mean to get a point across. This is a kind of repressed aggression in which the subtext of a “sorry” from someone whose toe has been stepped on is less “I’ve done something wrong” than “Something is wrong here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Of course, as Isaac Newton observed centuries ago, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We see forces of backlash: people who are “sorry, not sorry” about their wealth, power and privilege, or about the misdeeds of their ancestors. In Canada, these forces certainly exist, but they are more muted and less prevalent than they are in the United States, where even some state governments now forbid the mention in school curricula of ancestral misdeeds in the form of centuries of enslavement and segregation.

From broadly accepting how Canada’s history is taught to the understanding that various minority groups do experience discrimination, Canadians over all seem less sharply divided than Americans are about apologizing for past injustice. But while apologies might be a sign of self-awareness and a step toward redress, many would prefer that Canada move toward apologizing less with words and more with action – for example, with speedier implementation of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Time will tell whether a national willingness to apologize for the past is merely a cultural quirk, or a resource we can draw on to create a better future.

Source: Canada is sorry – a lot. We shouldn’t apologize for that

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Go and See: When can Chinese Canadians stop being foreigners in our home?

2023/07/01 Leave a comment

While written from the perspective of Chinese Canadians, they note the commonality of experience among visible minority groups and potential threats from foreign are legitimate concerns:

This July 1 marks the 100th anniversary of the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a racist law that for 24 years excluded all but a few Chinese from coming to Canada. Numerous events are being held to commemorate the occasion.

Many would suggest this is a time for celebration. After all, isn’t everything much better now, and aren’t there so many successful Chinese Canadians?

If so, how do you account for the fact that the Chinese Canadian community experiences higher than average poverty rates, including higher than Black and South Asian Canadians? How do we respond to social-science studies that show job seekers with Chinese or Asian-sounding last names have a 28-per-cent lower chance of getting interviews, as compared to those with Anglo names? And how do we explain the consistent themes of anti-Asian racism that can be traced from over a century ago to our modern manifestations of individual and systemic racism.

As Chinese Canadians, in addition to combating the “model minority myth,” we face constant challenges to our sense of belonging. At best, it comes as a microaggression in the form of a “friendly” query asking, “Where are you from?” However innocent these inquiries may sometimes sound, they reinforce assumptions about who is a “real” Canadian, and are a reminder that we are seen as the “other.” At worse, this stereotype of Asian Canadians as perpetual foreigners fuels xenophobia and hateful attacks that are trying to drive us, the “foreigners,” to “go back to where we came from.”

Telling Chinese Canadians, regardless of where we were born, to “go back to China” is sadly nothing new. The Canadian government took the lead in 1885 by imposing the infamous Chinese Head Tax on every Chinese person entering Canada as soon as Chinese railway workers finished building the Canadian Pacific Railway connecting our country from coast to coast. When that did not stop enough Chinese coming here, the Canadian government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1923, to essentially exclude all Chinese from entering until this racist Act was repealed in 1947.

Different governments’ racist actions have reverberated throughout Canadian history, marching in step with the dehumanization of the Chinese, as shown by the public violence of the 1907 riots by white mobs in Vancouver’s Chinatown, and the 1919 ransacking of Toronto’s Chinatown. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed racist hate and violent attacks aimed at Chinese across the country, driving home the same message of who belongs and who is the “other.”

The current public discourse about foreign interference by China has added a layer of complexity to the already precarious discussion around anti-Asian racism. We know that negative views about China can contribute to more racism against Chinese Canadians, especially because of the perpetual foreigner stereotype, where our loyalty to Canada may be questioned. At the same time, concerns about anti-Chinese racism should not be abused as a tool to suppress legitimate discussions about potential threats from foreign regimes. As Canadians, we all have the same concerns about protecting our democracy. To achieve this shared goal, we must confront the threats posed both internally by the white supremacy movement and externally by foreign regimes. We must not play politics with our national security.

We must also respect the diverse communities of our 1.8 million Chinese Canadians, including many who have been here for generations and many who were not born in China. By dehumanizing a group and stripping away individual identities, racism affects our sense of belonging in different parts of our lives. For example, when some of us enter a meeting or an event, we scan the room for those who look like us: another person of colour, or better yet, another Chinese. More often than not, we are faced with a sea of mostly white, male faces, who are likely oblivious to our sense of being “othered,” even as they point to the presence of “minorities” as a sign of their commitment to diversity. Meanwhile, we gravitate toward the handful of racialized people in the room and wonder how our token representation might actually make a difference. Likewise, we look to important announcements like judicial appointments and ask if the one or two Chinese Canadians who get the nod will be the last ones as the government fills their unspoken quota.

Ultimately, discrimination and racism is not unique to Chinese Canadians. As we mark our community’s long history of exclusion on July 1, let us take the opportunity to collectively call upon our governments and all those with power and influence to combat racism and oppression of all forms.

If only one day we could walk into any room, and not have to ask ourselves again: Are we here as tokens, or do we truly belong?

Amy Go is president and Gary Yee is vice-president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice.

Source: When can Chinese Canadians stop being foreigners in our home?

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Canada’s housing policy is failing citizens and newcomers alike

2023/06/30 Leave a comment

Need also to question the demand side of the equation, which includes high levels of permanent and temporary residents:

Canada recently reached a milestone of 40 million people after growing by more than one million people in one year for the first time in 2022. But while we’re adding people at record levels, the same can’t be said about homes.

According to recent research, while the number of people Canada-wide has accelerated in recent years, the number of housing units completed has stagnated and even fallen to levels well below previous peaks. Specifically, from 1971 to 1980, Canada’s population grew by 283,737 people annually on average while an annual average of 226,524 housing units were completed.

By comparison, from 2013 to 2022, Canada’s population grew by 427,439 people annually on average yet only 196,872 housing units were completed annually on average. Put differently, during the 1970s, roughly four housing units were constructed for every five new people in Canada, compared to slightly less than one housing unit constructed for every two new people in recent times.

In short, fewer homes are being built for a larger, faster-growing population.

These dual trends spell trouble for many Canadians, especially those already struggling to find affordable housing. The severe imbalance between the number of homes available and the number required have squeezed many renters and would-be homebuyers who increasingly find themselves bidding for a dwindling supply of available units.

The result? Higher rents and home prices, and not just among the “usual suspect” communities in the greater Toronto and Vancouver areas, but in small- and medium-sized cities across the country. Last year, communities including London, Ont., Waterloo Region, Peterborough, Ont., Hamilton, Ont., Kingston, Gatineau, Quebec City and Halifax all saw their rental vacancy rates (a measure of rental unit availability) fall below 2 per cent, which places them in the same league as Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria. And when vacancy rates fall, rents rise.

Canada’s shortage of housing has negative consequences for almost everyone, from the most vulnerable individuals and families to employers struggling to find workers. It also hurts newcomers to Canada – the single largest group contributing to Canada’s population growth. Most new arrivals to Canada rent their homes, leaving them especially exposed to rapidly tightening rental markets. Rising rents and worsening availability hamper their prospects – and indeed the prospects of all renters or would-be homeowners – of achieving upward mobility, arguably one of Canada’s main draws.

Thankfully, solutions are available, although policymakers must act big and act fast. There’s tremendous opportunity to open up more neighbourhoods to help achieve the levels of homebuilding required to adequately house a growing Canada. Several cities have already started implementing policies making it easier to add housing units. For example, Edmonton is overhauling its zoning bylaws to allow more housing options citywide, including duplexes, secondary suites and small apartments in current low-density residential areas. Similarly, Toronto City Council recently adopted plans to allow up to four units per lot citywide without the need to rezone. And elsewhere in Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia, provincial and local governments are making similar changes.

However, such policies are only the first of many necessary steps, and their effects will only be felt over the longer term so there’s no time to waste.

As Canadians and policymakers ponder our 40 million demographic milestone, they should give honest consideration to Canada’s worsening housing situation. In the right circumstances, a growing population can bring numerous benefits – economic, cultural and more. By not allowing homebuilding to keep up with population growth, however, governments across the country have hampered prosperity for both existing Canadians and newcomers. Governments, especially municipalities, must change the way they plan for and approve the millions more homes we need today and in the future if we’re to restore the promise of a thriving Canada with upward mobility.

Josef Filipowicz and Steve Lafleur are senior fellows at the Fraser Institute.

Source: Canada’s housing policy is failing citizens and newcomers alike

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John Ivison: Ottawa’s tech-talent drive finally puts some economic elbows up

2023/06/30 Leave a comment

Positive commentary on the new streams:

It’s been said that moving to the U.S. is part of Canada’s culture.

But times change. Social media was humming this week with reaction in the U.S. to a new immigration policy launched by the Canadian government. American high-tech entrepreneur Srinivasan Balaji tweeted to his nearly one million followers that work visa holders in the U.S. who are “stuck in an endless green card line” should be aware of a new program in Canada that is attempting to lure engineers that the U.S. is “repelling.”

Another user said: “Canada is eating our lunch. This is bad news for America.” The policy in question was unveiled by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, at the Collision tech conference in Toronto on Tuesday.

As part of a new Tech Talent Strategy, Canada will open a work permit stream for holders of the H1B visa, which allows U.S. employers to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations.

Other strands include bringing in employer-specific work permits for up to five years in companies the government deems “innovative”; a digital nomad strategy to allow people working for foreign companies to stay in Canada for six months; and the option for people waiting for permanent-resident status to apply for a work permit while their application is processed.

“There is no question that we are in a global race for the same pool of talent with competitors around the entire world,” Fraser said.

The Trudeau government has been loath to view the world in competitive terms, preferring to hand out participation medals. The consequences of de-prioritizing competitiveness and productivity are apparent in this country’s GDP-per-capita numbers, which are sliding — as is, consequently, our relative standard of living.

But Fraser was speaking in terms that will encourage those who despair about the country’s economic future. He said he is enthusiastic about the “ambitious goals” being set “because they are not just about numbers, they are strategic.”

The news was greeted with enthusiasm by Mikal Skuterud, economics professor at the University of Waterloo, who hailed the policy as one that is “at long last, aimed at leveraging immigration to boost real economic growth.”

The Liberal government has been enthusiastic about raising immigration rates for a number of reasons, ranging from the popularity of its family reunification policies in politically important seats around our big cities, to the impact on economic growth of bringing in a million people a year, as happened last year.

But while GDP rises almost in lockstep with population growth, such a dramatic influx puts strains on services like health and on the housing market. Critics of unplanned immigration, like Andrew Griffith, a former director general at Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, have long argued that the country should “bring in fewer people and treat them better.” But he said the new tech strategy is a good initiative to tap into the available talent pool and into frustration with the U.S. immigration system.

“It should bring in immigrants that boosts productivity, rather than drains it,” Griffith said. He pointed out that this is a government that has found it much easier to make announcements than manage complex systems.

Fraser talked of streamlining and fast-tracking the International Mobility Program for talented individuals, but this is still an immigration system with an 800,000-case backlog across all lines of business. Frustration with the U.S. immigration system could very quickly become exasperation with Canada.

But the intentions are good. Twenty years ago, the numbers of permanent residents coming to Canada outnumbered the temporary residents, according to numbers compiled by Griffith. Last year, the 437,000 new permanent residents were a fraction of the 1.6 million temporary residents, half of whom were covered by the International Mobility program or the Temporary Foreign Workers program; half of whom were students. It is open to debate whether it is responsible for the government to bring in so many low-skilled people when the impact on health and housing systems is so clearly deleterious.

That discussion is likely to get more pointed if, as the OECD suggested this week, unemployment starts to rise. But it is long overdue that Canada gets its elbows up in the global battle for talent.

Source: Ottawa’s tech-talent drive finally puts some economic elbows up

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The public service is ailing. Janice Charette says organizational health is the next big challenge

2023/06/30 Leave a comment

Perennial challenge, diagnostic easier than solutions given size, complexity and diversity of government programs along with the political-public service interface:

Janice Charette left the job as Canada’s top bureaucrat stressing that the public service must turn its attention to “organizational health” so it can manage in a world seemingly gone haywire with one crisis on top of another.

Charette, who retired last week as clerk of the Privy Council Office, called organizational health the “new frontier” in renewing the public service, which emerged from a once-in-a-century pandemic with its management performance – the good and the bad – fully exposed.

Every part of society, every family, every employer is dealing with significant changes to the way we live, socialize and interact because of the pandemic, she said in an interview.

“But the conversation we need now is around organizational wellness. How are organizations dealing with one crisis after another, with workload pressures 24/7 and in the complicated and somewhat conflictual operating environments governments are functioning in?”

That conversation is a tall order. Critics and observers say there’s so much that needs fixing in the way human resources, technology and finances are managed. They were built for another time and are out sync with the speed and expectations of the digital age.

The public service, with 350,000 employees, is also as big as it has ever been, and the social and economic problems it tackles more complex.

Organizational health is one of those corporate buzzwords that boils down to how effectively an organization manages and adapts to change.

“An enterprise focus on organizational health is exactly what this government needs because the need to be adaptable, resilient, and engaged is not going away,” said Stephen Harrington, Deloitte’s workforce strategy advisory leader.

He likens it to training for a marathon. You have to prepare, eat, train, and sleep right.

Charette and her predecessors have spent years working on ways to support health and wellbeing of their employees – with varying degrees of success. They’ve made mental health, accessibility for persons with disabilities, reducing anti-Black racism and increasing diversity and inclusion top management priorities. They’re all linked and part of recruiting a public service that reflects the country.

The shift in emphasis must come as workloads are increasing, stress is high and disability claims are climbing. Workplace issues have a disproportionate impact on the mental health of Indigenous, Black and racialized workers, those with disabilities, and those from religious minorities and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

Charette said examining organizational health means analyzing how structures, controls, rules, processes and oversight is contributing to work overload, long hours, and stress, as well as turning off the skilled workers it needs to keep and attract.

Charette recently told a mental-health conference that Canada’s largest employer needs a reset.

“You can’t boil an ocean”

“Leaders need to think about how we pivot now to support organizational wellness. COVID also gave us some not-so-great work practices – workers were at home and available to work 24/7. That is wonderful and essential in a crisis.  But it is not sustainable.”

She argues a key part of the next renewal is figuring out what issues to focus on because “you can’t boil an ocean.” Charette, however, steers clear of prioritizing what should be tackled first, leaving that up to her successor, John Hannaford, who takes over this week.

“How do you make sure that public service is fit for purpose in a very different world going forward? That is a timely question, and that’s going to be a question for my successor,” she said.

“I’m going to leave to John to define what his priorities are going to be and how to approach them.”

Clearly, the big issue is workload.

The Liberals have an ambitious agenda with big plans for climate change, transition to a clean-energy economy, and reconciliation – not to mention cabinet ministers loaded up with hundreds of must-dos in their mandate letters. Then there’s the impact of crises erupting around the world and all those day-to-day issues that crop up.

And she’s lived it. As she says, whatever issues landed on the prime minister’s desk landed on hers.

As clerk, she stickhandled the emergence from the pandemic, a shift to hybrid work, service delivery cockups with passport and immigration backlogs and the biggest public-service strike in 30 years. There is the war in Ukraine, a trucker protest, the invoking of the Emergencies Act and the machinery-of-government crisis over foreign interference. Don’t forget floods, fires, soaring inflation, housing shortages and all the day-to-day distractions of social media, partisan attacks and 24-hour news cycle.

Everyone talks about the world being in  “polycrisis,” the term popularized by historian Adam Tooze to describe the coming together of multiple crises at once with the ensuing damage greater than the sum of each part.

“I’m a believer that the polycrisis is here to stay. I think that is a feature of public administration,” Charette says.

The government has enduring priorities, she says, that include addressing inequality, fixing climate change, Canada’s economic growth, prosperity and role in the world.

“All those (priorities) don’t change. It’s the layer of stuff that’s sitting on top of it, and then the crises,” she says.

“The questions for renewal going forward are whether we are affectively organized for that world. Are we trying to do that and everything else at the same time?”

And Charette worries the public service is not ready.

She said it’s as if everyone thought that once the pandemic was over, we would get back to the way things were. She likens it to waiting for “regular programming to resume after this special broadcast.”

“You know what?” she said. “There is always going to be a new special broadcast. I think the world of ongoing special broadcasts in a world of regular programming is here to stay.”

A more permeable public service

During Charette’s final days as clerk, senior bureaucrats, academics and politicians were blocks away in an Ottawa hotel at a conference talking about governments’ institutional resilience during COVID-19. They talked about lessons learned by governing in a crisis and how to adapt for the next one.

They rhymed off examples of governments pulling off feats unimagined pre-pandemic – and in record time. But there’s a lot that needs fixing for public servants to do their jobs better: procurement rules, an outdated job classification system and staffing rules. It can take nearly a year to hire someone. Unions are stuck in an industrial labour regime. There’s too much reliance on contracting. Old legacy IT systems had to be tricked to get out COVID-19 benefits.

A key piece of a reset should be driven by skills, Harrington of Deloitte argues. The government needs to “upskill and reskill” because the skills the government needs will change rapidly. Generative AI alone is going to replace tasks, eliminate jobs and even create new ones.

Charette acknowledged it may also be time to re-think a career public service and make it more “permeable.” Rather than spending 35 years in the public service, people could work there for a few years, move to the private and nonprofit sectors, and perhaps return to the federal government.

Alasdair Roberts, a professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts, just finished a stint as the Jocelyne Bourgon Visiting Scholar at the Canada School of Public Service, where he studied adaptability as key to countries’ survival in this turbulent century.

He argues one of the big threats to Canada’s adaptability is the health of the public service. Public servants’ risk aversion stems from a 50-year build-up of controls with new oversight watchdogs to improve accountability, he maintains. On top of that, bureaucrats face a new layer of political control, the growing arm of ministerial staffers he calls the “political service.”

“A country cannot be adaptable if its public service is incapable of taking new ideas and translating them into action efficiently,” he said.

Charette cautions a big challenge in sorting out the obstacles is “how we put a bias on agility and responsiveness without losing the due diligence we need as stewards of public resources and the public interest.”

Roberts joins Donald Savoie, Canada’s pre-eminent scholar on public administration, in calling for a royal commission on reforming the public service.

“We can’t expect public-service managers to have the kind of oversight bodies we have now looking over their shoulders every single day,” said Savoie.

The clerk’s role comes with the power and influence to lead a major reform, but Hannaford won’t have the time to do it, Savoie argues.

“It’s not that the incoming clerk is not up to it, but he is too busy. Too many crises thrown at him. Too many issues. Ministers bouncing around to keep under control. So many issues. I think what you needed is a parallel process, call it what you want, to look at these fundamental issues.”

…

Source: The public service is ailing. Janice Charette says organizational health is the next big challenge

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Semotiuk: U.S. H1-B Visa Holders Targeted By Canada’s New Immigration Program

2023/06/30 Leave a comment

Good explainer:

It is a fact that H1B visa workers from countries such as India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines face legitimate concernsabout their long-term status and stability in the United States. For example, America offers no automatic path to permanent residence for H1-B workers, their work visas are only temporary, H1-B spouses and children cannot work without authorizations, and there is a low numerical limit of H1-B visas available per year despite a high demand – such American H1-B program shortcomings prompt H1-B visa holders sometimes to explore other options.

Canada’s government, led by Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, recently recognized the potential of attracting these talented individuals. The Canadian program recently announced not only aims to fill Canada’s immediate skill shortages but also focuses on attracting these talented individuals to foster the growth of tomorrow’s jobs.

Four Key Canadian Pillars

Four key pillars introduced by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) offer a glimpse of a more promising future for high-skilled workers. These pillars provide U.S. H1-B visa holders a better sense of security and long-term prospects on offer in Canada than what currently is available in the United States.

1. Streamlining Canadian Work Permits For H-1B Visa Holders

Starting from July 16, 2023, U.S.-based H1-B workers and their immediate family members will be able to apply for open Canadian work permits of up to three years, enabling them to explore employment opportunities with almost any Canadian employer.

2. Innovation Stream Under The International Mobility Program

Acknowledging persistent labor shortages in key tech occupations, Canada plans to launch the Innovation Stream by the end of 2023. This stream will exempt highly skilled workers from the labor market impact assessment process, (similar to PERM labor certifications in the U.S.) thereby streamlining the hiring process for high-growth employers in alignment with Canada’s innovation priorities and high-tech industries. Whether through employer-specific work permits or open work permits for in-demand occupations, these workers will have the opportunity to contribute to Canada’s thriving tech sector and settle their status with greater certainty.

3. Promoting Canada As A Destination For Skilled Workers And Their Families

Canada recognizes the value of attracting skilled workers and their families, regardless of their country of origin. As remote work becomes more prevalent, Canada aims to position itself as an appealing destination for skilled professionals. The government plans to collaborate with public and private partners to explore additional policies that attract workers seeking to relocate to Canada and integrate into its thriving job market. With the potential for temporary work permits and pathways to permanent residence, these workers will be able to find stability for themselves and their families.

4. Strengthening Existing Programs For High-Skilled Tech Workers

Canada is also focusing on improving existing immigration programs designed to benefit high-skilled tech workers. The Global Skills Strategy, launched in 2017, offers quick access to highly skilled talent from around the world, with reduced processing times for work permit applications. Additionally, the Start-up Visa Program provides a pathway to permanent residence for foreign entrepreneurs with the support of designated Canadian venture capital funds or angel investor organizations.

Staying In America

While these are attractive offerings, there are reasons for staying in America. While it is true that Canada features a universal health care system, a reasonable system of education, and beautiful landscapes, the fact remains that Canada cannot compete with America’s Ivy League universities, America’s warm southern climate, and the business and economic strengths of the American economy. Still, the United States should take note of Canada’s innovations and consider similar measures.

America desperately needs to reassess and revise its H1B visa program to ensure the program remains competitive. Long term stability, career growth, and a supportive environment for families are things America must provide. Retaining H1-B workers should be a priority for the U.S. because they contribute to economic growth, foster innovation, and maintain the nation’s position as a leader in technology and industry. If America is not to fall behind, it is important for the country to urgently address the concerns of these workers, revisiting its immigration policies and programs to create a more conducive environment that retains and attracts the best global talent, ensuring continued success and prosperity in the ever-evolving technological landscape.

Source: U.S. H1-B Visa Holders Targeted By Canada’s New Immigration Program

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Lisée: Solidarité obligatoire

2023/06/30 Leave a comment

Interesting discussion on activism, education, freedom of conscience in the context of LGBTQ in schools:

Parmi les mille raisons qui me rendent fier d’être Québécois figure notre tolérance précoce, puis notre défense résolue, des homosexuels. Ne dit-on pas que, sans nous, le Canada aurait été beaucoup plus lent à légaliser le mariage pour tous ?

Cette particularité québécoise ressortait d’un monologue prononcé lors d’un gala Just For Laughs par l’humoriste américaine Sarah Silverman. Je cite de mémoire : « Aux États-Unis, on utilise des codes pour désigner nos quartiers gais. Le “District Castro” [San Francisco] ou “Greenwich” [New York]. Pourquoi ? Pour que les rednecks, qui sont des imbéciles, ne sachent pas où les trouver. Mais vous, votre village gai s’appelle “le village gai” ! Vous faites exprès ou quoi ? »

L’adhésion des Québécois à la cause gaie fut progressive, dans la société, la culture, les familles. Un processus d’acclimatation, d’adhésion, de normalisation. Mais il nous vient désormais de notre environnement nord-américain des signaux dont il faut se préoccuper. Il s’agit de l’injonction de solidarité. Il ne suffit pas d’accepter, mais d’afficher obligatoirement son appui à la cause. Parfois sous peine de sanctions.

On célèbre à Montréal la fierté gaie en août, mais cette année, aux États-Unis et au Canada, la tradition de faire de juin le Mois de la fierté gaie a pris de l’ampleur, notamment dans les écoles. En Ontario, le ministre (conservateur) de l’Éducation a produit une directive affirmant qu’il « incombe à tous les conseils scolaires de veiller à ce que tous les élèves — plus particulièrement les élèves 2SLGBTQ+ — se sentent soutenus, reflétés dans leurs écoles », ce qui est admirable. Mais il a ajouté : « Cela inclut la célébration du Mois de la fierté. »

La nuance est cruciale entre l’acceptation et la promotion, entre l’éducation et le prosélytisme. Nos chartes protègent la « liberté de conscience », ce qui inclut le droit de ne pas être d’accord avec la norme, pour peu qu’on ne commette aucun geste illégal. Sur les bancs d’école, on est certes tenus d’apprendre la norme et de la respecter. Mais est-on obligé de la célébrer ? Si la fête nationale du Québec tombait le premier juin, obligerait-on tous les enfants à porter des macarons fleurdelisés et de marcher dans les rues, drapeau en mains ? C’est ce qu’on a demandé à des enfants du primaire de Vancouver, l’an dernier, pour le Mois de la fierté.

On a assisté cette année, en Ontario, à un refus massif de parents musulmans de laisser leurs enfants participer à ces célébrations. Ce qui a notamment valu à ceux d’Ottawa une directive stricte des autorités scolaires interdisant le droit de retrait aux enfants. « Les droits de la personne ne sont pas ouverts au débat ou à la participation sélective » est-il écrit. En Nouvelle-Écosse, l’enregistrement d’une enseignante sermonnant un étudiant musulman qui refusait de participer aux activités de la Pride a fait grand bruit. Elle y affirme que « nous croyons que les gens peuvent épouser qui ils veulent, c’est dans la loi, et si tu ne penses pas que ça devrait être la loi, tu ne peux pas être Canadien. Tu n’as pas ta place ici, et je suis sérieuse ».

L’imam Sikander Hashmi rapporte dans le National Post que « les élèves d’une école secondaire d’Ottawa ont déclaré que le personnel gardait les portes lors d’une assemblée du Mois de la fierté pour s’assurer que personne ne partait, tandis que d’autres patrouillaient dans les couloirs et qu’un autre vérifiait même le stationnement pour trouver les élèves qui refusaient d’y assister. Un parent a rapporté que son enfant de 3e année dans une autre école s’était fait dire qu’il ne pouvait pas aller en récréation à moins qu’il ne dessine un arc-en-ciel. Des parents m’ont dit que d’autres élèves avaient été menacés d’expulsion s’ils ne participaient pas aux activités du Mois de la fierté ».

L’imam est particulièrement remonté contre un livret conçu spécialement pour ses jeunes ouailles intitulé « Je suis musulman mais je ne suis peut-être pas hétéro ». Pas moins du tiers des élèves du primaire de la ville de London, à forte concentration musulmane, se sont absentés durant une journée consacrée à la dénonciation de l’homophobie en mai. Puis, on a vu un petit groupe de mères musulmanes encourager leurs enfants à piétiner de petits drapeaux arc-en-ciel. Une scène qu’on peut résumer en deux mots : haine et obscurantisme.

Chers lecteurs, vous me savez très critique des religions, notamment pour leur misogynie et leur homophobie. Je suis à la fois favorable à l’arrêt des subventions pour les écoles à vocation religieuse et je tiens, pour le bien des enfants, à ce qu’aucun ne soit exempté de l’enseignement commun. Cependant, on ne peut vivre ensemble sans respect de la liberté de conscience. Je récuse donc l’embrigadement dans des causes, fussent-elles les miennes. Comme la religion, le militantisme doit s’afficher et se pratiquer à ses heures, pas à l’école ou dans l’État. Le refus d’appliquer ce principe nourrit puissamment le ressac conservateur dont nous sommes témoins et qui arrivera sous peu dans une école près de chez vous.

En fait, cela y est déjà. Au Québec, des comités formés d’élèves et soutenus par des profs et des administrateurs volontaires se donnent le mandat de faire appliquer la théorie du genre, dont je parlais dans une précédente chronique, dans l’école en entier. Les demandes pour des toilettes non binaires au primaire et au secondaire sont courantes et il arrive que des surveillantes plus pointilleuses sur le respect de l’intimité des unes et des autres se fassent « traiter de transphobes par des enfants de 12 ans », me rapporte un enseignant.

Il existe dans plusieurs de nos écoles des AGIS, pour Alliance genres, identités, sexualités. Leur création est recommandée par le gouvernement canadien. Elles ont pour but de transformer l’école entière en un « lieu sûr ». Les trousses pédagogiques mises à la disposition par l’organisme AGIS reprennent les thèmes et le vocabulaire d’usage sur la théorie du genre. C’est chouette : les étudiants intéressés à mettre un comité sur pied peuvent facilement recevoir une subvention de 500 $. Desjardins fait d’ailleurs partie des commanditaires de l’initiative.

J’ai sous les yeux une lettre envoyée ce printemps aux parents par un directeur d’école secondaire de Laval. Il les invite à soutenir l’initiative visant à « susciter la solidarité et mobiliser les élèves et le personnel scolaire à devenir des personnes alliées ». La Fédération autonome de l’enseignement organise un « défi des personnes alliées » pour ses syndicats enseignants qui déploieront dans leurs écoles le drapeau arc-en-ciel, des macarons, des kiosques de promotion. Dans les deux cas, nous ne sommes pas en présence du langage de l’éducation, mais de celui du militantisme.

Source: Solidarité obligatoire

Filed under LGBTQ, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

He’s accused of defrauding international students. His visa was cancelled. How did this Indian education agent get into Canada?

2023/06/29 Leave a comment

Good question:

As some of the people he’s accused of defrauding faced potential deportation from Canada in March, an Indian education agent was living under the radar in British Columbia, the Star has learned.

Brijesh Mishra was sharing a rental house with five other people in Surrey, B.C., as authorities in India and in Canada tried to hunt him down over his alleged role in a scam involving fake Canadian college admission letters.

Even after his visitor visa had been cancelled for alleged “ghost-consulting,” Mishra managed to enter this country last October, crossing the U.S. border without being detected.

It was while trying to cross the U.S. border yet again this month that Mishra was finally arrested. Two days later, he found himself pleading for his release, and offering to fly himself home.

“I have a card from India, the credit card and debit card from which I was supporting myself,” he told an immigration tribunal, as he argued for his release.

“If I need more money, my wife send it to me with my cards. That is the thing I use,” said the father of a two-and-a-half-year-old in explaining how he had supported himself since first entering this country on Oct. 17 from south of the border without a visa.

A group of international students, said to be in the hundreds, have been flagged for possible deportation, accused of misrepresentation in their study permit applications.

They say they were unaware the college admission letters given to them were doctored, and say they only became aware after they had finished their courses and applied for postgraduate work permits, only to be flagged by border officials. Some cases were flagged during the students’ permanent residence application process.

Mishra has now been charged for offering immigration advice without a licence and with counselling a person to directly or indirectly misrepresent or withhold information from authorities

According to his detention review hearing, Mishra was issued a visa in 2019 but it was cancelled by the Canadian mission in Delhi “due to possible involvement in fraudulent activities involving ghost consultants,” before an alert was put out on him in February 2021.

Only licensed lawyers and consultants registered with the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants can legally offer immigration advice and services at a fee. Those who don’t have those qualifications are called “ghost consultants.”

Mishra was able to enter Canada at the Douglas port of entry at the Washington state border in October. It is unclear why Mishra had been in the U.S. CBSA declined to comment on how Mishra was able to enter Canada without a valid visa, citing the ongoing investigation involving him.

Based on his previous visa application records, authorities emailed him twice after had been in Canada, informing him of his “inadmissibility due to organized criminality” but did not receive a reply.

Border officials began a search for Mishra on April 27 and visited an address in Surrey. After a futile effort to locate him, Canada Border Services Agency issued a warrant for his arrest on May 4.

He was arrested on June 14 when he tried to re-enter Canada via the U.S. land border.

At his detention review two days later, the government alleged Mishra has been involved in “wide-scale immigration fraud” in relation to his roles with Easy Way Immigration and Education and Migration Services Australia.

It said his two co-directors of the company have been arrested and denied bail in India, and argued against Mishra’s release for fear he would not appear for his admissibility hearing or removal.

“He has demonstrated the ability to be quite mobile within Canada as well as to remain undetected by immigration authorities who were actively looking for him,” said Margaret Neville, counsel for the government.

“He has been mobile even throughout where he was staying in the Lower Mainland and … it would be very easy for Mr. Mishra to go underground and remain undetected again.”

Neville accused Mishra of not being forthcoming with CBSA about his arrest history in India when he was intercepted this month and asked about a police investigation in India into a company he was involved in between 2010 and 2013. He initially denied there was a police investigation.

“Have you ever had — like, you never had any other court matter?” the border agent asked.

“No,” Mishra replied.

He also initially denied he knew the lawyer who was supposed to have represented him on that matter, before admitting it was his wife who hired the lawyer and indicating he was aware of the “ongoing issues” in India and the allegations against him.

“Do you read the news at all?” the CBSA officer asked.

“TikTok sometimes. Student deportation in the news, I was never involved,” Mishra responded without being prompted. “This is a fake accusation. It’s fake news.”

In pleading for the man’s release, Mishra’s lawyer said there’s no court record before the tribunal to support the May 2013 arrest of his client. The lawyer said Mishra could not have been in India then because he was working in Australia as shown in the entry and exit stamps in his passports.

Regarding the allegations of Mishra’s involvement in organized criminal activity, his lawyer said the government’s only evidence came from a news report, where it was suggested the man was wanted by local police relating to charges involving several different crimes.

“He is being charged does not mean that Mr. Mishra has been involved in criminal activity himself, that he could have been — all his conduct could have been properly issuing documents, arranging papers for applications with no misrepresentation at all,” the tribunal was told.

“The activity could have been carried out solely by the individual who has already been arrested or the other person that the Indian authorities are purportedly seeking related to this alleged criminality.”

Mishra said he had not seen his young child in India since he came to Canada in October and that their only communication had been through What’sApp video calls, which are not allowed in the detention centre.

He also told the tribunal he would like to be removed from Canada as soon as possible and asked if he could just buy his own flight to leave the country.

After assessing the evidence and submissions, the tribunal upheld Mishra’s detention until the next review on June 23, the same day when he was charged.

Two weeks ago, the group of Indian international students were granted reprieve by Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, who agreed to stop their pending deportations until a task force investigates each case to determine if they were innocent or complicit in gaming Canada’s immigration system.

Source: He’s accused of defrauding international students. His visa was cancelled. How did this Indian education agent get into Canada?

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