Additional polling on souring of public mood on current high levels, related commentary on links to housing availability and affordability among other issues:
‘There’s going to be friction’: Two-thirds of Canadians say immigration target is too high, poll says
Worrisome trend but understandable:
Two-thirds of Canadians say this country’s immigration target is too high, suggests a new poll that points to how opinions on the issue are taking shape along political lines — a shift that could turn immigration into a wedge issue in the next federal election.
A poll by Abacus Data has found the percentage of people who say they oppose the country’s current immigration level has increased six points since July, with 67 per cent of Canadians now saying that taking in 500,000 permanent residents a year is too much.
“The public opinion has shifted in Canada to a point where if a political leader wanted to make this an issue, they could,” said Abacus chair and CEO David Coletto.
“We’re headed into a period where there’s going to be friction.”
Source: ‘There’s going to be friction’: Two-thirds of Canadians say immigration target is too high, poll says
Affordability crisis putting Canadian dream at risk: poll
Yet another poll, focussed on immigrants:
The Leger-OMNI poll, one of the largest polling samples of immigrants in recent years, surveyed 1,522 immigrants across Canada between Oct. 18 and 25. It is one of the few polls specifically surveying immigrants.
The research finds the cost-of-living crisis is hitting immigrants hard. Eighty-three per cent polled feel affordability has made settling more difficult. While financial or career opportunities were the motivating factor for 55 per cent of immigrants’ journey to Canada, just under half surveyed think there are enough jobs to support those coming in.
A quarter (24 per cent) feel their experience in Canada has fallen short of expectations.
Source: Affordability crisis putting Canadian dream at risk: poll
Kalil: We simply don’t have enough money to solve Canada’s housing crisis
Reality:
Housing does not magically appear when there is demand for it. It takes time, infrastructure needs to be built to support it, the construction industry needs to have the capacity to deliver it, and our housing economy needs to hold enough money to fund it – which it does not.
Source: We simply don’t have enough money to solve Canada’s housing crisis
Burney: Trudeau, please take a walk in the snow
Burney on immigration and his take on the public service:
A rapid increase in immigration numbers was touted until it was seen simply as a numbers game, lacking analyses of social consequences, notably inadequate housing, and unwelcome pressures on our crumbling health system. Meritocracy is not really part of the equation, so we are not attracting people with needed skills. Instead, we risk intensifying ethnic, religious and cultural enclaves in Canada that will contribute more division than unity to the country.
The policy on immigration needs a complete rethink. But do not expect constructive reform to come from the public service, 40 per cent larger now than it was in 2015 and generously paid, many of whom only show up for office work one or two days per week. Suggestions that they are more productive or creative at home are absurd.
Source: Trudeau, please take a walk in the snow
Keller: The Trudeau government has a cure for your housing depression
Here’s what Stéfane Marion, chief economist with National Bank, wrote on Tuesday. It’s worth quoting at length.
“Canada’s record housing supply imbalance, caused by an unprecedented increase in the working-age population (874,000 people over the past twelve months), means that there is currently only one housing start for every 4.2 people entering the working-age population … Under these circumstances, people have no choice but to bid up the price of a dwindling inventory of rental units. The current divergence between rental inflation (8.2 per cent) and CPI inflation (3.1 per cent) is the highest in over 60 years … There is no precedent for the peak in rental inflation to exceed the peak in headline inflation. Unless Ottawa revises its immigration quotas downward, we don’t expect much relief for the 37 per cent of Canadian households that rent.”
What are the odds of the Trudeau government taking that advice?
Source: The Trudeau government has a cure for your housing depression
Conference Board: Don’t blame immigration for inflation and high interest rates – Financial Post
Weak argumentation and overall discounting of the externalities and wishful thinking for the long-term:
Of course, immigration has also added to demand. Strong hiring supported income growth, and immigrants coming to Canada need places to live and spend money on all the necessities of life. This adds to demand pressures and is especially concerning for rental housing affordability. Such strength in underlying demographic demand is inflationary when there is so little slack in the economy. Taking in so many in such a short period of time has stretched our ability to provide settlement services, affordable housing and other necessities. But there is also no doubt that the surge in migrants has alleviated massive labour market pressure and is thus deflationary. Without immigration, Canada’s labour force would be in decline, especially over the next five years as Canada’s baby boomers retire in growing numbers. Steady immigration adds to our productive capacity, our GDP and our tax take — enough to offset public-sector costs and modestly improve government finances.
One thing is certain, if immigration is aligned with our capacity to welcome those who are arriving, it will continue to drive economic growth and enrich our society through diversity, as it has through most of our history.
Mike Burt is vice president of The Conference Board of Canada and Pedro Antunes is the organization’s chief economist.
Source: Opinion: Don’t blame immigration for inflation and high interest rates – Financial Post
More international students are seeking asylum in Canada, numbers reveal
Another signal that our selection criteria and vetting have gaps:
The number of international students who seek asylum in Canada has more than doubled in the past five years, according to government data obtained under an access-to-information request.
The number of refugee claims made by study permit holders has gone up about 2.7 times to 4,880 cases last year from 1,835 in 2018, as the international student population also surged by approximately 1.4 times to 807,750 from 567,065 in the same period.
Over the five years, a total of 15,935 international students filed refugee claims in the country.
While less than one per cent of international students ended up seeking protection in Canada, the annual rate of study permit holders seeking asylum doubled from 0.3 per cent to 0.6 per cent between 2018 and 2022.
Source: More international students are seeking asylum in Canada, numbers revea
‘It’s unfair’: Haitians in Quebec upset province has opted out of federal family reunification program
Well, Quebec has the right to opt-out and face any resulting political pressure:
The federal program, announced in October by Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller, will open the door to 11,000 people from Colombia, Haiti and Venezuela who have immediate family members living in Canada either as citizens or permanent residents.
But when it launched on Nov. 17, it made clear that only those who “reside in Canada, outside the province of Quebec,” would be eligible to sponsor relatives.
The province of Quebec had opted out of the program.
Source: ‘It’s unfair’: Haitians in Quebec upset province has opted out of federal family reunification program
Douglas Todd: Californians taken aback by vast gap between wages and housing costs in Vancouver
More evidence of the disconnect between housing affordability, income and population:
Last month, scholars at the University of California, Berkeley invited a Canadian expert to offer his analysis of the riddle that is crushing the dreams of an entire generation.
“What really surprised them in California was the sharp decoupling there is in Metro Vancouver between incomes and housing prices,” said Andy Yan, an associate professor of professional practice at Simon Fraser University who also heads its City Program.
It’s relevant that Yan was invited to speak to about 75 urban design specialists in the San Francisco Bay area, since it also has prices in the same range (adjusted to Canadian dollars) as super-expensive Metro Vancouver.
But there is a big difference. Unlike Metro Vancouver, the San Francisco region also has the fourth-highest median household incomes in North America.
Indeed, median wages in the California city come in at the equivalent of about $145,000 Cdn., 61 per cent higher than $90,000 in Vancouver.
In other words, while things are rough for would-be homeowners in the San Francisco area, they are horrible for those squeezed out of the Metro Vancouver market.
Why is that? In his California presentation, Yan talked, quite sensibly, about the three big factors that normally determine housing costs: supply, demand and finance.
Source: Douglas Todd: Californians taken aback by vast gap between wages and housing costs in Vancouver
Glavin: Is there a triumphant Geert Wilders in Canada’s future? Not yet, but …
The risk exists but overstated:
….To object to this state of affairs doesn’t make Canada a racist country, and state-sanctioned rejection of the very idea of mainstream Canadian values, coupled with the catastrophic mismatch between immigration levels and Canada’s capacity to accommodate them all, doesn’t mean there’s some hard-right turn just around the corner with a Geert Wilders figure coming out of nowhere.
But it does mean that Canada is barrelling towards a brick wall, and we should stop and turn around.
Source: Glavin: Is there a triumphant Geert Wilders in Canada’s future? Not yet, but …
Antiquated U.S. Immigration System Ambles into the Digital World
Similar challenges as Canada:
Notorious for its reliance on antiquated paper files and persistent backlogs, the U.S. immigration system has made some under-the-radar tweaks to crawl into the 21st century, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as a catalyst. Increased high-tech and streamlined operations—including allowing more applications to be completed online, holding remote hearings, issuing documents with longer validity periods, and waiving interview requirements—have resulted in faster approvals of temporary and permanent visas, easier access to work permits, and record numbers of cases completed in immigration courts.
While backlogs have stubbornly persisted and even grown, the steps toward modernization at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department have nonetheless led to a better experience for many applicants seeking immigration benefits and helped legal immigration rebound after the drop-off during the COVID-19 pandemic. Swifter processes in the immigration courts have provided faster protection to asylum seekers and others who are eligible for it, while also resulting in issuance of more removal orders to those who are not.
Yet some of these gains may be short-lived. Some short-term policy changes that were implemented during the pandemic have ended and others are about to expire, raising the prospect of longer wait times for countless would-be migrants and loss of employment authorization for tens of thousands of immigrant workers. Millions of temporary visa applications may once again require interviews starting in December, making the process slower and more laborious for would-be visitors. This reversion to prior operations could lead to major disruptions in tourism, harm U.S. companies’ ability to retain workers and immigrants’ ability to support themselves, and create barriers for asylum seekers with limited proficiency in English.
Source: Antiquated U.S. Immigration System Ambles into the Digital World
Thousands of Canada’s permanent residents are afraid to leave the country. Here’s why
Another policy and service delivery fail:
According to an email from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), there are over 70,000 Ahmad Omars out there, waiting on their first PR cards. This situation has left them trapped in a travel limbo, unable to leave the country or make future plans.
“Initially, the estimated waiting time for the PR card was 30 days. However, 30 days later, it extended to 45 days, and then, 45 days after that, it became 61 days. Now, I find myself significantly beyond the expected waiting time,” Omar said.
“It doesn’t feel like I am actually a permanent resident until I get the card.”
Source: Thousands of Canada’s permanent residents are afraid to leave the country. Here’s why
Saunders: How the push for border security created an illegal-immigration surge
Agree, but likelihood low:
If we wanted to reduce legal immigration numbers, as Mr. de Haas argues, we’d need to change the underlying economy: fund universities and colleges so they don’t rely on overseas student fees; incentivize farms to rely on technology rather than cheap labour (at the cost of higher food prices); make domestic housecleaners and child-minders a strictly upper-class thing again; and settle for lower levels of competitiveness and economic growth.
What doesn’t work is the entire false economy of border security – as years of expensive, dangerous experiments show, it actually amplifies the problem it’s meant to solve.
Source: How the push for border security created an illegal-immigration surge
Rise in net migration threatens to undermine Rishi Sunak’s tough talk – The Guardian
Leaving others to clean up the mess:
Of Boris Johnson’s many broken promises, his failure to “take back control” of post-Brexit immigration is the one that Tory MPs believe matters most to their voters.
Johnson has long fled the scene – Rishi Sunak is instead getting the blame from his New Conservative backbenchers who predict they will be punished at the ballot box in the “red wall” of the north and Midlands.
The former prime minister’s battlecry of “getting Brexit done” at the 2019 election went hand-in-hand with a manifesto promise to reduce levels of net migration from what was about 245,000 a year.
A tough “points-based immigration system” was going to be brought in by the then home secretary, Priti Patel, and supposedly allow the UK rather than Brussels to have control of the numbers.
And yet the latest net migration figures of almost 750,000 for 2022 show that far from decreasing, net migration has gone up threefold. Many economists believe this level of migration is necessary and the natural consequence of a country facing staff shortages and high domestic wages.
Source: Rise in net migration threatens to undermine Rishi Sunak’s tough talk – The Guardian
The Provincial Nominee Program: Retention in province of landing
Good analysis of retention rates by province:
“The Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) is designed to contribute to the more equitable distribution of new immigrants across Canada. A related objective is the retention and integration of provincial nominees in the nominating province or territory. This article examines the retention of PNP immigrants at both the national and provincial or territorial levels. The analysis uses data from the Immigrant Landing File and tax records, along with three indicators of retention, to measure the propensity of a province or territory to retain immigrants. Results showed that the retention of PNP immigrants in the province or territory of landing was generally high. Overall, 89% of the provincial nominees who landed in 2019 had stayed in their intended province or territory at the end of the landing year. However, there was large variation by province or territory, ranging from 69% to 97%. Of those nominees located in a province at the end of the landing year, a large proportion (in the mid-80% range) remained in that province five years later. Again, there was significant variation by province, ranging from 39% to 94%. At the national level, both short- and longer-term provincial and territorial retention rates were lower among provincial nominees than among other economic immigrants. However, after adjusting for differences in the province of residence, sociodemographic characteristics and economic conditions, the provincial nominee retention rate was marginally higher than that among federal skilled workers during the first three years in Canada, and there was little difference after five years. Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia had the highest PNP retention rates, and Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick, the lowest. This gap among provinces tended to increase significantly with years since immigration. Accounting for the provincial unemployment rate explained some of the differences in retention rates between the Atlantic provinces and Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. However, even after adjusting for a rich set of control variables, a significant retention rate difference among provinces persisted. Provinces and territories can benefit from the PNP not only through the nominees retained in the province or territory, but also from those migrating from other provinces or territories. Ontario was a magnet for the secondary migration of provincial nominees. After accounting for both outflows and inflows of provincial nominees, Ontario was the only province or territory that had a large net gain from this process, with significant inflows of provincial nominees from other provinces. Overall, long-term retention of provincial nominees tended to be quite high in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, particularly when considering inflows, as well as outflows. Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia tended to have an intermediate level, but still relatively high longer-term retention rates. Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador had the lowest retention.”
Read the full report: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2023011/article/00002-eng.htm
Keller: Why are our schools addicted to foreign student tuition? Because government was the pusher
Unfortunately, a large part of the visa system has been diverted to other purposes. We’re basically selling citizenship on the cheap, with the funds backfilling for provincial governments’ underfunding of higher education.
Source: Why are our schools addicted to foreign student tuition? Because government was the pusher
International students, advocates say Canada should permanently lift 20-hour work cap
Advocates underline point that international students have become a back-door immigration worker stream:
Advocacy group Migrant Workers Alliance for Change has been calling for this change since 2017 and has been fielding increasing calls from concerned students.
The alliance’s organizer, Sarom Rho, said it has been organizing against the 20-hour work limit since international student Jobandeep Singh Sandhu was arrested for working too many hours outside school in 2019.
“This is a question about whether we want to live in a society where everybody has equal rights and protections, or if we’re going to allow a system that sections off a group of people on the basis of their immigration status and denies them the same rights,” she said.
“There are six weeks left until the end of this temporary policy. Every day matters and the clock is ticking. We’re calling on Prime Minister Trudeau and Immigration Minister Mark Miller to do the right thing and permanently remove the 20-hour work limit.”
Source: International students, advocates say Canada should permanently lift 20-hour work cap
‘Canadian experience’ requirements are not just discriminatory – they harm the economy
Change happening but too often Canadian experience applied unevenly. That being said, during my experience during cancer treatment, there were some cultural differences in patient care, reminding me that immigrants would encounter also encounter differences:
In 2021, immigrants made up nearly a quarter of the Canadian population, a historic high. As Canada ages, immigration is projected to fuel the country’s entire population growth by 2032.
It is often said that immigrants help drive Canada’s prosperity. But if “Canadian experience” remains a stumbling block for newcomers to enter the job market, that vision will be nothing but a pipe dream.
Fortunately, I am now employed, working in a field where my past skills are highly relevant and respected. In hindsight, I would have answered that recruiter’s question differently.
There is nothing alien about my “foreign experience,” I would have emphasized. What I learned in China – skills like collaboration, research, empathy and writing – still applies. And I say this as a writer and communicator: a skill is a skill, regardless of where I call home.
Owen Guo is a freelance writer in Toronto. He is a former reporter for the New York Times in Beijing and a graduate of the University of Toronto.
Source: ‘Canadian experience’ requirements are not just discriminatory – they harm the economy
Australia’s political opportunists have stoked hysteria and robbed refugees of their humanity – The Guardian
By former Minister of Immigration 1079-82:
There was a time in Australia when refugees were heroes. In the late 1970s, when thousands of Vietnamese refugees settled in Australia, the then Fraser government publicised their “stories of hardship and courage”. They were presented as individuals with names and faces, possessing great resilience and ordinary human needs. Giving these brave people – nurses, teachers, engineers among them – and their children sanctuary made sense. When we are humane and welcome refugees, we assist them and ourselves.
Much has changed since then. As Fraser’s former minister for immigration and ethnic affairs, I have watched with dismay the shift in Australian public attitudes to refugees over the past two decades, since the Howard government began to pedal hard on the issue, depicting people seeking asylum as a threat to the Australian way of life. The humanity and individuality of refugees has been lost in political opportunism, as dog-whistling slogans stoked the hysterical, sometimes racist elements of public discourse. Yet this politics proved a winner and over the past two decades both major parties came to share the same dehumanising asylum policies. This is evident in the recent ugly, bitter parliamentary debate following the high court’s decision that it is unlawful for the Australian government to indefinitely detain people in immigration detention and the hasty legislative response.
Ian Macphee AO was minister for immigration and ethnic affairs in the Fraser government (1979-1982)
Source: Australia’s political opportunists have stoked hysteria and robbed refugees of their humanity – The Guardian
Multicultural Meanderings 