Dodek: It’s time for the Supreme Court, and the federal government, to stand up for the Charter

2023/01/06 Leave a comment

Valid critique:

The Liberals used to be the party of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Now, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, they risk being the party that leads to the Charter’s decline.

Over the past five years, the political taboo over the use of the notwithstanding clause, which allows governments to override some Charter rights, has been shattered across Canada. This occurred not under former prime minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative who was the favourite lightning rod of Liberal Charter enthusiasts, but under the current Liberal stewardship of Mr. Trudeau.

When Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened to use the notwithstanding clause in the fall of 2018, as part of a plan to shrink the size of the Toronto City Council in the midst of the provincial election, the Prime Minister did nothing. (Ultimately, Mr. Ford did not use the clause in that instance.)

The next year, Quebec Premier François Legault went ahead with using the notwithstanding clause to insulate Bill 21, which bans certain provincial government employees from wearing religious symbols at work. In 2021, Mr. Ford also used the clause for a law limiting third-party election spending. In both cases, Mr. Trudeau again did nothing.

Earlier this year, the Quebec government used the notwithstanding clause once more, this time to push through Bill 96, its new language law. Yet again, the Prime Minister took no action, though he has said that the federal government would intervene in a legal challenge to Bill 21 at the Supreme Court of Canada.

“This is a matter that matters to all Canadians, regardless of which part of the country they live in,” Mr. Trudeau said in May, when asked if Ottawa would involve itself in the Bill 21 challenge. “This government will continue to be here to defend people’s fundamental rights and freedoms.”

I doubt those whose rights have been threatened or stripped away by legislation in Quebec and Ontario find much comfort in the Prime Minister’s vague and banal words. They won’t help the Muslim women in Quebec who have lost their jobs because they wear a hijabas a declaration of their faith. They won’t help non-native French speakers who are barred from speaking another language at work.

While the Ontario government pledged to repeal its most recent use of the clause (as part of Bill 28, which made it illegal for unionized education workers to go on strike), Canadians should still be concerned about the increased use of this clause by provincial governments.

Mr. Trudeau could act right now if he wanted to. If he has the political courage to do so, the Prime Minister could initiate a reference to the Supreme Court challenging the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause in Quebec and Ontario. He could send some of the best legal talent in the country from the Department of Justice down the street to the high court to stand up for the minority rights of Canadians.

Crucially, Ottawa could argue that the Supreme Court should revisit its 1988 Ford v. Quebec (Attorney-General) decision, which gave governments the carte-blanche ability to use the notwithstanding clause.

Supreme Court decisions are not cast in stone. Much has changed in the three decades since it first ruled on the use of the notwithstanding clause, which authorized its use both in reaction to court decisions striking down laws as violations of the Charter, as well as its pre-emptive use in advance of any such legal challenges.

The rights and provisions set out in the Charter do not define themselves. It is the task of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, to interpret its contents. The political leaders who debated and enacted the Charter knew full well that they would be giving this awesome responsibility to the courts.

Between 1980 and 1981, a special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons spent more than 150 hours hearing from Canadians about the draft Charter. The legislators on this committee were warned that the enactment of a constitutionally-entrenched bill of rights such as the Charter would make the courts responsible for its interpretation.

The 1988 Ford decision dates to the early years of Charter interpretation. It is part of the first generation of Charter cases. The high court’s interpretation of Charter rights ebbs and flows over time.

A favourite metaphor among Canadian constitutional lawyers and academics is the idea that our Constitution is a “living tree” – one that is capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits. Sometimes, the Constitution needs to be pruned back. In other cases, the courts or governments go too far – in recent years, both have done so on sanctioning and using the notwithstanding clause.

The time is ripe for Canada’s highest court to revisit its 34-year-old decision. It is also long overdue for some strong federal leadership to defend the Charter rights of Canadians.

Adam Dodek is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and author of the book, The Canadian Constitution.

Source: It’s time for the Supreme Court, and the federal government, to stand up for the Charter

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Quebec’s social services under pressure by influx of asylum seekers

2023/01/06 Leave a comment

No surprise:

The influx of asylum seekers to Quebec is putting pressure on the province’s social services network, with homeless shelters in Montreal bearing the brunt.

France Labelle, with a youth homeless shelter in downtown Montreal, says a rising number of requests for beds is coming from asylum seekers, who she says compose about 10 per cent of her clientele.

Sam Watts, head of homeless shelters with the Welcome Hall Mission, says that homelessness in the asylum seeker population in Montreal is a relatively new phenomenon.

The federal government says that between January and November 2022, 45,250 asylum seekers arrived in Quebec, compared to 7,290 people for all of 2021.

Quebec Premier François Legault said last month that the province needed help from Ottawa to house, educate and integrate the rising number of asylum seekers in the province.

Labelle says shelters and other parts of Montreal’s social services network need appropriate resources to accommodate the increasing demand from would-be refugees.

Source: Quebec’s social services under pressure by influx of asylum seekers

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Survey: Religiously, Congress doesn’t reflect America

2023/01/05 Leave a comment

Of interest. Haven’t seen a comparable analysis of Canadian MPs but in general Canadian MPs are relatively more diverse than their American counterparts:

Religiously speaking, the incoming 118th Congress looks like America — that is, the America of decades past, rather than today.

Congress is far more Christian, and religious overall, than today’s general population.

Even though nearly three in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation — a rate that has steadily risen in recent years — only two of the 534 incoming members of Congress will admit to as much.

Those are among the conclusions of an analysis by Pew Research Center of the 118th Congress, which was expected to start this week pending a House leadership vote.

The Congress “remains largely untouched by two trends that have long marked religious life in the United States: a decades-long decline in the share of Americans who identify as Christian, and a corresponding increase in the percentage who say they have no religious affiliation,” said the Pew report, released Tuesday. It was based on a CQ Roll Call survey of members of Congress.

Nearly 88% of members of Congress identify as Christian, compared with only 63% of U.S. adults overall. That includes 57% of congresspersons who identify as Protestant and 28% as Catholic, both higher than national rates. Also, 6% of members of Congress identify as Jewish, compared with 2% of the overall population.

While 29% Americans claim no religious affiliation, they’d have to squint to see themselves reflected in Congress. The only overtly non-religious members are U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., who identifies as humanist, and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, independent of Arizona, who says she’s religiously unaffiliated.

Pew listed 20 other members of Congress as having unknown religious affiliations, either because they declined to answer CQ Roll Call’s query or because the answers are otherwise muddled (such as in the case of New York Republican George Santos, along with much else in his background).

Historically, lacking a religious identity was seen as a political liability.

Only 60% of Americans told a Gallup survey in 2019 that they’d be willing to vote for an atheist — fewer than would vote for gays or lesbians or various religious or ethnic groups.

But Huffman said he experienced no political blowback.

“If anything, there’s a political upside,” he said. “People appreciate the fact that I’m just being honest.”

He said many colleagues in Congress find religion to be politically useful, “particularly across the aisle, how so many of them exploit and weaponize religion but seem to be totally divorced from any authentic connection to the religion they’re weaponizing.”

The ranks of Christians in Congress has dipped only slightly over the decades, though it’s a different story with the general population. Since 2007, Christians have gone from 78% to 63% of the population, while the non-affiliated rose from 16% to 29%, according to Pew. The trend line is even more dramatic when looking back to 1990, when nearly nine in 10 Americans identified as Christian, while less than one in 10 identified as non-religious, according to researchers at Trinity College in Connecticut.

In some ways, the two political parties conform to perception.

The Republican congressional delegation is a staggering 99% Christian, with the rest Jewish or unknown. Republicans — who have long embraced Christian expressions in their political functions and where an aggressive form of Christian nationalism has become more mainstream — include 69% Protestants, 25% Catholics and 5% other Christians (such as Mormon and Orthodox).

Democrats have more religious diversity, at about 76% Christian (including 44% Protestant, 31% Catholic and 1.5% Orthodox) and 12% Jewish. They have about 1% each of Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Unitarian Universalist representation.

But Democrats’ paucity of openly non-affiliated members contrasts starkly with a constituency to which it owes much.

Religiously unaffiliated voters opted overwhelmingly for Democrats candidates in the 2022 midterms. They voted for Democrats over Republicans by more than a 2 to 1 margin in House races, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide. And in some bellwether races, the unaffiliated went as high as 4 to 1 for Democrats.

“The fact that the (Democratic) leadership doesn’t reflect an open, secular identity is paradoxical, but I think it’s the nature of realpolitik,” said Phil Zuckerman, professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He said Democrats know that non-religious voters align with them on the issues, but party leaders also don’t want to alienate other, more religious parts of the party’s base, particularly Black Protestants.

Party leaders “speak to the politics of secular people but don’t want to take on the identity,” he said.

Zuckerman added that conservative Christians face the “branding problem” similar to what atheists once faced. Many voters, he said, have reacted against Christian nationalism, and young voters in particular are alienated by conservative Christian stances against LGBTQ people, while many voters of all ages have reacted against Christian nationalism.

He cited a prominent incident in 2020 when authorities forcibly cleared Black Lives Matter protesters in Lafayette Park in Washington, after which President Donald Trump walked to a nearby church and held up a Bible.

“When Trump held up that Bible in front of that church in D.C., he did more damage to the Christian brand than Hitchens and Dawkins and Harris combined,” Zuckerman said, referring to popular atheist authors.

In 2018, Huffman helped found the Congressional Freethought Caucus. It had a roster of about 15 members in the previous Congress.

“It’s people of different religious perspectives, but what brings us together is a common belief that there should be a bright line of separation between church and state and that we should make public policy based on facts and reason and science, and not religion,” he said.

He predicted that in time, more members of Congress would identify with secular values.

“It’s going to be a trailing reflection of this change that has been happening for a couple of decades now,” he said. ”It takes a while for politicians to figure out that it’s OK to do things like this.”

The Pew report analyzed one short of Congress’ capacity of 535 because one member, Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., died in November after being re-elected

Source: Survey: Religiously, Congress doesn’t reflect America

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Grubel: Canadians are right to worry about immigration levels 

2023/01/05 Leave a comment

While I disagree with Grubel on many of his points and overall approach, he is right on the negative impacts and externalities of current and projected high levels of immigration.

His proposed solution, essentially only admitting economic class immigrants with a job offer is completely unrealistic (what government would stop family reunification, given the impact in ridings with large numbers of immigrants, or completely stop refugees, which is practically and legally impossible). While sidestepping the numbers questions, a column a few years back referenced 50,000 if I recall correctly.

And Leger is only one poll and its question phrasing, as it often is, was designed to elicit this response:

Canadians are increasingly worried about immigration. A recent Leger Poll found that 49 per cent of us think the federal government’s new target of 500,000 immigrants a year is too many, while fully 75 per cent are concerned the plan will result in excessive demand for housing and social services. For his part, the immigration minister, Sean Fraser, tells us we need not worry: immigrants themselves will provide the labour needed to build the housing stock they’ll need.

The majority of Canadians have always welcomed immigrants and believe they benefit the economy and themselves. What worries them today is the prospect of mass immigration that they believe the housing market cannot absorb without much higher prices. They know the minister’s soothing reassurance is not supported by experience. Past immigration did increase the labour force but did not prevent high housing costs. Excessive regulations and rent control are the main reasons housing is so expensive, not a shortage of labour.

Immigrants not only add to the demand for housing, they also increase congestion for a wide range of public services: doctors, hospitals, schools, universities, parks, retirement homes, and roads and bridges, as well as the utilities that supply water, electricity and sewers. In theory, the supply of all these things could be expanded reasonably rapidly. In practice, expansion is slow. But the main reasons for that are, not a shortage of labour, but inadequate planning, insufficient financial resources and, as a result, construction that lags demand.

The case for keeping annual immigration at traditional or even somewhat lower levels rests on more than the effect on house prices and public services, however. Immigration also depresses the wages of low-income workers, which results in greater income-equalizing transfers and the higher taxes required to pay for them. It also reduces employers’ incentives to adopt labour-saving technology, an important source of growth in labour productivity and wages, and it allows employers to avoid the cost of operating apprenticeship programs to train skilled workers.

Japan’s widespread success in using robots to deal with labour shortages caused by its aging population illustrates what could be done in Canada. In Germany employers operate apprenticeship programs to train skilled workers in the numbers industry needs. In this country, such programs could relieve the shortage of skilled labour while benefiting people already here, rather than new immigrants brought in specially to take highly paid skilled jobs currently going asking.

Despite the Leger numbers suggesting many Canadians have concerns about big increases in the rate of immigration, the debate about it tends to be one-sided. We hear from the many groups that benefit from mass immigration: employers, immigration lawyers and consultants, real estate developers, political parties that traditionally do well in immigrant communities, idealists who want us to “imagine there’s no countries” and so on.

On the other side, the Leger numbers suggest, is a majority that is not at all opposed to immigration in principle but begins to inform itself on the subject and maybe even become politically active only when the costs become so large they can’t be ignored any longer.

In Switzerland during the 1970s an economic boom led to labour shortages and immigration was liberalized. It turned out that the need to produce housing infrastructure and public services for these immigrants actually worsened the labour shortage. The silent majority of Swiss citizens organized and took advantage of the opportunity to get government policy changed by demanding a public referendum that ultimately ended the liberal immigration policy.

In Canada, changes in policies come through Parliament and the election of politicians. Numbers like those in the Leger poll may begin to suggest to politicians that they can increase their election chances by catering to the majority who would prefer somewhat reduced immigration but also a fundamental reform of the system currently used to determine the number and characteristics of immigrants.

Such a reform would put greater emphasis on market forces rather than politicians and bureaucrats in setting immigration levels. Immigrants would be admitted only if they possessed a formal offer of employment in Canada that paid at least the average earned by workers in the region where they would be employed.

Under this system, employers’ self-interest would ensure that workers would have the skills and personal characteristics required for success on the job. The requirement for minimum pay would prevent floods of immigrants competing with Canada’s low-wage workers and ensure that those who did come had the income needed for a life free from the need for public subsidies.

Worrying about immigration is not enough. Only the election of politicians committed to this kind of reform will restore mental peace.

Herbert Grubel, himself an immigrant to Canada, is an emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

Source: Opinion: Canadians are right to worry about immigration levels 

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Dutrisac: La prison pour asile

2023/01/05 Leave a comment

Interesting example of turning an opinion column on migrant detention centres into reinforcing Dutrisac’s legitimate concern over the declining weight of Quebec given its lower immigration levels, with a barb thrown in regarding McKinsey and Dominic Barton:

C’est en janvier 2017 que Justin Trudeau a lancé son tweet où il invitait « ceux qui fuient la persécution, la terreur, la guerre » à débarquer au Canada — « sachez que le Canada vous accueillera », écrivait-il. Six ans plus tard, le gouvernement fédéral a inauguré un nouveau centre de détention pour incarcérer certains demandeurs d’asile. On peut penser qu’à l’époque, un tel développement n’avait pas effleuré l’esprit du premier ministre canadien.

Dans ce tweet innocent, Justin Trudeau fait preuve d’une bonne dose d’inconscience, si ce n’est d’hypocrisie, car le Canada, aussi vaste et généreux le croit-on, ne peut raisonnablement accueillir les dizaines de millions de personnes qui sont forcées tous les ans de quitter leur pays.

Comme nous l’apprenait Le Devoir dans son édition de samedi, Ottawa a inauguré en octobre à Laval un centre de détention pour les demandeurs d’asile et les immigrants temporaires, ce qu’on appelle par euphémisme un « centre de surveillance ». Construit au coût de 50 millions, le nouveau centre remplace d’anciennes installations jugées vétustes. L’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada (ASFC), de laquelle relève le centre, en a profité pour augmenter le nombre de places pour le porter à 153, contre 109 pour l’ancien bâtiment. Seulement 66 « détenus » s’y trouvaient à la fin décembre, tandis que les centres correctionnels administrés par Québec en accueillaient une quinzaine. Les pensionnaires de cette prison fédérale « dorée », mais prison quand même puisqu’ils ne peuvent en sortir à moins d’être libérés, ont la particularité de n’avoir commis aucun crime qui justifierait leur détention. Des papiers qui ne sont pas en règle, des doutes sur l’identité du ressortissant étranger ou des risques de fuite sont évoqués par l’agence pour justifier cette mesure de « dernier recours ». Comme dans les vraies prisons, les détenus n’ont pas droit à leur cellulaire, ni accès à Internet ; on peut se demander pourquoi.

Les organismes de défense des libertés civiles comme Amnistie internationale dénoncent l’incarcération de ces migrants qui n’ont commis aucun crime. Contrairement au Québec et à l’Ontario, la Colombie-Britannique a mis fin à l’entente avec l’ASFC visant la détention de migrants dans des prisons provinciales. L’Alberta et la Nouvelle-Écosse ont annoncé qu’elles en feraient autant. Depuis 2015, il y aurait eu 8000 de ces détenus au Canada — la période de détention moyenne est de 22 jours —, dont 2000 dans des prisons provinciales et le reste dans les trois centres de détention de l’ASFC.

C’est relativement peu considérant les millions de ressortissants étrangers qui sont entrés au pays depuis huit ans. Au Québec, par exemple, les quelque 80 migrants détenus actuellement se comparent aux 36 000 demandeurs d’asile qui seraient entrés par le chemin Roxham dans la seule année de 2022, ce qui s’ajoute aux dizaines de milliers de demandeurs, déjà présents sur le territoire québécois, qui sont toujours en attente d’une décision d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC). Ou encore aux 150 000 demandeurs d’asile qui, selon Le Journal de Montréal, sont arrivés au Québec depuis cinq ans, soit 52 % du total canadien.

Or, que ce soit pour obtenir un permis de travail des autorités fédérales ou pour obtenir une réponse définitive sur le statut de réfugiés, les délais ne font que s’allonger. Pour les demandeurs d’asile qui passent par le chemin Roxham, ces délais peuvent s’étendre sur plusieurs années. Ceux dont la demande est rejetée ont le temps de s’établir ici avant de recevoir un avis d’éviction, éviction que nombre d’entre eux tenteront d’éviter en se réfugiant dans la clandestinité. Le système est dysfonctionnel, comme les autres volets de l’immigration. Dans ce contexte, on peut se demander à quoi peut bien servir la détention traumatisante d’une poignée de migrants.

Parmi les ministères fédéraux, c’est l’IRCC qui, depuis 2015, a dépensé le plus pour des conseils en gestion de la firme de consultants américaine McKinsey, a rapporté Radio-Canada. Or l’ironie, c’est que la désorganisation notoire de l’IRCC s’est aggravée en raison de l’accroissement pléthorique des seuils canadiens d’immigration, une recommandation de 2016 d’un comité formé par Ottawa et présidé par Dominic Barton, alors premier dirigeant mondial de McKinsey. Par la suite, le consultant a cofondé The Century Initiative, ou Initiative du siècle, un lobby qui promeut le projet de porter à 100 millions la population du Canada d’ici 2100.

Constater qu’à nos frais, nous participons dans ce pays, au sein duquel le Québec perdra inexorablement son poids démographique et donc politique, à une expérimentation sociale inédite concoctée par McKinsey n’a rien de rassurant.

Source: La prison pour asile

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Immigration to Canada hits record high in 2022

2023/01/05 Leave a comment

Some cheerleading along with critical comments on housing affordability and IRCC service delivery. Numbers more than twice as high given temporary residents (workers and students):

Canada took in a record number of immigrants last year, a result of a federal planto compensate for a lack of new arrivals in the first year of the pandemic, and to make up for the country’s aging population and holes in the work force.

The country added just over 437,000 new permanent residents in 2022, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). This topped the department’s target for the year, as well as the previous high of 405,000, reached in 2021.

Immigration now accounts for three-quarters of Canada’s population growth. The federal government’s immigration plan calls for the admission of 1.45 million more new permanent residents over the next three years, which is equivalent to 3.8 per cent of the country’s population

The majority of the permanent residency spots have been set aside for economic immigrants, a term for newcomers who either have money to invest, or specific desirable skills, or can demonstrate that they are capable of opening businesses.

The federal government has said immigration is crucial for the economy, and that it accounts for as much as 90 per cent of labour force growth in Canada.

But critics of the plan have raised questions about the effects of higher immigration targets on the country’s already-unaffordable urban housing markets. And it is unclear whether Ottawa’s plan will help make up for shortages of labour in low-paid fields such as accommodation, food services, retail and health care assistance.

NDP immigration and housing critic Jenny Kwan said the federal government has missed an opportunity to give temporary foreign workers and undocumented workers permanent resident status. This would give them access to taxpayer-funded health care and allow them to live and work anywhere in Canada, indefinitely. (Temporary foreign workers are typically restricted to one employer and not allowed to switch jobs.)

“The government must stop relying on vulnerable workers and give them the protection of permanent status and ensure their rights are respected,” Ms. Kwan said in an e-mailed statement.

The flood of new permanent residents is expected to bring new homebuyers and renters to communities across the country. That could increase activity in the residential real estate market, which has slowed since early last year, when borrowing costs jumped with a rise in interest rates.

“There is little debate that strong population growth goes hand-in-hand with strong real home price gains over time,” said Douglas Porter, Bank of Montreal’s chief economist.

Mr. Porter analyzed the relationship between population growth and home prices in 18 developed countries. He found that countries with the fastest population growth during the decade leading up to 2020 – such as New Zealand and Canada – had greater home price inflation than those where populations remained stable or decreased.

But, considering the rise in borrowing costs, Mr. Porter said he believes that the influx of permanent residents will not immediately create a new pool of homebuyers. “Just as last year’s large population increase was unable to avert a double-digit drop in home prices, another large increase in 2023 won’t keep home prices from falling heavily again this year,” he said.

The typical home price across the country is down 10 per cent from February, 2022, when the market peaked.

Where Mr. Porter does expect the surge in newcomers to make a difference is in the rental market, where borrowing costs are less of a factor. Rents have already risen sharply over the past year, and he expects increased competition will push prices higher still.

The largest share of immigrants usually end up in major cities in Ontario, followed by cities in British Columbia, Quebec and Alberta. Last year was no different. Just over a quarter of new permanent residents intended to settle in the Toronto region, according to the most recent data from IRCC, which cover January, 2022, through October.

The government has said its immigration plan includes placing new permanent residents in small towns and rural communities.

In past years, people from southern and eastern Asia accounted for the largest share of immigrants to Canada. According to the IRCC data, this continued to be the case during the first 10 months of last year. During that period, nearly 110,000 new permanent residents were from India, nearly 30,000 were from China and about 20,000 were from the Philippines.

Canada also admitted nearly 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan in the first 10 months of last year, up from 8,570 in 2021. Ottawa has promised to bring at least 40,000 Afghans to Canada, under a pair of resettlement programs introduced around the time of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, 2021.

IRCC could have difficulty handling the large numbers of new permanent residency applicants. It has been dealing with a backlog of applications since 2021, when Ottawa bumped up its immigration targets.

Source: Immigration to Canada hits record high in 2022

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Order of Canada 2013-22 Diversity Analysis

2023/01/04 Leave a comment

For the last ten years, I have been tracking the diversity of Order of Canada appointments, from the perspective of gender, visible minorities and Indigenous peoples, along with regional and occupational backgrounds.

In many ways, these appointments are emblematic of other recognition and award programs in that they generally reflect the views and perspectives of those nominating and, in the case of the Order, a medium and longer-term track record and contribution in contrast to awards programs focussed on new talent.

In many ways, this results in an understandable backward looking perspective. Moreover, unlike employment equity programs where managers are empowered to factor diversity in hiring and promotion decisions, awards programs have less latitude to do so as they have to make their assessments based upon the nominations received.

The Governor General’s Office has over the years made several attempts to encourage more diverse nominations, including funding under the Conservative Government in 2015 to encourage more nominations for more business and regional nominees. The data suggests that these efforts had limited effect in the longer term.

The most striking findings of this analysis are that women appointees average around one third of the total, ranging from a low of 29 percent (2019, 2022) to a high of 46 percent in 2015 and visible minority appointees have increased from a low of 4 percent in 2014 to an exceptional high of 13 percent in 2021 before reverting to a more typical 7 percent. The two groups that are over-represented in comparison of their share of the population are men and, more recently, Indigenous peoples in 2021 and 2022 at eight percent.

Of note, while visible minority appointments are 71 percent men, Indigenous peoples appointments are equally balanced between men and women.

Occupation data ranges from categories that are clear such as arts, health and sports, and those that have less clear “boundaries” such as business and philanthropy and I have tried to be as consistent as possible.

Advisory council correction.

For those interested in the nomination process and the review committee the links are: Nominate someone, Advisory Council. The Advisory Council has gender balance, 20 percent visible minorities and 10 percent Indigenous. In terms of the Office of the Governor General (the public servants) which review nominations for the Advisory Council, 14.9 percent are visible minorities with the number of Indigenous public servants is 5 or less (out of a total of 141).

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USA: The Outlook On H-1B Visas And Immigration In 2023

2023/01/04 Leave a comment

Good overview and we will see the degree to which change will happen given political polarization and deadlock:

For the seventh consecutive year, we should not expect Donald Trump to visit the Statue of Liberty and celebrate America’s tradition as a nation of immigrants. But what will Joe Biden, his administration and the Republican majority in the House do on H-1B visas and immigration in 2023? 

…

H-1B Visas, Immigration Fees and Employment-Based Green Cards

Higher fees and significant business immigration regulations are on the Biden administration’s agenda in 2023. “After the fee rule, DHS will prioritize proposed regulations on adjustment of status procedures and H-1B ‘modernization,’” according to Berry Appleman & Leiden. “A proposed wage regulation remains on the Department of Labor’s regulatory agenda, but the agency has not yet submitted a proposed rule for review and the timing is not yet clear.”

In computer-related occupations, the median salary for H-1B visa holders was $111,000 in FY 2021. The average salary for H-1B professionals in computer-related occupations in FY 2021 was $118,000, according to USCIS. A company may spend up to $31,000 to file an initial H-1B petition (for three years) and an extension for an additional three years, based on an NFAP analysis of government fees and attorney costs.

The summary of the adjustment of status regulation, which does not list a publication timetable, reads: “DHS proposes to amend its regulations in order to improve the efficiency in the processing of the Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (Form I-485), reduce processing times, improve the quality of inventory data provided to partner agencies, reduce the potential for visa retrogression, and promote the efficient use of immediately available immigrant visas to include the expansion of concurrent filing to the employment-based 4th preference (certain special immigrants) category, including religious workers.”

The summary of the H-1B modernization regulation reads: “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is proposing to amend its regulations governing H-1B specialty occupation workers and F-1 students who are the beneficiaries of timely filed H-1B cap-subject petitions. Specifically, DHS proposes to revise the regulations relating to ‘employer-employee relationship’ and provide flexibility for start-up entrepreneurs; implement new requirements and guidelines for site visits including in connection with petitions filed by H-1B dependent employers whose basic business information cannot be validated through commercially available data; provide flexibility on the employment start date listed on the petition (in limited circumstances); address ‘cap-gap’ issues; bolster the H-1B registration process to reduce the possibility of misuse and fraud in the H-1B registration system; and clarify the requirement that an amended or new petition be filed where there are material changes, including by streamlining notification requirements relating to certain worksite changes, among other provisions.”

A National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) report concluded, “In formulating a new H-1B regulation, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) should avoid the Trump administration’s approach of narrowing what qualifies as a specialty occupation” and the agency should not redefine what constitutes an employer-employee relationship. 

“Congress designated the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), not USCIS, to investigate and oversee the labor market protections for the H-1B visa category. By attempting to take on the duties of another agency, USCIS has engaged in questionable policy pursuits and expended vital resources,” according to former USCIS Director Leon Rodriguez, former USCIS Chief Counsel Lynden Melmed, and former Associate Counsel for the USCIS Vermont Service Center Steve Plastrik. The three wrote that USCIS does not need to enact new H-1B restrictions via memos or regulations since Congress has already imposed significant restrictions, including wage requirements and a low numerical limit.

The H-1B numerical limit is so low that in April 2022, the annual limit of, in effect, 85,000 new H-1B petitions for employers—about 0.05% of the U.S. labor force—led to USCIS rejecting about 400,000 (80% of) applicants. Even with layoffs at high-profile technology firms, one should expect H-1B registrations to exceed the 85,000-limit for FY 2024. The significant demand for technical labor across sectors of the U.S. economy should outstrip the annual limit. (“Most laid off tech workers are finding jobs shortly after beginning their search,” according to a survey cited by the Wall Street Journal.)

Employer fees will likely increase significantly under a new USCIS proposal. That will not be welcomed by those paying the fees. On the other hand, employers and individuals would like to see USCIS have sufficient resources to do its job. In December 2022, USCIS stated in a report that it reduced its backlog of cases but that more funding from Congress is needed. Berry Appleman & Leiden notes USCIS “cites the new fee rule as part of its plans to prevent the accumulation of new backlogs.”

Although the State Department has made progress, employers expect delays in obtaining visas to continue in some places, such as India. Visitor visas will likely remain particularly problematic.

DACA: Good News Not Expected

“The worst case, which unfortunately is a very realistic possibility, is that the courts will invalidate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program,” said Andrew Pincus, an attorney with Mayer Brown, in a September 2022 interview. “That means that more than 600,000 people will lose the ability to work, to drive a car, to participate in society, and also that they will face the possibility of being deported to countries they have never known because they came here as children.” A DACA case is currently at the Fifth Circuit.

Passing legislation to protect DACA recipients in a Republican-controlled House will be challenging. “[Rep. Kevin] McCarthy is taking a very hard line on immigration policy,” reported Punchbowl News. “The California Republican is opposed to trading a pathway to citizenship or DACA for increased border security. This is the traditional trade both parties have envisioned for years.” Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) failed to gain enough Republican support for a compromise proposal on Dreamers at the end of 2022. 

Refugees

The Biden administration resettled fewer than 26,000 refugees in FY 2022, nearly 100,000 below the 125,000-refugee ceiling it established. The refugee ceiling is the same for FY 2023, but to meet that level, “President Biden must make the resettlement program a priority, investing resources and political will in creative solutions to expedite processing,” according to the National Immigration Forum’s Danilo Zak.

Americans have stepped forward and offered their time as volunteers and money as sponsors to help those fleeing war and persecution in Afghanistan, Ukraine and elsewhere. The Biden administration has implemented the successful Uniting for Ukraine initiative that has allowed over 90,000 Ukrainians to be paroled into the United States with the help of U.S. financial sponsors, according to Michelle Hackman at the Wall Street Journal, with another 34,000 approved for travel. A more limited program was established for Venezuelans. 

The Border

The Biden administration has not made the case that America is dealing with a historic refugee crisis in the Western Hemisphere to counteract the narrative that the United States has simply failed to enact sufficiently harsh immigration policies. Border Patrol encounters in FY 2021 and FY 2022 were the highest on record but not wholly comparable to previous fiscal years that only counted apprehensions and did not have Title 42 restrictions in place.

Still, individuals and families from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and others have come to the United States in large numbers seeking asylum or employment. To the extent the Biden administration can funnel people into lawful paths to apply for work or asylum, Border Patrol encounters will diminish. More creative solutions may be needed to address the situation, including expanding the avenues to work and supplying refugee circuit rides in the region.

Supreme Court Cases

Judges will have a say on U.S. immigration policy in 2023. In 2022, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States v. Texas, a lawsuit by Texas and Louisiana that argues the Biden administration’s enforcement guidelines, as outlined in a memo, are unlawful. George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin expects the Biden administration to prevail. “But it’s not entirely clear whether it will do so on standing or on the merits,” according to Somin.

The Supreme Court will also decide the fate of Title 42 and a lawsuit by several Republican-led states. “In its order, the court . . . agreed to take up the states’ appeal this term,” reported CNN. “The court said it would hear arguments on the case during its argument session that begins in February 2023.”

Two Years to Enact Positive Immigration Reforms

The Biden administration can use the next two years to enact reforms to improve the U.S. economy and the immigration system. One such reform, recommended by University of North Florida economist Madeline Zavodny in an NFAP study, would allow all spouses of H-1B visa holders to work, not only those whose H-1B spouse is in the queue or in the process for permanent residence. “The United States can reap significant economic benefits, ease labor shortages, and attract more workers in the global competition for talent if it expanded current rules on work eligibility for the spouses of H-1B visa holders,” writes Zavodny.

The Trump administration failed to lock in many of its anti-immigration policies via regulation. The Biden administration has two years to publish regulations or enact new policies that would benefit immigrants, international students and the competitiveness of the U.S. economy.

Source: The Outlook On H-1B Visas And Immigration In 2023

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Argitis: Canada’s population advantage offset by weak productivity

2023/01/04 Leave a comment

Good comments on the productivity conundrum and how the current focus in increased immigration is not addressing productivity and in fact is weakening productivity. But Argitis only states the issue and offers no approaches or solutions to address the issue:

Canada’s population grew by a whopping 362,453 people in three months through Oct. 1, a quarterly gain of 0.9 per cent. That’s the fastest quarterly increase since 1957. Canada’s population is up 2.3 per cent from a year ago—double the historic annual average over the past half century.

Almost all the growth came from non-Canadians moving here, illustrating how there is no greater competitive advantage we have as a country than open immigration policies free of the hang-ups and complexities that hamper population growth elsewhere.

The latest data shows the country hit a minor milestone sometime over the summer, surpassing the 39 million mark.

Since the start of the pandemic, our population has grown by one million people.

At the current pace, Canada will hit the much bigger milestone of 40 million people no later than 2025, which would represent an increase of about 10 million people in the first quarter of the current century. That would be almost a one-third increase in population, which blows past most of Canada’s peers.

Canada’s fast population growth, however, is masking deeper economic problems around productivity and underlying competitiveness.

The same quarterly population numbers released last month to measure per-capita output reveal a disturbing trend. When factoring out population, our economy has been completely stagnant over the past four years. There’s no growth outside of immigration.

For example, while real GDP increased 0.7 per cent in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.2 per cent on a per capita basis. In fact, there’s been no increase in per-capita output since 2018.

I can think of no bigger threat to the consensus around immigration than Canada’s inability to increase productivity and improve living standards of people already living here. …

Theo Argitis is the managing director of Compass Rose, a public affairs firm in Ottawa.

Source: Canada’s population advantage offset by weak productivity

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Mohamed: The Line’s Naughty List: The demographic crisis isn’t going away

2023/01/04 Leave a comment

Another article on the limits of immigration to address weak economic growth although ignoring the productivity issue. But just like increasing immigration is unlikely to significantly counter demographic trends of an aging population, a focus on increasing fertility is, given experience in other jurisdictions, unlikely to move the needle significantly.

Governments and policy makers need to consider alternative scenarios of how to manage an aging population rather than just focussing on semi-effective measures to slow down the trend:

The nearly concluded year of 2022 may well be remembered as the year generational politics finally arrived in Canada, even if nobody wants to talk about the root of our demographic dilemma. 

Saddled for over a decade with stagnating wages, escalating day-to-day living costs, and one of the world’s least-affordable housing markets, Canadians under the age of 40 finally said “enough” in 2022; making generational inequality, for the first time, a major nationwide political issue. 

Some of Canada’s pissed off young adults have found their messiah in 43-year-old Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre, a rather cantankerous fellow himself. Poilievre has masterfully used Canada’s housing affordability crisis to tap into a groundswell of support among younger Canadians — recent polling show Poilievre’s Conservative party holding a double-digit leadamong voters between the ages of 18 and 34.

But even if their voices are finally being heard, young Canadians have precious little to look forward to as they start their working lives in earnest. The OECD projects that Canada’s economic growth will be dead last among advanced countries over the next decade. This means that young Canadians entering the workforce in the 2020s can expect the same grim job prospects, stagnant real incomes, and diminished purchasing power as their older cohorts who graduated into the Great Recession (insert James Franco “First time?” meme here). 

Barring a miraculous change of course, Millennial and Gen-Z Canadians will not only be worse off than their parents but will also see their standards of living deteriorate relative to people the same age in other countries. 

Yet for all his bluster and this real opportunity for a political breakthrough, Mr. Poilievre has offered no genuine solutions to this generational slide. 

So what can be done to reverse Canada’s great inter-generational stagnation? For one thing, we can attack the demographic underpinnings of our dismal growth projections.

The biggest challenge will be to mitigate the effect of our aging population on our labour markets. A record 307,000 Canadians retired last year and a further one-in-five workers are nearing retirement age. Retirements are pushing job vacancies to record levels and leaving behind a shrinking workforce to pick up the slack. By 2027, there will be just three working-agedCanadians for each senior citizen.

Policymakers in Ottawa are acutely aware of this problem and are banking on an already overburdened immigration system to provide an easy fix to our labour market woes. Last month, the Trudeau government unveiled an ambitious plan to bring in 500,000 immigrants per year by 2025 (an increase of nearly two-thirds from average annual admissions between 2015 and 2019). Since this announcement, even progressive outlets have voiced concerns about our capacity to absorb such a sharp influx of new Canadians.

As Andrew Potter recently wrote in The Line, the new immigration target places Canada’s fragile pro-immigration consensus at risk. New Canadians may well bear the brunt of intensifying populist anger if they’re seen as contributing to the country’s health-care and housing-affordability crises. (Chinese immigrants, for example, have already incurred a racial backlash for their alleged role in driving up housing prices in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland.)

But even under ideal conditions, immigration would not be a silver-bullet solution to the labour-market challenges created by an aging native-born population. The average Canadian immigrant arrives in their late 20s and may need years to become licensed to work in their chosen occupation. Further, working immigrants often bring both non-working spouses and elderly relatives with them. These are just a few of the frictions that make the economic benefit of large-scale immigration subject to the law of diminishing returns. 

We also need to weigh the potential economic gains of increased immigration against the challenge some new immigrant communities may pose to our political climate by “importing” combustible ethno-cultural grievances. As I wrote in The Line earlier this year, diaspora politics is becoming increasingly visible in Canada and played a central role in Patrick Brown’s Conservative party leadership campaign.

Large-scale immigration has been a massive economic and cultural boon to Canada over the past half-century but it’s becoming increasingly evident that we’re fast approaching an inflection point. Future increases to immigration are likely to generate diminishing economic returns and escalating political costs. 

This leaves us with a rather simple equation. To reverse our forecasted economic slide, we must increase the supply of young Canadians relative to the number of older ones. To do this, we must find ways to encourage reproductive-aged Canadians to have more children. The arithmetic could not be more straightforward.

Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what’s happening. As I wrote back in August, Canada’s birth rate, which has long been the lowest in the Anglosphere, hit a record-low of 1.4 births-per-woman (bpw) during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020. While it bounced back slightly last year, it still falls well below the OECD average of 1.7 bpw. 

A quick glance at the average price of a single-family home or daycare space in any major Canadian city should explain why cash-strapped millennials aren’t rushing to bring more children into the world. Indeed, beyond tackling our broader affordability crisis, all orders of government could be doing more to make starting families more affordable for young Canadians — Canada’s level of public spending on family benefits falls well below the average among OECD countries. 

The Trudeau government’s recently concluded bilateral agreements mark the third attempt at Canada-wide child care. Yet fewer than nine months after the last deal was inked, political will already appears to be faltering.

Part of the problem is that the bilateral agreements were pitched as a mechanism to guide Canada out of the “she-cession” created during the first year of the pandemic. This rationale rings hollow now that women’s labour force participation has bounced back to (and exceeded) pre-pandemic levels. 

Tying new family policies to Canada’s longstanding fertility crisis and, by extension, our future economic vitality, could give these initiatives more staying power.

One thing’s clear: the “f-word” (fertility) can no longer be a forbidden term in Canada’s political lexicon. Until we get serious about that, our demographic and political challenges will only get worse. 

Rahim Mohamed is a master’s student at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. His writing has appeared in The Hub, the National Post, and CBC News Calgary.

Source: The Line’s Naughty List: The demographic crisis isn’t going away 

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