Recently, a fierce battle over the H-1B Visa Program erupted on X. In one corner, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, a big believer in the program, where tech companies pay less for non-American talent. Indians (dot, not feather) have been primary participants. In the other corner, the MAGA Base, who believe in America First, and to hell with immigration, legal or otherwise. For them, H-1B was just another cog in the Population Replacement wheel.
A backlog of 267,000 cases at the tribunal that hears asylum claims in Canada risks rising even further if a predicted influx of asylum claimants crosses the border from the U.S. after president-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, immigration experts say.
The Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) has a backlog four times higher than it was two years ago as a flood of claims has left it unable to keep up.
TORONTO — Canada long sold itself as a beacon for immigrants, who were widely viewed as key to economic growth in a vast nation with a small and rapidly aging workforce.
“Study, work and stay” was the slogan of a government campaign to lure international students, part of a broader push that included recruiting temporary workers and resettling refugees. After President Trump banned travel to the U.S. from several Muslim-majority countries in 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada’s doors were open.
“To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith,” he wrote on the platform now known as X. “Diversity is our strength.”
But in recent months, Canada has changed course.
Don’t harsh my mellow man!
Mass migration has been embraced to plug the gaps in a stuttering, low-wage economy.
Remember when we were told that Brexit would lead to a draw-bridge Britain, closed to migrants forever more? That particular Remainer scare story is now, officially, defunct.
This week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that 728,000 more people came to live in the UK than had left in the year to June 2024. That’s three to four times the net migration the UK averaged annually during the 2010s. To put that into context, nearly the same number of people arrived in the UK in a single year as live in the entire county of Suffolk.
It has become increasingly difficult to argue that migrant-driven population growth is leaving Britain better off
Nowhere is the policy failure that seems to have engulfed virtually everything the Government touches more apparent than immigration.
I don’t know why anyone was surprised by last month’s revised data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). As a source of information on the economy, the ONS has become about as reliable as a number 16 bus – so much so that the Bank of England has come to prefer the reports of its own agents in the field to the official ONS data when assessing the economy’s true state of affairs.
In any case, it has been obvious for a long time now that the ONS has been wildly understating the extent of the surge in net migration. You only need to look around you to see the transformation that has occurred in the size and mix of the population.
Ontario’s Ministry of Labour is investigating the Alberta-based recruiter who was involved in bringing in scores of temporary foreign workers to staff low-wage jobs at Canadian Tire stores across Canada.
A ministry spokesperson told The Globe and Mail in an e-mail that it is conducting an open investigation into Allison Jones, the owner of a recruiting agency and an immigration consulting agency in St. Albert, outside of Edmonton. It did not provide any additional details about the probe.
Ms. Jones is a popular recruiter among franchisees of the Canadian Tire and Tim Hortons chains, helping franchise owners fill low-wage positions in their outlets with labour from abroad.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller introduced new regulations this week allowing foreign students to work full-time during academic breaks, a move his department admits could increase competition for Canadian workers, particularly young people seeking entry-level or summer jobs.
“This may result in increased competition for Canadian workers,” the Department of Immigration stated in a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement.
Colleges and universities face job cuts, deficits amid international student cap
Ontario’s colleges and universities say the federal government’s cap on international students is taking a toll on the higher education sector as some schools face growing deficits, layoffs and, in at least one case, a temporary campus closure.
St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ont., said it has eliminated 30 administrative and support positions and warned of further job cuts after its foreign student enrolment dropped by 50 per cent.
President and CEO Glenn Vollebregt said the college is participating in a provincewide efficiency review that is expected to conclude early next year and as that unfolds, “SLC cannot guarantee that there will be no further layoffs.”
“This may result in increased competition for Canadian workers.”
— @CitImmCanadaPODCAST: @MarcMillerVM reneges on promise to limit work hours for foreign students.
“It’ll cost Canadian students entry level jobs. The feds know it and they don’t care.”https://t.co/94Bc2WPySd pic.twitter.com/3ekzqL9kls
— Blacklock's Reporter (@mindingottawa) November 21, 2024
The explosion in refugee claims in Canada over the past few years is costing Canadian taxpayers billions in mostly unseen costs.
On Friday, CBC broke the news of the federal health program for refugees now costing $411 million per year, but that is just the tip of the iceberg shocking as it is.
Feds want $411 million to cover refugee health care as the number of new arrivals soars
The federal government is asking Parliament to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending to cover the health-care costs of eligible refugees and asylum seekers — a budget line item that has soared in recent years as the number of these newcomers reached record highs.
The Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) is designed to cover migrants who don’t yet qualify for provincial or territorial medicare. By removing some barriers to health care, the program makes it easier for refugees — many of them fleeing conflict or persecution abroad — to get the care they need on arrival.
New provincial legislation will target “bad-actor” immigration consultants who prey on newcomers with fines and lifetime bans as punishment.
Announced Wednesday in Brampton by David Piccini, minister of labour, immigration, training and skills development, the measures will set out new, tougher rules for immigration representatives that could require them to issue written contracts, show proof of their licence, and give applicants the right to see their files.
Amid the last-ditch effort to reverse the wreckage of his government’s radical immigration policies, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pushing ahead with a series of restrictionist moves designed to signal to Canadian voters that he has heard their frustrations.
… One expected route people appear to be making is asylum claims, a.k.a. refugee claims. Canada saw 133k refugee claims made as of September year to date (YTD), up 38% from last year. More so, 63.9% of those claims were filed at inland offices, meaning those making a claim were already in the country. Inland filings hover around 50% of total annual claims in previous years, so these filings are a large part of the soaring claims.
One segment of temporary residents, international students, saw a big jump recently. According to an analysis in the Globe, about 13.7k of this year’s refugee claims YTD were people on study permits. At 4.5x the average volume seen in prior years, this volume is unheard of in Canada.
Migration has spiralled under his leadership, and the political backlash has been immense
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced his Liberal government was going to cut immigration levels for the first time in years. The number of permanent residents in 2025 will decrease from a previously announced target of 500,000 to 395,000, or 21 percent.
What caused this abrupt shift? Trudeau said in an Oct. 24 press conference that Ottawa “didn’t get the balance quite right” in the post-pandemic period with respect to significant labour shortages. Hence, the government’s decision to “pause population growth” would help adjust this economic deficiency.
Hold on. The Left-wing Canadian PM actually did something right for a change? It’s a miracle! Hallelujah!
New survey finds Canadians are feeling anxious about immigration
Canadians are feeling increasingly uneasy about immigration and its role in generating “economic strain,” according to a new survey conducted by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Among other things, the survey found that many Canadians believe too much attention is being focused on newcomers and refugees, and that asylum seekers receive too many benefits.
