It’s time to restore Canada’s successful immigration policy
Posted November 1, 2024
The centrepiece of last spring’s budget was the Trudeau government’s plan to build 3.87 million homes by 2031, more than double the already frenetic pace.
Like many of their initiatives, it feels like the headline desired by the Prime Minister’s Office was the starting point, with the details of making it happen being left to others.
The announcement reflected no understanding of what it would take to accomplish the goal, in particular an immediate doubling of the 1.6 million workers in construction. It appears that no one in the Prime Minister’s Office was concerned about that.
The money that they were going to throw at the housing problem would not double the number of units to be built, but it would seriously distort the market. Doubling demand when you can’t increase supply just drives up prices.
On October 24th, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller announced an abrupt change in policy. Population growth has been accelerating out of control due to the relaxation of limits for international students and temporary foreign workers (TFW’s).
Changes to TFW’s and international students had already been made but were incomplete.
In the pre-covid years, population growth was 400,000 to 500,000 per year. The number of non-permanent residents was relatively stable.
After a covid pause the overall increases were 700,000 in the 12 months ending July 1, 2022, and 800,000 in the 12 months after that. The growth leaped to 1,200,000 in the 12 months ending July 1, 2024. No wonder there were shortages in housing and health care.
Of that increase, 660,000 were non-permanent residents, primarily TFW’s and visa students.
To his credit, Miller acknowledged that the government’s gross mismanagement of those policies was the problem. The number of international student visas has been reduced, and fewer temporary foreign workers are being admitted, particularly in low wage jobs. Priority for the remainder is supposed to be given to workers in health professions and construction.
The number of regular immigrants had been scheduled to level up to 500,000 per year in 2025, 2026, and 2027. Plans for those three years are now reduced to 395,000, 380,000, and 365,000.
The government predicts “a marginal population decline of 0.2% in both 2025 and 2026, before returning to a population growth of 0.8% in 2027.” That would mean that reductions in non-permanent residents would be greater than the number of permanent immigrants until 2027.
Miller unhelpfully asserted that after these changes Canada is still “an open country.” It isn’t and never was. Canada accepts newcomers by invitation only. Historically that has been a success for new permanent residents, international students, temporary foreign workers, and refugees.
Uninvited asylum seekers are discouraged. When a lot of them started arriving by plane from Mexico the government tightened up. As of February 29, 2024, most Mexican citizens traveling to Canada by air need either a Canadian visitor visa or an electronic travel authorization.
Uninvited asylum seekers are a major issue for European countries who receive constant streams coming across the Mediterranean. Once they are inside the European Union they can move easily between countries.
The United States has been encountering around 3 million asylum seekers a year. Many are escaping unsafe conditions in their home country, but most are economic migrants. Responding to them consumes a lot of resources.
When Roxham Road was open to all comers we had a tiny taste of what the Americans have to deal with. Canada has the enormous advantage that its only land border is with the United States.
Being able to select who gets to arrive based on their skills and likelihood has been a big advantage for the Canadian economy. There has been a general consensus that it was good for the country.
The Liberals seem to have been unaware of the relationship between population growth and the crises in housing and health care. They have damaged the consensus by their mismanagement but hopefully are righting the ship.
Going forward they need to watch the numbers closely and be willing to raise or lower the number of migrants to move population growth at the desired pace.
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