Meggs: Despite moving to limit temporary immigrants, Canada’s policy lacks vision

Good critique of the lack of an overall vision and direction. In addition, any such vision and plan needs to include the impacts of immigration, permanent and temporary, on housing, healthcare, infrastructure etc., along with related plans to address these impacts:

…The government’s move is part of its plan to reverse many decisions that have led to the serious negative consequences of the mismanagement of the immigration system over the last 10 years. The main stated objective is to reduce the proportion of non-permanent residents (those with work or study permits and asylum seekers) to 5 per cent of the Canadian population by 2027, a target experts consider unattainable.

However, is the growth of a population with a certain immigration status the only problem the government needs to resolve? Or is it the increasing size of the population in general? Or the number and pace of arrivals, whatever their status? Or the skills and skill-levels of the people who are arriving? Or the age pyramid?

There was no vision in the immigration policy that got us into this conundrum, and there is no obvious vision for bringing immigration policy back under control. For public policy to be effective and reinforce confidence in government, the public must understand and relate to the problems that the policy is attempting to address and feel intuitively that the government has the issue under control. Canadians these days sense that this is no longer the case for immigration policy and this is dangerous for social cohesion….

Source: Despite moving to limit temporary immigrants, Canada’s policy lacks vision