The implications of Trudeau replication of his father's policy are dire
Canada’s immigration policies are damaging the economy. That’s the finding of Canada’s top bank economists, who issued a dire warning to the federal government. By admitting 455,000 new permanent residents and more than 800,000 non-permanent residents last year, Canada is on the brink of a recession, or worse. “I’ll put it bluntly: We’ve fallen into the population trap,” said Stéfane Marion, chief economist at National Bank of Canada. An increase in the standard of living is no longer possible because “you don’t have enough savings to stabilize your capital to labour ratio.”
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We also learned that the government was warned two years ago by its own officials about high immigration causing a housing shortage — and ignored those warnings. When asked about this, Housing Minister Sean Fraser replied, “I don’t think anybody needs a briefing note to understand that having more people in the housing market impacts the housing market, but having gone through in consecutive years the process of building Canada’s immigration levels plan I can tell you that there are an enormous number of factors that go into them.”
OK then, so what are those factors? Why did the government decide that immigration levels should increase at this pace? Why does it continue to allow hundreds of thousands of foreign students to work unlimited hours? Why did it admit so many people into the country in such a short amount of time?
The classic answer is that we need to increase the labour supply. Businesses are short of workers. Canadians are not having enough children to replace them. That’s the argument of the Century Initiative, the business community, and immigration advocates.
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But simply pulling in adult immigrants and temporary workers is not the same as boosting fertility in the existing population. Those workers have needs that are very different from those of children. They won’t live under their parents’ roof: they need their own housing. They won’t be ferried about by their parents: they need independent transportation. They will be buying adult levels of food, clothing and other necessities. In short, they will be competing with other adults for basic needs, and that increased demand means two things: price inflation and resource scarcity. Which is exactly what Canada is now experiencing.
Fraser is right. You don’t need a study to figure this out. It’s simple common sense. So again, why did the government do this — especially after it was warned not to by its own bureaucrats?
The cynic in me sees one reason: votes. Immigrants tend to settle in cities. City dwellers tend to vote for “progressive” parties. In Canada, since the 1960’s, that has translated to increased Liberal support. According to research done at Western University, a one-unit shift in the “urbanity score” for a riding produces an increase of eight percentage points in the Liberal party’s vote share in that riding. No surprise then, that in the 2021 election, the Liberals won 109 of the 150 most urban ridings, while the Conservatives took only 23.
Immigrants are also grateful to the party that bring them in. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau learned this from his father. Pierre Elliott Trudeau took credit for the citizenship of millions of Canadians, even though many had come to Canada under previous governments. Why? Because they took their oath under his watch. And when it came to elections, the immigrant communities of the day — Italians, Greeks, Haitians, Vietnamese — tended to vote Liberal.
The implications of Trudeau Jr.’s replication of this policy are dire. Studies show that they are turning Canadians against immigration: even 62 per cent of current immigrants think we’re letting in too many people. They are impoverishing Canadians, both current and newcomer, according to the bank study. And they are also helping fuel Quebec separatism, as francophones look with alarm at rising immigrant populations in the Rest-Of-Canada. By the end of the century, Quebec risks becoming a bit player in Confederation, with only 15 per cent of its population.
This cannot continue. Instead of flooding the country with newcomers, the government needs to boost domestic productivity. That’s a harder fix — and one that won’t give them more votes. But then again, if Canadians can’t afford a decent life, the Liberals may not get their votes either.
Postmedia News
Tasha Kheiriddin is Postmedia’s national politics columnist.
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