Canada officially has an immigration problem. No, it’s not the one we’ve been hearing about for months now, which the federal government has belatedly addressed through policies that cap both the number of foreign students coming to this country and temporary foreign workers being used by our business community. With rents in major urban centres already dropping, the impact of the post-COVID surge in temporary migrants on shelter costs and demand for services like healthcare and education is already on the wane.
But this is just the beginning of Canada’s immigration challenge. Recent polling data confirms the pro-immigration consensus that we once enjoyed — one that was unique among developed countries — is rapidly deteriorating. According to new data from Environics Institute’s Focus Canada research, nearly six in ten (58 per cent) Canadians now think the country accepts too many immigrants. That’s a 14 per cent increase over 2023, which was itself a 17 per cent increase on 2022’s data. In other words, the number of Canadians who think we accept too many immigrants has more than doubled in the last two years.
It’s a reminder of how fragile that consensus actually was — and how much the federal government might have overestimated its durability. There’s no question that its policy choices, from opening up the temporary foreign worker program to allowing far more foreign students to study here, have exacerbated existing pressures on housing affordability and access to key services. They own these mistakes and that should be particularly painful for a political party that has long defined itself by its embrace of multiculturalism as official government policy.
But if Liberal bumbling helped sow this bumper crop of anti-immigration sentiment, Conservative politicians and pundits are more than ready to harvest it. As the Environics survey shows, 80 per cent of Conservative supporters — 80 per cent! — now think Canada has too many immigrants, up from 43 per cent in 2022. Based on the recent behaviour of some of the Conservative movement’s leading lights, they seem determined to push that figure even higher.
In her recent public address that announced new funding for schools in Alberta, for example, premier Danielle Smith effectively blamed immigration for the overcrowding that has defined classrooms in her province for years now. “The Trudeau government’s unrestrained open border policies, permitting well over a million newcomers each year, are causing significant challenges,” she said. Never mind, for the moment, that her government literally funded a multi-million dollar ad campaign called “Alberta is Calling” that encouraged people to move from BC, Ontario, and the rest of the country. For Smith, it’s much easier to just blame the immigrants.
Her predecessor, former federal immigration minister Jason Kenney, has been nearly as reckless on this issue. In an interview with The Hub co-founder Sean Speer, he suggested that federal immigration policy is really about “creating a new permanent Liberal voting bloc, and inversely, a political trap for Conservatives.” This is a more sophisticated version of Elon Musk’s now-familiar refrain about how Democrats are supposedly trying to “rig” the election by allowing migrants into the country to vote (even though they can’t). As Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne noted, “this is an utterly irresponsible and inflammatory accusation: Trumpian, in fact.”
It gets even Trumpier as you move further towards the margins of the Canadian Conservative ecosystem. Over at True North, an increasingly popular safe space for Conservative politicians, show host Harrison Faulkner has been repeatedly testing the limits of just how far he can go. “Why do we need to have foreign-born politicians at the cabinet table?” he said in a video that listed off people like Justice Minister Arif Virani, Minister of Small Business Rechie Valdez and a host of others. “ What is the benefit that it brings to Canada?”
The benefit, of course, is that they bring a broader range of experiecnes and backgrounds to the decision-making table than a cabinet comprised entirely of Canadian-born people could. It also completely misses the point here, which is that where they come from — and whether their family has been here for ten years or ten generations — has no bearing on things like merit or competence.
But these are rational answers to an irrational impulse, one that seems to be spreading rapidly among Conservatives both here in Canada and around the world. Remember Donald Trump’s demonstrably false nonsense about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating dogs and cats? Well, in the least surprising development possible, Canada’s own Rebel Media headed there to engage in what Politico’s Adam Wren described as a “conspiracy scavenger hunt.” As it happens, Danielle Smith was featured at a Rebel Media event in Calgary earlier this month. One might wonder if the issue of migrants eating pets came up.
None of this is going to end well if Canada continues down this path. Our long-term prosperity depends on our ability to effectively integrate immigrants, who will account for all of our country’s population growth by 2030. That population growth is crucial to mitigating the economic and fiscal effects of a rapidly aging population, and immigration will play a key role in addressing labour shortages in areas such as caregiving, healthcare and the skilled trades. If we’re ever going to harness the numerous benefits associated with a larger population — say, 100 million — we need to get a handle on this issue right now.
Conservatives need to get a handle on it too. They may think they can harness this energy to their own purposes, which is the exact same mistake establishment Republicans thought about Donald Trump and his own nativist obsessions. But the more their party is defined by anti-immigration sentiment, the more they’ll feel compelled to cater to its self-destructive impulses. As we’re seeing in America, that can and will lead to some very dark and dangerous places.
Comments
It isn't often that I agree with Max, but I do this time. I feel that more people in Canada leads to more environmental degradation unless we are all willing to consume much less which isn't likely. Population growth to fuel economic growth is pretty much a huge ponzi scheme that will eventually be a disaster. All countries will soon have to learn how to live their best life without growth and should be turning in that direction. I do believe that we should allow imigrants for humanitarian reasons but it isn't surprising that when immigration excedes certan levels, a societal resistance builds. That seems to be human nature.
Please reread the article. Max Fawcett is saying the opposite.
I meant that it isn't often that I disagree. Whoops!
I'm not sure Mr. Fawcett has thought this through. The housing crisis predates any current situation and as he knows from the rising homeless figures of the last decade, real estate investor speculation coupled with lack of action by the federal And provincial governments to proactively support the building of affordable shelter was a negative in addressing the issue.
In addition, Mr. Biden south of the border has committted a $52 billion investment which includes opening up student immigration to expand US capability in the tech sector, while we're headed the other way. Think there isn't anti-immigration sentiment south of here? Of course we don't.
He also the residual anti-immigration feeling that has always been in the background in Canada. From displaced persons (DPs was an epithet) in the 40s to Italians coming in the 50s, to West Indians in the 60s, to South Asians in the 70s and 80s....
The malice behind business-supported anti-immigration feeling is that Canada has for decades used immigration as a source of cheap labour - undercutting wages here and leading to more established immigrants being anti-immigration of all things. Pay under the table workers who are here 'illegally' and remain the cheapest source of labour and are a boon to employers, especially in the direct service sectors writ wide. Simply put, the 'anarchy of capital' is on full display.
The polar opposite --in fact, the extreme opposite -- is the example of China. Their birthrate was high for centuries because having more kids was a way to produce free labour for parents who were in deep and widespread poverty with few means to generate alternative income. That trend is now being broken in the global south mainly with the education of women and girls, in part the knowledge to earn modest incomes selling their products fostered by micro loans and not losing so much time in pregnancy and caring for babies.
China overreacted with the one child policy which today has caused a deleterious problem with a birthrate so low which, coupled with a rapidly aging population and virtually no immigration, that rapid depopulation is now in the works. Half of China's people will be gone by mid-century, accompanied by a shrunken economy.
Lots of people talk about the population "bomb" without bothering to learn that world population growth is now slowing down and is expected to peak some time after 2050 at around 10 billion, give or take. Then decline follows.
Higher rates of resource extraction, pollution and environmental damage have long been used as justification to exercise population control. But too many critics do not follow through with how on Earth would populations actually be "controlled" or who gets to make these decisions for others?
Canada is a cold northern country with high per capita emissions and energy consumption rates and low population densities when averaged across its vast territory. But there are other cold countries with low density that have half our per person consumption and emissions.
It stands to reason that Canada should maintain immigration at minimum levels to at least maintain a stable base. At the same time we need to cut our per capita consumption and waste, especially climate busting emissions.
How? Well, 85% of us live in cities, so the affordable housing, electrification, transit and other urban infrastructure effort should be largely concentrated in metropolitan areas and in intercity transport and communications.
I've worked with immigrants and refugees in low rent neighbourhoods and it is really inspiring to see how devoted and full of gratitude they are to the host country and city. Parents willingly take on the jobs that we won't, as Max Fawcett elucidated so that they could get their kids educated. It's all about opportunities for the next generation more than not.
My mother spent 12 years in an advanced care facility. There wasn't a single white second or third generation Canadian on staff, except, tellingly, in management. All spoke with an accent. Their backgrounds were rooted mainly in Africa, South Asia, the Phillipines and China. And my mother had no lessing caring attention than anyone else could provide.
This topic is not about immigration. We need people and we can afford to accommodate their initial needs. They should not be exploited like a coal mine or oil well. Deep down we know that this topic is about using the Earth's gifts more wisely and being more judicious about consumption and waste. We can achieve that without dehumanizing immigrant families or going on a rant about smashing capitalism without understanding the consequences. If that means establishing some kind of stable stare national population, then so be it, though that has never been defined.
It would at the very least mean our cities are more efficacious in all respects.
"...no less attention to her care..."
"...stable state national population..."
I think it's worth pointing out that levels of immigration have not been constant. Back in the day, Conservatives used to rage about immigration even though it wasn't really all that high and wasn't really creating any of the problems they imagined. In more recent years the Liberals quietly increased the level a lot, making questions about what level might be too much a lot more relevant. It does not help that this increase was at the same time the housing market became increasingly dysfunctional due to successive governments at all levels ceasing to build housing, combined with financialization and bubbles.
In theory, there is not really any level of immigration that is bad (or good) for the economy . . . as long as immigrants have access to equal jobs and housing and so forth. There's more mouths to feed, but there's more people to do the feeding, everything balances out. If they don't, their lack of power can create an economic underclass that depresses general wage levels (temporary foreign workers are the worst for this), and increase in population without adequate increase in affordable homes can spur price increases, making living less affordable.
In real life, immigrants do in fact stay poor for some time in Canada, so they do create this group willing to accept lower wages and that does allow employers to pay lower wages (I expect sectoral bargaining arrangements creating wage floors such as are seen in some parts of Europe would help). And we do have problems with housing affordability and insufficient provision of affordable housing, which high immigration levels can be expected to worsen. So given the current Canadian economic and policy environment, I think there are legitimate questions about how high immigration levels should be.
As noted about prices, it's not that prices are too high, but that wages are too low. We'd all love to see 1950s prices and 2024 wages.
Similarly, immigration isn't too high, it's house-building that was too low. Cutting immigration until we actually understand that, and have a growth plan that includes all physical and medical and school infrastructure growing at the same rate as needs, frankly makes sense.
A few years of low immigration will have business crying for those cheaper workers again; the next time, we need the commensurate growth plan to go with the immigration size plan.
This low wage cycle is not confined to immigrants. It applies to student labour during summer too. There are professional firms offering "apprenticeships" with no pay whatsoever for the "privilege" of working at a supposedly prestigious office.
In addition, immigrant children often outperform their fellow classmates at school, likely motivated by their parent's worse experiences -- terrible and deadly in many cases -- in their country of origin, and sense of gratitude for their adopted country.
Sadiq Kahn, longtime mayor of Greater London UK, came from a family of immigrants in a troubled ghetto in East London in stark contrast to the arrogant frat boys and girls educated at Eton College and Oxford and who ended up greatly damaging the UK through Brexit while in the last Conservative government.