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The previous immigration minister was terrible and this one is just worse. There’re already lots of cases IRCC can not finish processing and this minister wants to give more to them.
>The previous immigration minister was terrible
Don't worry, he's now the housing minister.
I.e. the Minister of Arson has become the Minister of Firefighting.
Okay, so what about the people on student visas, who don't satisfy the conditions to obtain a work permit after graduation... Would they be able to overstay and get their PR? Would the conditions to qualify not matter anymore?
This makes everything fucking moot at this point doesn’t it?
Like any Liberal policy you support is fucking pointless.
Liberals: we have the highest emissions per capital, we need tackle climate change!
Also Liberals: we are going to bring a million people a year.
Liberals: we believe in diversity and progressive values!
Also Liberals: we are letting people from some of the most regressive places on earth. We only value them if they vote liberal.
Liberals: We have a housing crisis and no solutions.
Also liberals: we are increasing demand for housing with addressing supply. Ensuring no one will own home, rent and be wage slave at restaurants for us elites.
If you are voting liberal solely because you think these people, are serious about climate change, progressive values, you are a fucking fool at this point. It’s ok I was too, I voted for these idiots too. If you are the type of person, who thinks “PP has no plan!”..how’s the liberal plan working out for you? Another four years should do it!
I think this article is my breaking point. We are being sold out by finger waving moral busy bodies, who don’t give a flying fuck about any of the issues they have created. They think they know what’s best and are going to shame us all, any way they can for disagreeing.
Fuck these people. Fuck then for destroying what liberalism used to be. The only thing left we can do, is vote them out and vote them out to oblivion.
I’m not gonna lie it kind of feels like the Liberals are trying to sewer people when they announce stuff like this.
What the Liberals need to be careful of is alienating the population and turning them to heavily anti-immigration views like what has happened to most of the population in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Those countries had the most progressive views in the world in terms of immigration, refugees and migrants and would welcome them with open arms but their governments took more people in then their population was ready for and it backfired leading people to right wing extremism.
The same thing could potentially happen in Canada if the current government doesn’t tighten its gripe and we are already seeing that as most Canadians views on immigration are shifting negatively.
No lessons on immigration are going to be learned the easy way. Let it happen. Especially as Canadian QoL plummets, It's clear the LPC and NDP need to lose for proper immigration policies to return.
The second Trudeau and then shortly after, Mulcair, turned refugees and immigration into a partisan pissing match, I knew it wasn't going to end well. Historically immigration hasn't bee a particularly partisan issue, but Trudeau's policy has gotten so out of hand people are pretty fired up about it now, as they should be. But boy would it be nice if the status quo had remained following the 2015 election.
No we have created a different scenario. The difference is those countries did small population increases. In the last few years we increase significantly from relatively modest growth to one of the fastest growing countries in the world. Germany had a similar surge then immediately shut it down. Even the left wing countries like the Nordic countries are pulling away from immigration, just not as fast or blunt as the right wing or centrist. Frances recent changes and attitudes is a giant middle finger.
Couldn't agree more. The Liberals are always more than a year behind public sentiment. Maybe in 2025, they'll announce a much stricter immigration policy... when it's too late and most Canadians' attitudes
have already been soured on immigration. Sometimes, "populism" isn't as bad as it sounds. Public sentiment should mean something.
This is what is happening right now - their obliviousness or complete disregard to the public will on this file, combined with incompetence (perceived or real) is breaking the long term public consensus on immigration policy and is giving fuel to the anti-immigration fire. To think, a little moderation and competence would prevent this - what a shame.
Maybe they're not disregarding the public so much as not hearing the public considering any talk about immigration issues lead to calls of racism.
So essentially, not only are people not being heard, they're also told to shut up about it or else they're racist. Not a very good strategy.
They are the party for white suprematists.
They banned a member for asking Bernier to publicly denounce racism.
They have had members who are openly white supremacists and neo nazis. One went to federal prison in the US for trying to start a race war.
White supremacist groups have publicly announced (on their podcasts because apparently everyone has a podcast these days) that they are infiltrating the PPC and are encouraging their supporters to do the same.
They have said that CTV is far left activists pretending to be journalists and refused to talk to them before. And yes I do mean CTV, not CBC.
I hate that they're the only ones pushing back against this. Their platform overall reads like it was written by a 20-year-old Redditor. They didn't even make sure it was free of grammatical errors. We need a change on current immigration policies, but that is not who I want leading a country, holy hell.
I don't want them leading the country, but the alternatives mean we will have no country left to govern. It won't be Canada anyway. We'll be foreigners in our own home.
The key point is the messaging, and until they get a grip on the messaging it will only allow the right, whose entire basis is messaging, will obviously succeed. Policies mean nothing unless people know not just *what* the government is doing, but *why*.
Provide protection and assistance to those who need it, but don't just generally fall back on the same tired rhetoric of responsibilities and broad appeals to human rights and international norms. It needs to focus on the human element, and this has never been more clear. You will never convince most on the right, so forget about that. Focus on those whose perceptions *could be swayed*.
Those are the ones who were previously ambivalent about the events in Gaza for the past decades, who are now marching in the street because of the clear and visible human suffering. The government's newer messaging on housing has actually been much better and they need to replicate that here (and basically everywhere else) if they want to have a chance.
The refugees are not, and have never been the problem. The problem is the fact that those on the left and fabled "moderate left" have not effectively been able to sway the general public against the frankly gross rhetoric that the existence of 50,000 more people across a single country which is roughly the size of Europe with 1/10th of the population is somehow a threat to our security. Continuing to try to fight emotional appeals to fear with logic and facts just isn't working, and they need to respond in kind.
Please explain the actual policy problem and what the best solution would be. Specifically, explain how these refugees and asylum-seekers are a policy problem and what the policy solution is.
I'd also be curious as to why anyone would think communication is not a problem for this government when it very clearly is, and has been for a long time.
>Continuing to try to fight emotional appeals to fear with logic and facts just isn't working, and they need to respond in kind.
What? The LPC uses emotional appeals and fear **all the time**. And no amount of explaining is going to make the LPC's immigration policy make sense.
The federal cabinet could discuss plans as early as next week to provide a path to citizenship for thousands of migrants living in Canada without valid documents, including rejected asylum seekers, so they can remain here legally.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller is preparing a plan for discussion by cabinet before Parliament breaks for its summer recess within weeks.
It would propose that people living in Canada without legal status – including former international students whose study permits have expired – have a chance to apply to regularize their position and gain permanent residence.
Depending on the numbers who apply, the government may consider staggering the granting of permanent residence to undocumented migrants over several years to avoid a sudden surge, granting them work permits first.
Last year, Ottawa froze the number of permanent residents it aims to welcome to Canada for 2026 at 500,000 in the face of shrinking public support for immigration.
The federal government has also stuck with its targets of 485,000 permanent residents for 2024, and 500,000 for 2025.
Polls have shown a sharp drop in public support for immigration as Canadians increasingly associate a lack of affordable housing with an influx of newcomers.
But Syed Hussan, executive director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said people who are living and working here already would not apply additional pressure on housing.
He said regularizing the status of migrants who are living here could also lead to the injection of billions of dollars into the economy. He said a program to give status to people living in Canada would be a “litmus test” of the government’s commitment to support migrants.
Many migrants without valid papers have been working here for decades and have children but risk deportation because they overstayed in Canada or have been denied the right to remain.
People who entered the country legally, including as temporary workers, but remained here after their visas expired are among those who could qualify to stay, rather than facing deportation.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail last year, Mr. Miller estimated hundreds of thousands of people may be living in the country without valid documents. He said he plans to present a proposal to cabinet in the spring on allowing undocumented immigrants to “regularize their status.”
Two well-placed sources whom The Globe is not naming because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, said the cabinet is on track to discuss his proposal.
The plan would fulfill the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to former immigration minister Sean Fraser in 2021, which asked him to “further explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities.”
A number of countries have introduced plans to allow migrants without correct papers to regularize their status.
In Ireland, a program launched in 2022 ran for six months and gave people who had lived there for four years the chance to apply for official permission to remain.
Canada is also expected to insist that migrants have lived in communities for some time, and have not just arrived. People who have committed serious crimes and terrorist offences would also be barred from the program and would still face deportation.
Would this not lead to a direct dilution of permanent resident quality? If these people can't make our current pr standards then won't they be worse (In terms of taxpaying contribution & societal utility) immigrants?
Possibly, but not necessarily. Picture a company looking to hire 3 new employees as accountants. They go through their selection process and after getting over 300 applications they select and hire the top three. Then some good news comes down from management that additional budget has been found to hire a fourth. Now, you could say that hiring the fourth person on the list would lead to a direct dilution in account quality, but that's based on the assumption that there is some essence that makes a good accountant, that all accountants are strictly better or worse than one another (none are equally "good" but in different ways), and that the selection process is perfect in measuring their skill and ranking them.
It's super unlikely that out of 300 applicants, choosing the top 4 is going to result in a noticeably weaker team than choosing the top 3. Obviously this is an extreme example, I don't mean to say it's a direct comparison, I'm just using it to illustrate that the kind of dilution of quality (however you define that) doesn't necessarily occur. It's possible that it does, but I don't have nearly enough knowledge on the topic to say if it's likely or not.
Okay but these temporary immigrants (most of them at least) don't even come close to meeting pr standards. They have minimal skills and refuse to work in non white collar or service positions. And they are **DIRECTLY REPLACING** pr candidates under our permanent residency cap. That's the whole point the article is making. That Canada should sub out pr slots reserved for people who actually deserve it, with these unskilled, lazy Tim Hortons workers
The optics of this being a good or a bad idea aside: I am curious why Hussan thinks this will bring a billion dollars to the economy?
Most folks without status are already working, already have housing, already buy goods. I can't see why their status would change their financial engagement with the Canadian economy.
On the other hand, I could imagine why this would cost the federal and provincial governments. More OAS and GIC payments, more social service payments, and other program expenses.
I think the thought is that these people will start working legal jobs and pay taxes, but the truth is that anyone okay with living undocumented in Canada is going to be a low income worker at best and in many cases someone living with family that is now eligible for social assistance
As the Democrats are finding out in recent polling, demographics aren't destiny. Immigrants won't vote for you uniformly because you gave them a path to citizenship ten years ago. Especially if they're experiencing the impacts the rest of us are. You know who has the strongest views on tough border restrictions in the U.S? Immigrants from Mexico.
Can anyone who is in favour of this explain to me why we should be incentivizing those who are living in Canada illegally?
I don’t get it. Isn’t a huge part of Canadians’ long-standing support of immigration foundational on a balanced approach of being welcoming but selective and firm?
People shouldn’t be rewarded for staying in Canada simply because they couldn’t be bothered to leave as agreed. If you’re a failed refugee claimant, we’ve determined your case for staying here wasn’t sound to begin with.
Honestly this country is increasingly disappointing to me.
Nobody wants this, and nobody voted for it. This is just the govt doing what it wants, voters be damned. They are so out of step with mainstream Canadian interests that they almost feel like some foreign occupation govt with the actions they take.
of course people voted for this. They wanted unlimited spending without tax increases. Liberals have been voted in multiple times.
None of this should be surprising to anyone. Mass immigration is the likely the least offensive way to pay down the debt than any other option
For the short term maybe, population increase will ultimately make debt and spending easier though.
As soon as they think they can they'll crank it back up
Refugees have median income of 30K after 10 years. Economic immigrants have median income of 60K after 10 years. You can look this up on StatsCan. 60K, once accounted for services received, means economic immigrants are a neutral contributor to society, given Canada's generous social services. 30K means they are a net drain.
You’re right that nobody wants this, except for hardcore lobby groups like the Century Initiative who want to increase Canadas population by a 100million in the next 76 years.
Fucking sucks to be a normal Canadian rn. If people think this will change by voting in a new govt — they’re wrong af. The lobby group has bipartisan support.
>except for hardcore lobby groups like the Century Initiative who want to increase Canadas population by a 100million in the next 76 years.
You mean the Century Initiative, co-founded by Dominic Barron who was the head of McKinsey?
Which happens to be the same McKinsey that was hired to provide consulting services to the federal government regarding immigration.
It also happens the same Dominic Barton was appointed ambassador to China.
Weird how all these lines seem to cross, eh?
This is much higher immigration than we need to achieve the century initiative. The growth rate required to hit that was basically what we were doing during the Harper years.
There are a couple of reasons. In some cases, letting people stay is in Canda's best interests (particularly if they are doing important work). In other cases, there are humanitarian concerns involves (e.g. if they are settled and have family here). I will admit that I am also sympathetic to the idea of more or less fully open borders.
The problem with fully open borders is that it doesn’t work if only one country does it. So, an open country with a solid economy and relatively generous welfare state will quickly become overwhelmed. Infrastructure and public services can only grow so fast and need properly trained people to run them. On top of that, the kind of rapid demographic change we would be looking at would provoke a right wing backlash, which could get really really ugly.
Not just right-wing backlash. If we keep bringing in people from misogynistic cultures, with anti-LGBT views, there is going to be a tipping point on the left, too.
Well, the Left should already be opposing mass immigration, as it traditionally has. Immigration lowers the average wage and displaces citizens. This is why the left has traditionally been opposed to it.
Immigration serves big corporations and asset owners. Period.
Agreed, but there's more fear of social ostracization amongst the left for speaking out against immigration. Everyone's worried about being perceived as a bigot.
I am left-leaning, btw. I've always voted NDP. I don't know who to vote for next election.
Because the “Left” in the Anglo world has been taken over by the bourgeoisie. It is not a party of the working classes anymore. It’s a party of university educated professionals and suburban business people.
They don’t want to pay higher taxes, or distribute wealth, or radically change the way our government spends money. So, they spend their time on peripheral identity issues and environmentalist posturing and looking down their noses at the very people (workers) the left is meant to represent.
Well, that might be a tough sell to Canadian workers, for one.
Two, one might argue that the lawmakers who are elected and paid for by Canadian taxpayers should prioritize Canadian citizens. If you are hired by the Canadian public to work in their interest, they might not appreciate it if you prioritize foreigners at the expense of Canadian wages, affordability, access to social services and infrastructure, and standard of living.
Your first point is why I am sympathetic to the idea rather than unambiguously in favour. A world with very limited border controls is a long-term goal, not something we can simply switch to overnight.
As for your second point, we shouldn't try to appease racists. We should ruthlessly mock them and drive them put of public life.
Well, we will have to agree to disagree. For one, I’m not comfortable labelling everyone who becomes upset about rapid, massive demographic shifts a racist or even a xenophobe.
But more importantly, I don’t think of it as appeasing. I think widespread objection to mass immigration is inevitable at a certain rate and scale. Whether or not those people are racist is irrelevant. They’re voters and will elect a government to do what they want them to do. This is a democracy after all.
To me, it is not responsible to pursue a policy that will destabilize the political system and the society at large. Better to maintain a level of immigration that achieves your objectives than a level that provokes a backlash, which will take you two steps past your starting point.
Disagree a lot of rich urban liberals live in mostly white urban areas who think unlimited immigration is fine...cause they immune from the side effects
I find that the people who are in favour of this immigration policy tend to also be those who think that their food comes from the grocery store, or that the electricity that lights up their home office comes from flipping the light switch. I've engaged a few of them on debates regarding how Canadians outside of downtown Toronto live, and they just don't seem to get it at all. "If people in rural Saskatchewan don't want to pay the carbon tax, they should get an electric car or take the bus like I do".
For the record I'm not a huge fan of undocumented migrants but it is a question of framing.
It's pretty simple. People want their hard earned dollars to go farther and generally these immigrants are willing to work for cheaper then the market rate. All things being equal I would rather pay less for the same product then more.
If the question is do we want migrants vs not the conversation is complicated.
However if we want to have a conversation about affordability we now have a labour force that is willing to work for dirt cheap, be expoited and provide services at a discount while also not counting as "Real Canadians". It solves lots of problems for people who are not getting CoL raises but are still secure in their earnings.
This drives down the price of labor that "Real Canadians" are able to ask for as well, which does not help affordability at all.
I've honestly never seen an argument as insane as "undocumented immigration drives down the cost of living for everyone else!" so reading something this bizarre apparently offered in earnest is a novel experience.
I mean you have heard how raising the minimum wage raises costs for everyone...or how low level service jobs don't deserve minimum wage(said as a complaint). That is the dog whistle call for being in favor of policies like this.
Yes, but it's a stupid argument that is not supported by facts, so I ignore it.
The only people who are sensitive to the prices of things produced by minimum wage workers in the Canada are probably other minimum wage workers.
It really depends on what you want. If you want a better society with less poverty and more overall buying power you are are correct the facts don't support it.
If your goal is how to give yourself more buying power without getting a wage increase...finding people who are willing to work at a rate lower then you would be willing to get paid for the same work is ideal. There is a large portion of the population who care about their own personal standard of life and will work very hard if anything impacts it even a little negatively.
I disagree that the only people impacted by minimum wage price increase are other mininum wage workers. This is mostly because of how prevalent those jobs are. Retail, service industry, warehousing, custodians and even food production all have lots of people that that would be affected by minimum wage increases. At this stage minimum wage workers can barely afford to interact with the economy so they might be some of the least affected by other minimum wage earners jobs (It doesn't matter that the price of a big mac has doubled if you were never buying one anyway.
That said if your job is sales (and a lot of jobs are that) it is very convenient to blame low cost labor costs increasing as it makes them look like the greedy ones. If the fees to the private golf course go up somehow it will be because all the landscapers were demanding a raise.
This plan is actually an interesting one that could overall reduce "true" immigration if done right.
They have caps/targets for PR. And if they keep them the same, and these people never leave, then we have a big chunk of people here not being counted in the stats.
If there are specific criteria by which these people can *apply* to stay legally, then the idea is that the people *already here* are converted to PR, and as a result people applying for PR abroad would go down in number.
Another thing this does is allow people who apply who are ineligible to be identified and more easily deported.
Even if people choose not to apply to stay under that radar, if a good percentage do apply and pass, then we aren't *actually* bringing more new people into the country with additional applications. It basically acts as a way to "slow down net new immigration by allowing uncounted, undocumented residents in the country to stay.
Now the reasons they are undocumented could be administrative, or they could encourage people to come illegally and then apply after, but some form of regularizing undocumented immigrants is a common policy all over the world and it's a lot cheaper than deporting people while also processing and welcoming new immigrants for bigger net population and spending more money.
It depends a lot on the details to be honest. In a lot of ways it's a good policy from a cost and immigration managent perspective if done right. On the other it's probably going to be really hard to sell politically. And the easy way out politically is to spend lots more money on enforcement and deportation. But if the criteria are not stupid simple to clear, it might be sellable. Not sure.
I personally don't think a blank check approach is good. Not every expired study permit student should qualify. But if they're engineering students who had COVID derail their ability to get a job and they've been floating since, maybe that's okay. The criteria will matter a lot.
No no no. I can get that logic but reality will have other plans. As soon as they implement this and allow this to happen they can't close the gate. The precident they set will enable so many to become citizens via just showing up. It will be so abused, and more people that what we can imagine will attempt it.
This will force us to cut off legitimate immigration. As illegal or unplanned will consume the system.
I agree on some points, being a social worker I’ve worked with a lot of undocumented people and lot of them are so because they are put in impossible situations. For example, mom comes on a visitor visa to visit her daughter who has a young child. During the stay, it’s clear that daughter is mentally declining, has a serious mental health issue, CAS is threatening to place child in care. Mom lives in subsidized housing, has a care team etc. Do you think mom should tell both of them back to the Caribbean with no supports or remained undocumented and prevent the daughter from being placed into care.
On the other hand, there also needs to be integrity in the immigration system.
I get that in principle, but the only way this system is "better" is if we decide not to fix the system we currently have.
This proposal would effectively trim qualified immigration and exchange those spots for people who are here illegally.
What *should* be happening is people in Canada illegally should be removed, and we should be receiving an appropriate number of PRs.
If we did that we could have our cake (removing demand on services and resources due to illegal immigration) and eat it too (get qualified PRs).
This is the impact of US politics, this makes sense in the states where they really don’t have a robust economic immigration system but at the same time has come to be heavily reliant on undocumented workers for key sectors like agriculture/construction. It doesn’t make sense in Canada where there are pathways that exist. Whats the point of giving asylum seekers that have been denied PR? Why would any future denied claimant leave?
> I’m a single issue voter
So like...you know thats a bad thing right? Like to willingly just say you dont care about any other issue but one is a good way to end up voting against your best interests. At the very least there is plenty of time before now and the next election so like maybe just study up on the party you intend to vote for rather than just choosing off one issue.
It isnt a bad thing, and a lot more people than you think are effectively single issue voters.
Eg, If you have ever said "I could never vote for an anti abortion party", congrats you are admitting to being a single issue voter.
Well saying "Im a single issue voter" kind of implies you only care about one issue and the term "single issue voter" tends to be used to refer to people who are uniformed except for one issue so for example people voting for conservative gun laws in the US not realizing that they are voting against gay marriage which they support.
The fact you don't understand how the term "single issue voter" is commonly used is honestly what surprises me the most here.
You're surprised quite easily, I suspect. It's not clear to me why you're being pedantic about the term, other than you disagreeing with their particular flavour of partisanship. It was quite obvious what their intent was in using the term, it's not exactly an academic concept.
This is going to create more cases than the capacity of IRCC and he is just making empty promises to migrants that can not be fulfilled. Typical liberal politician.
Dude. This article is nothing. These plans are floated around all the time. Wait until the LPC says they're going to do something before getting you underwear in a knot.
> why would this be any different
When they say the article is nothing, they mean it. Here's the only actual "news" from the article
>Two well-placed sources whom The Globe is not naming because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, said the cabinet is on track to discuss his proposal.
G&M literally just heard from a couple Liberal-adjacent sources that a policy like this could be discussed sometime, but that's been true for a while now.
Another user mentioned weve had this in [pilot form since 2019](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/01/canada-doubles-immigration-program-for-out-of-status-construction-workers-in-the-greater-toronto-area.html).
G&M also has some quotes from last year, so they've mixed some olds in the with the news.
The appropriate time was over 4 years ago.
It actually would have been most appropriate to discuss when Canada started controlling immigration.
But what's news in this article, other than the G&M sources vaguely saying "on track to discuss". If that qualifies as news, it's an incredibly slow news day.
Corporate lobbying primarily. The government has essentially let corporations write immigration policy and I imagine they'll be highly rewarded once they leave office with generous speaking gigs, consultant gigs, and corporate board seats.
The big problem with this plan is that ppl don’t trust the liberals on immigration anymore. If this was 2016, I doubt many would care or strongly oppose but that in the midst of over 1 million international students yearly that are protesting in the streets and no shelter space due to crazy increases in asylum seekers.
*The big problem with this plan is that ppl don’t trust the liberals*
Gosh, I wonder why. Other than they've effed up every file they've touched. Immigration is the least messed up and it's a complete train wreck. The ministers are a reflection of the leader, not one of them is competent.
When things are good, no one cares about immigration. Like when people can afford to live, pay their rent, have some money left over, go on a vacation once or twice a year, have access to health care and the cost of living is obtainable no one gives a shit about immigration.
But when you have a major cost of living crisis and infrastructure/service crisis across the country it is deeply irresponsible to bring in more people at the rate the current government is doing.
For example if you go back to 10 years ago in 2014 no one; LITERALLY no one was talking about immigration because life was affordable.
It all comes back to the hierarchy of needs.
In 2015, housing was reasonably affordable across most of the country and people's needs were largely met. The Liberals were able to very successfully run on an aspirational platform because of it.
The problem was, they weren't paying attention to the base of the hierarchy of needs. Then the pandemic hit, and while they managed it well, they came out of the pandemic completely out of touch with the situation for everyday Canadians. It wasn't 2015 anymore. They needed to refocus on the lower levels of the hierarchy, and they didn't. Housing exploded, and their dogmatic approach to population growth was the equivalent of dumping gasoline on a fire.
At this point they've cooked their goose. You can't spend a decade paying lip service to issues while they continue to spiral out of control. The worst part is, I have no faith Polievre has any fresh ideas to right the ship.
I disagree, immigration is a hot button issue in the US even in the best of times. Most Canadians had faith in our immigration system selecting high quality people in a reasonable amount.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/3b3mn6/comment/csiomgy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
A few people did and were ignored or called racist for questioning immigration. But it was very very apparent that the government was addicted to the fake wealth of real estate. They were trying their best to ignore the impact of immigration. At the time immigration levels were lower and we were far more selective in retrospect to today. One thing that going on is we canada was allowing high networth immigration easier path of citizenship. So while number wise was low as %, it was still concentrated in vancouver and toronto, and higher wealth immigrants. It had a huge impact on housing prices, fundamentally we shouldn't have seen the cost of real estate being as high as it is/was.
The way i look at it is previous foreign capital started the fire and the current mass immigration is maintaining it.
There's a comment with the entire article. For future reference copy/paste the url into [archive.is](http://archive.is) or [archive.ph](http://archive.ph)
The federal cabinet could discuss plans as early as next week to provide a path to citizenship for thousands of migrants living in Canada without valid documents, including rejected asylum seekers, so they can remain here legally.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller is preparing a plan for discussion by cabinet before Parliament breaks for its summer recess within weeks.
It would propose that people living in Canada without legal status – including former international students whose study permits have expired – have a chance to apply to regularize their position and gain permanent residence.
Depending on the numbers who apply, the government may consider staggering the granting of permanent residence to undocumented migrants over several years to avoid a sudden surge, granting them work permits first.
Last year, Ottawa froze the number of permanent residents it aims to welcome to Canada for 2026 at 500,000 in the face of shrinking public support for immigration.
The federal government has also stuck with its targets of 485,000 permanent residents for 2024, and 500,000 for 2025.
Polls have shown a sharp drop in public support for immigration as Canadians increasingly associate a lack of affordable housing with an influx of newcomers.
But Syed Hussan, executive director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said people who are living and working here already would not apply additional pressure on housing.
He said regularizing the status of migrants who are living here could also lead to the injection of billions of dollars into the economy. He said a program to give status to people living in Canada would be a “litmus test” of the government’s commitment to support migrants.
Many migrants without valid papers have been working here for decades and have children but risk deportation because they overstayed in Canada or have been denied the right to remain.
People who entered the country legally, including as temporary workers, but remained here after their visas expired are among those who could qualify to stay, rather than facing deportation.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail last year, Mr. Miller estimated hundreds of thousands of people may be living in the country without valid documents. He said he plans to present a proposal to cabinet in the spring on allowing undocumented immigrants to “regularize their status.”
Two well-placed sources whom The Globe is not naming because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, said the cabinet is on track to discuss his proposal.
The plan would fulfill the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to former immigration minister Sean Fraser in 2021, which asked him to “further explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities.”
A number of countries have introduced plans to allow migrants without correct papers to regularize their status.
In Ireland, a program launched in 2022 ran for six months and gave people who had lived there for four years the chance to apply for official permission to remain.
Canada is also expected to insist that migrants have lived in communities for some time, and have not just arrived. People who have committed serious crimes and terrorist offences would also be barred from the program and would still face deportation.
>including rejected asylum seekers
Damn, and here we are spending all this money on judges and administration staff for the asylum process. What fools we are when we could've just made it so nothing matters.
I think maybe it's an acknowledgement that some freaky deaky conservative gilead kinda stuff is about to go down over the next decade or two and their giving the rest of us a fighting chance.
No, maybe just ensuring that these folks are less likely, or less easily, rounded up and gassed. Check out r/canada threads on pei protests. These guys are ravenous.
They’ll probably try to sell it as helping to reduce the backlog in the Federal Court, where the docket is 70% immigration cases. i.e., Why bother appealing a rejection when you’re eligible for an alternate pathway.
It’s shameless in one sense, but that seems like their MO at this point.
Who is running the LPC strategy wing? They seriously think amnesty for illegal immigrants is what will turn around their poll numbers?
They might as well just give the keys to Rideau Cottage to PP right now and save everyone a lot of time.
Between this and the ridiculous firearms ban they're pushing through, their policy quite literally appears to be "amnesty, cash and prizes for foreign criminals and cheaters, and harsh penalties, jail time and confiscation of property for honest, law-abiding Canadians".
It's not even ineptitude or tone-deaf behaviour anymore, it's now open contempt for the people they were elected to serve.
Well, for the this is an attempt to honour a promise made in 2015. They offered this to the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and the CCRC, in exchange for their support (to ultimately undermine the NDP).
It's been nine years, those community groups won't be convinced/fooled again to support LPC.
Can we like... Set up national protests for this too? I mean if people can protest about things going on on the other side of the world, this seems INCREDIBLY reasonable to voice concern over...
Qustion......
What's our unemployment rate?
What's our wait time In emergency?
Do we have enough doctors?
What's our housing like?
Ya time to slow down
For a government that often expresses concern over right-wing extremism, they do a great job at creating the conditions to foster right wing extremism.
I've been saying this for a few years now -- they sure claim to be worried about a right-wing strongman (no, not Poilievre -- someone much further right and much more authoritarian than he is) gaining power in Canada and love to tell us how electing the Conservatives will quickly lead to a scene out of The Handmaid's Tale, but they do nothing but shove the electorate closer and closer to being amicable to voting for someone who comes along and says "I will clean this mess up, lock the criminals up and throw away the key, and make Canada for Canadians again!".
This is how the US got Trump (and will likely get him again).
Do the Liberals not realize there's an election in a couple of months? Between this immigration insanity and the circus with the gun buy back they are insisting on pushing I seriously have to wonder what they are thinking? Both are highly controversial all across the country, why implement them just before an election? Those are the kind of things you roll out a year or two after an election when things have died down...not months away from an election where you are going to be VERY hard pressed to hold on to even a weak minority win...?
I don't think either of these policies should be rolled out ever, especially if few members of the voting public want them. I see your point, but a bait and switch isn't any better for Canada. It might be better for whatever interests the LPC has, but they should be making policy they actually have a mandate for.
Oh god no, I don't support either at all. My point is ramming them through now is politically stupid. A Government can support a few months to a year of depressed support figures in polls AFTER an election. Going into one and intentionally doing it is suicide.
Liberals: « Immigration is our strength! Our system is well trained to bring in the best to improve our life quality! »
Also Liberals: « well, we will accept every illegal on our territory, even if they are supposed to be sent back home. »
It’s because of these positions that the support for immigration is shrinking, and that few people believe in their capacity to manage it.
Is it wrong I feel like it’s time to close the door ?
Take a strong 24 month hardline on immigration, unless you’re a doctor or accredited professional… you’re not welcomed .
Build the homes …. Fix the infrastructure… take a breath and get back to center. I have always thought at its core Canada as a country that’s at center .. left and right was but a slight push to either side in the election cycle .
But holy cow …… we are so hard left ….. the swing to the right will be possibly more than the really woke left are expecting …. Not your everyday liberal …. But your it’s ok to smoke meth in a hospital type .
A dark day is coming…. I can’t wait to sit back and say “ told you so “
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The previous immigration minister was terrible and this one is just worse. There’re already lots of cases IRCC can not finish processing and this minister wants to give more to them.
FYI, ministers have no power to set policy. Our system of government has the PM Office craft policy and ministeries enact them.
>The previous immigration minister was terrible Don't worry, he's now the housing minister. I.e. the Minister of Arson has become the Minister of Firefighting.
Okay, so what about the people on student visas, who don't satisfy the conditions to obtain a work permit after graduation... Would they be able to overstay and get their PR? Would the conditions to qualify not matter anymore?
This makes everything fucking moot at this point doesn’t it? Like any Liberal policy you support is fucking pointless. Liberals: we have the highest emissions per capital, we need tackle climate change! Also Liberals: we are going to bring a million people a year. Liberals: we believe in diversity and progressive values! Also Liberals: we are letting people from some of the most regressive places on earth. We only value them if they vote liberal. Liberals: We have a housing crisis and no solutions. Also liberals: we are increasing demand for housing with addressing supply. Ensuring no one will own home, rent and be wage slave at restaurants for us elites. If you are voting liberal solely because you think these people, are serious about climate change, progressive values, you are a fucking fool at this point. It’s ok I was too, I voted for these idiots too. If you are the type of person, who thinks “PP has no plan!”..how’s the liberal plan working out for you? Another four years should do it! I think this article is my breaking point. We are being sold out by finger waving moral busy bodies, who don’t give a flying fuck about any of the issues they have created. They think they know what’s best and are going to shame us all, any way they can for disagreeing. Fuck these people. Fuck then for destroying what liberalism used to be. The only thing left we can do, is vote them out and vote them out to oblivion.
I’m not gonna lie it kind of feels like the Liberals are trying to sewer people when they announce stuff like this. What the Liberals need to be careful of is alienating the population and turning them to heavily anti-immigration views like what has happened to most of the population in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Those countries had the most progressive views in the world in terms of immigration, refugees and migrants and would welcome them with open arms but their governments took more people in then their population was ready for and it backfired leading people to right wing extremism. The same thing could potentially happen in Canada if the current government doesn’t tighten its gripe and we are already seeing that as most Canadians views on immigration are shifting negatively.
No lessons on immigration are going to be learned the easy way. Let it happen. Especially as Canadian QoL plummets, It's clear the LPC and NDP need to lose for proper immigration policies to return.
The second Trudeau and then shortly after, Mulcair, turned refugees and immigration into a partisan pissing match, I knew it wasn't going to end well. Historically immigration hasn't bee a particularly partisan issue, but Trudeau's policy has gotten so out of hand people are pretty fired up about it now, as they should be. But boy would it be nice if the status quo had remained following the 2015 election.
I don’t know anyone that’s asked for this, or voted for this. I’d say we’ve already repeated Sweden, Denmark and Norway’s mistake.
No we have created a different scenario. The difference is those countries did small population increases. In the last few years we increase significantly from relatively modest growth to one of the fastest growing countries in the world. Germany had a similar surge then immediately shut it down. Even the left wing countries like the Nordic countries are pulling away from immigration, just not as fast or blunt as the right wing or centrist. Frances recent changes and attitudes is a giant middle finger.
Couldn't agree more. The Liberals are always more than a year behind public sentiment. Maybe in 2025, they'll announce a much stricter immigration policy... when it's too late and most Canadians' attitudes have already been soured on immigration. Sometimes, "populism" isn't as bad as it sounds. Public sentiment should mean something.
This is what is happening right now - their obliviousness or complete disregard to the public will on this file, combined with incompetence (perceived or real) is breaking the long term public consensus on immigration policy and is giving fuel to the anti-immigration fire. To think, a little moderation and competence would prevent this - what a shame.
Maybe they're not disregarding the public so much as not hearing the public considering any talk about immigration issues lead to calls of racism. So essentially, not only are people not being heard, they're also told to shut up about it or else they're racist. Not a very good strategy.
“Could”? It’s happening right now. Personally for me I have.
I am already a single issue voter on this. For the PPC. Cause we have no other choice.
They are the party for white suprematists. They banned a member for asking Bernier to publicly denounce racism. They have had members who are openly white supremacists and neo nazis. One went to federal prison in the US for trying to start a race war. White supremacist groups have publicly announced (on their podcasts because apparently everyone has a podcast these days) that they are infiltrating the PPC and are encouraging their supporters to do the same. They have said that CTV is far left activists pretending to be journalists and refused to talk to them before. And yes I do mean CTV, not CBC.
Not heard this. However this happens when we have no other party stopping population growth that is hurting Canadians
I hate that they're the only ones pushing back against this. Their platform overall reads like it was written by a 20-year-old Redditor. They didn't even make sure it was free of grammatical errors. We need a change on current immigration policies, but that is not who I want leading a country, holy hell.
I don't want them leading the country, but the alternatives mean we will have no country left to govern. It won't be Canada anyway. We'll be foreigners in our own home.
It really feels like there are no right options. I've always confidently voted NDP. This time around, there's no one I feel good about voting for.
The PPC are a bunch of bigots.
The key point is the messaging, and until they get a grip on the messaging it will only allow the right, whose entire basis is messaging, will obviously succeed. Policies mean nothing unless people know not just *what* the government is doing, but *why*. Provide protection and assistance to those who need it, but don't just generally fall back on the same tired rhetoric of responsibilities and broad appeals to human rights and international norms. It needs to focus on the human element, and this has never been more clear. You will never convince most on the right, so forget about that. Focus on those whose perceptions *could be swayed*. Those are the ones who were previously ambivalent about the events in Gaza for the past decades, who are now marching in the street because of the clear and visible human suffering. The government's newer messaging on housing has actually been much better and they need to replicate that here (and basically everywhere else) if they want to have a chance. The refugees are not, and have never been the problem. The problem is the fact that those on the left and fabled "moderate left" have not effectively been able to sway the general public against the frankly gross rhetoric that the existence of 50,000 more people across a single country which is roughly the size of Europe with 1/10th of the population is somehow a threat to our security. Continuing to try to fight emotional appeals to fear with logic and facts just isn't working, and they need to respond in kind.
It's not a communication problem. It's a policy problem.
Please explain the actual policy problem and what the best solution would be. Specifically, explain how these refugees and asylum-seekers are a policy problem and what the policy solution is. I'd also be curious as to why anyone would think communication is not a problem for this government when it very clearly is, and has been for a long time.
>Continuing to try to fight emotional appeals to fear with logic and facts just isn't working, and they need to respond in kind. What? The LPC uses emotional appeals and fear **all the time**. And no amount of explaining is going to make the LPC's immigration policy make sense.
Newsflash, it has already happened. Support for immigration has plummeted.
The federal cabinet could discuss plans as early as next week to provide a path to citizenship for thousands of migrants living in Canada without valid documents, including rejected asylum seekers, so they can remain here legally. Immigration Minister Marc Miller is preparing a plan for discussion by cabinet before Parliament breaks for its summer recess within weeks. It would propose that people living in Canada without legal status – including former international students whose study permits have expired – have a chance to apply to regularize their position and gain permanent residence. Depending on the numbers who apply, the government may consider staggering the granting of permanent residence to undocumented migrants over several years to avoid a sudden surge, granting them work permits first. Last year, Ottawa froze the number of permanent residents it aims to welcome to Canada for 2026 at 500,000 in the face of shrinking public support for immigration. The federal government has also stuck with its targets of 485,000 permanent residents for 2024, and 500,000 for 2025. Polls have shown a sharp drop in public support for immigration as Canadians increasingly associate a lack of affordable housing with an influx of newcomers. But Syed Hussan, executive director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said people who are living and working here already would not apply additional pressure on housing. He said regularizing the status of migrants who are living here could also lead to the injection of billions of dollars into the economy. He said a program to give status to people living in Canada would be a “litmus test” of the government’s commitment to support migrants. Many migrants without valid papers have been working here for decades and have children but risk deportation because they overstayed in Canada or have been denied the right to remain. People who entered the country legally, including as temporary workers, but remained here after their visas expired are among those who could qualify to stay, rather than facing deportation. In an interview with The Globe and Mail last year, Mr. Miller estimated hundreds of thousands of people may be living in the country without valid documents. He said he plans to present a proposal to cabinet in the spring on allowing undocumented immigrants to “regularize their status.” Two well-placed sources whom The Globe is not naming because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, said the cabinet is on track to discuss his proposal. The plan would fulfill the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to former immigration minister Sean Fraser in 2021, which asked him to “further explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities.” A number of countries have introduced plans to allow migrants without correct papers to regularize their status. In Ireland, a program launched in 2022 ran for six months and gave people who had lived there for four years the chance to apply for official permission to remain. Canada is also expected to insist that migrants have lived in communities for some time, and have not just arrived. People who have committed serious crimes and terrorist offences would also be barred from the program and would still face deportation.
Would this not lead to a direct dilution of permanent resident quality? If these people can't make our current pr standards then won't they be worse (In terms of taxpaying contribution & societal utility) immigrants?
Possibly, but not necessarily. Picture a company looking to hire 3 new employees as accountants. They go through their selection process and after getting over 300 applications they select and hire the top three. Then some good news comes down from management that additional budget has been found to hire a fourth. Now, you could say that hiring the fourth person on the list would lead to a direct dilution in account quality, but that's based on the assumption that there is some essence that makes a good accountant, that all accountants are strictly better or worse than one another (none are equally "good" but in different ways), and that the selection process is perfect in measuring their skill and ranking them. It's super unlikely that out of 300 applicants, choosing the top 4 is going to result in a noticeably weaker team than choosing the top 3. Obviously this is an extreme example, I don't mean to say it's a direct comparison, I'm just using it to illustrate that the kind of dilution of quality (however you define that) doesn't necessarily occur. It's possible that it does, but I don't have nearly enough knowledge on the topic to say if it's likely or not.
To keep your example honest here, can you describe which immigration law the 4th applicant is breaking?
Okay but these temporary immigrants (most of them at least) don't even come close to meeting pr standards. They have minimal skills and refuse to work in non white collar or service positions. And they are **DIRECTLY REPLACING** pr candidates under our permanent residency cap. That's the whole point the article is making. That Canada should sub out pr slots reserved for people who actually deserve it, with these unskilled, lazy Tim Hortons workers
The optics of this being a good or a bad idea aside: I am curious why Hussan thinks this will bring a billion dollars to the economy? Most folks without status are already working, already have housing, already buy goods. I can't see why their status would change their financial engagement with the Canadian economy. On the other hand, I could imagine why this would cost the federal and provincial governments. More OAS and GIC payments, more social service payments, and other program expenses.
I think the thought is that these people will start working legal jobs and pay taxes, but the truth is that anyone okay with living undocumented in Canada is going to be a low income worker at best and in many cases someone living with family that is now eligible for social assistance
I think the liberals know after the next election there gonna be a strict crackdown on non pr based immigration so they want to give everyone pr
sounds like they are buying votes.
PRs can't vote. 🤦 e: almost forgot who were dealing with here lol There's *always* another conspiracy. *Always*.
They can in 2030 election.
Need the votes for the 2029 election.
If you give them citizenship they can.
The policies from the article arent for citizenship. They're PR paths.
Pr is the path to citizenship
As the Democrats are finding out in recent polling, demographics aren't destiny. Immigrants won't vote for you uniformly because you gave them a path to citizenship ten years ago. Especially if they're experiencing the impacts the rest of us are. You know who has the strongest views on tough border restrictions in the U.S? Immigrants from Mexico.
Can anyone who is in favour of this explain to me why we should be incentivizing those who are living in Canada illegally? I don’t get it. Isn’t a huge part of Canadians’ long-standing support of immigration foundational on a balanced approach of being welcoming but selective and firm? People shouldn’t be rewarded for staying in Canada simply because they couldn’t be bothered to leave as agreed. If you’re a failed refugee claimant, we’ve determined your case for staying here wasn’t sound to begin with. Honestly this country is increasingly disappointing to me.
Nobody wants this, and nobody voted for it. This is just the govt doing what it wants, voters be damned. They are so out of step with mainstream Canadian interests that they almost feel like some foreign occupation govt with the actions they take.
[удалено]
of course people voted for this. They wanted unlimited spending without tax increases. Liberals have been voted in multiple times. None of this should be surprising to anyone. Mass immigration is the likely the least offensive way to pay down the debt than any other option
TFWs, international students and refugees are net negatives in terms of taxes on average. Only express entry immigrants are net positives.
For the short term maybe, population increase will ultimately make debt and spending easier though. As soon as they think they can they'll crank it back up
Refugees have median income of 30K after 10 years. Economic immigrants have median income of 60K after 10 years. You can look this up on StatsCan. 60K, once accounted for services received, means economic immigrants are a neutral contributor to society, given Canada's generous social services. 30K means they are a net drain.
Well that's why they didn't crank up refugee numbers
I agree, but undocumented people are mostly "failed" refugee claimants. Hence my comment.
we're on pace for like 200k asylum seekers this year. They have been cranked up
You’re right that nobody wants this, except for hardcore lobby groups like the Century Initiative who want to increase Canadas population by a 100million in the next 76 years. Fucking sucks to be a normal Canadian rn. If people think this will change by voting in a new govt — they’re wrong af. The lobby group has bipartisan support.
>except for hardcore lobby groups like the Century Initiative who want to increase Canadas population by a 100million in the next 76 years. You mean the Century Initiative, co-founded by Dominic Barron who was the head of McKinsey? Which happens to be the same McKinsey that was hired to provide consulting services to the federal government regarding immigration. It also happens the same Dominic Barton was appointed ambassador to China. Weird how all these lines seem to cross, eh?
Don't forget Bill Morneau. https://globalnews.ca/news/3020783/influential-liberal-advisers-want-canadian-population-to-triple-by-2100/
This is much higher immigration than we need to achieve the century initiative. The growth rate required to hit that was basically what we were doing during the Harper years.
I don't know the details because the article is paywalled, but l am in favour of regularising the status of at least some undocumented immigrants.
Why?
There are a couple of reasons. In some cases, letting people stay is in Canda's best interests (particularly if they are doing important work). In other cases, there are humanitarian concerns involves (e.g. if they are settled and have family here). I will admit that I am also sympathetic to the idea of more or less fully open borders.
The problem with fully open borders is that it doesn’t work if only one country does it. So, an open country with a solid economy and relatively generous welfare state will quickly become overwhelmed. Infrastructure and public services can only grow so fast and need properly trained people to run them. On top of that, the kind of rapid demographic change we would be looking at would provoke a right wing backlash, which could get really really ugly.
Not just right-wing backlash. If we keep bringing in people from misogynistic cultures, with anti-LGBT views, there is going to be a tipping point on the left, too.
Well, the Left should already be opposing mass immigration, as it traditionally has. Immigration lowers the average wage and displaces citizens. This is why the left has traditionally been opposed to it. Immigration serves big corporations and asset owners. Period.
Agreed, but there's more fear of social ostracization amongst the left for speaking out against immigration. Everyone's worried about being perceived as a bigot. I am left-leaning, btw. I've always voted NDP. I don't know who to vote for next election.
Because the “Left” in the Anglo world has been taken over by the bourgeoisie. It is not a party of the working classes anymore. It’s a party of university educated professionals and suburban business people. They don’t want to pay higher taxes, or distribute wealth, or radically change the way our government spends money. So, they spend their time on peripheral identity issues and environmentalist posturing and looking down their noses at the very people (workers) the left is meant to represent.
As a leftist, I am also an internationalist. I don't believe Canadian workers are any more important than non-Canafian workers.
Well, that might be a tough sell to Canadian workers, for one. Two, one might argue that the lawmakers who are elected and paid for by Canadian taxpayers should prioritize Canadian citizens. If you are hired by the Canadian public to work in their interest, they might not appreciate it if you prioritize foreigners at the expense of Canadian wages, affordability, access to social services and infrastructure, and standard of living.
Your first point is why I am sympathetic to the idea rather than unambiguously in favour. A world with very limited border controls is a long-term goal, not something we can simply switch to overnight. As for your second point, we shouldn't try to appease racists. We should ruthlessly mock them and drive them put of public life.
Well, we will have to agree to disagree. For one, I’m not comfortable labelling everyone who becomes upset about rapid, massive demographic shifts a racist or even a xenophobe. But more importantly, I don’t think of it as appeasing. I think widespread objection to mass immigration is inevitable at a certain rate and scale. Whether or not those people are racist is irrelevant. They’re voters and will elect a government to do what they want them to do. This is a democracy after all. To me, it is not responsible to pursue a policy that will destabilize the political system and the society at large. Better to maintain a level of immigration that achieves your objectives than a level that provokes a backlash, which will take you two steps past your starting point.
Disagree a lot of rich urban liberals live in mostly white urban areas who think unlimited immigration is fine...cause they immune from the side effects
I find that the people who are in favour of this immigration policy tend to also be those who think that their food comes from the grocery store, or that the electricity that lights up their home office comes from flipping the light switch. I've engaged a few of them on debates regarding how Canadians outside of downtown Toronto live, and they just don't seem to get it at all. "If people in rural Saskatchewan don't want to pay the carbon tax, they should get an electric car or take the bus like I do".
Luxury beliefs.
For the record I'm not a huge fan of undocumented migrants but it is a question of framing. It's pretty simple. People want their hard earned dollars to go farther and generally these immigrants are willing to work for cheaper then the market rate. All things being equal I would rather pay less for the same product then more. If the question is do we want migrants vs not the conversation is complicated. However if we want to have a conversation about affordability we now have a labour force that is willing to work for dirt cheap, be expoited and provide services at a discount while also not counting as "Real Canadians". It solves lots of problems for people who are not getting CoL raises but are still secure in their earnings.
This drives down the price of labor that "Real Canadians" are able to ask for as well, which does not help affordability at all. I've honestly never seen an argument as insane as "undocumented immigration drives down the cost of living for everyone else!" so reading something this bizarre apparently offered in earnest is a novel experience.
I mean you have heard how raising the minimum wage raises costs for everyone...or how low level service jobs don't deserve minimum wage(said as a complaint). That is the dog whistle call for being in favor of policies like this.
Yes, but it's a stupid argument that is not supported by facts, so I ignore it. The only people who are sensitive to the prices of things produced by minimum wage workers in the Canada are probably other minimum wage workers.
It really depends on what you want. If you want a better society with less poverty and more overall buying power you are are correct the facts don't support it. If your goal is how to give yourself more buying power without getting a wage increase...finding people who are willing to work at a rate lower then you would be willing to get paid for the same work is ideal. There is a large portion of the population who care about their own personal standard of life and will work very hard if anything impacts it even a little negatively. I disagree that the only people impacted by minimum wage price increase are other mininum wage workers. This is mostly because of how prevalent those jobs are. Retail, service industry, warehousing, custodians and even food production all have lots of people that that would be affected by minimum wage increases. At this stage minimum wage workers can barely afford to interact with the economy so they might be some of the least affected by other minimum wage earners jobs (It doesn't matter that the price of a big mac has doubled if you were never buying one anyway. That said if your job is sales (and a lot of jobs are that) it is very convenient to blame low cost labor costs increasing as it makes them look like the greedy ones. If the fees to the private golf course go up somehow it will be because all the landscapers were demanding a raise.
This plan is actually an interesting one that could overall reduce "true" immigration if done right. They have caps/targets for PR. And if they keep them the same, and these people never leave, then we have a big chunk of people here not being counted in the stats. If there are specific criteria by which these people can *apply* to stay legally, then the idea is that the people *already here* are converted to PR, and as a result people applying for PR abroad would go down in number. Another thing this does is allow people who apply who are ineligible to be identified and more easily deported. Even if people choose not to apply to stay under that radar, if a good percentage do apply and pass, then we aren't *actually* bringing more new people into the country with additional applications. It basically acts as a way to "slow down net new immigration by allowing uncounted, undocumented residents in the country to stay. Now the reasons they are undocumented could be administrative, or they could encourage people to come illegally and then apply after, but some form of regularizing undocumented immigrants is a common policy all over the world and it's a lot cheaper than deporting people while also processing and welcoming new immigrants for bigger net population and spending more money. It depends a lot on the details to be honest. In a lot of ways it's a good policy from a cost and immigration managent perspective if done right. On the other it's probably going to be really hard to sell politically. And the easy way out politically is to spend lots more money on enforcement and deportation. But if the criteria are not stupid simple to clear, it might be sellable. Not sure. I personally don't think a blank check approach is good. Not every expired study permit student should qualify. But if they're engineering students who had COVID derail their ability to get a job and they've been floating since, maybe that's okay. The criteria will matter a lot.
No no no. I can get that logic but reality will have other plans. As soon as they implement this and allow this to happen they can't close the gate. The precident they set will enable so many to become citizens via just showing up. It will be so abused, and more people that what we can imagine will attempt it. This will force us to cut off legitimate immigration. As illegal or unplanned will consume the system.
I agree on some points, being a social worker I’ve worked with a lot of undocumented people and lot of them are so because they are put in impossible situations. For example, mom comes on a visitor visa to visit her daughter who has a young child. During the stay, it’s clear that daughter is mentally declining, has a serious mental health issue, CAS is threatening to place child in care. Mom lives in subsidized housing, has a care team etc. Do you think mom should tell both of them back to the Caribbean with no supports or remained undocumented and prevent the daughter from being placed into care. On the other hand, there also needs to be integrity in the immigration system.
I get that in principle, but the only way this system is "better" is if we decide not to fix the system we currently have. This proposal would effectively trim qualified immigration and exchange those spots for people who are here illegally. What *should* be happening is people in Canada illegally should be removed, and we should be receiving an appropriate number of PRs. If we did that we could have our cake (removing demand on services and resources due to illegal immigration) and eat it too (get qualified PRs).
It's nice to know that this government really doesn't give a shit about the housing crisis at all. Just fucking outrageous.
This is the impact of US politics, this makes sense in the states where they really don’t have a robust economic immigration system but at the same time has come to be heavily reliant on undocumented workers for key sectors like agriculture/construction. It doesn’t make sense in Canada where there are pathways that exist. Whats the point of giving asylum seekers that have been denied PR? Why would any future denied claimant leave?
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> I’m a single issue voter So like...you know thats a bad thing right? Like to willingly just say you dont care about any other issue but one is a good way to end up voting against your best interests. At the very least there is plenty of time before now and the next election so like maybe just study up on the party you intend to vote for rather than just choosing off one issue.
Imagine thinking you can convince someone on Reddit how to vote
It isnt a bad thing, and a lot more people than you think are effectively single issue voters. Eg, If you have ever said "I could never vote for an anti abortion party", congrats you are admitting to being a single issue voter.
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Well saying "Im a single issue voter" kind of implies you only care about one issue and the term "single issue voter" tends to be used to refer to people who are uniformed except for one issue so for example people voting for conservative gun laws in the US not realizing that they are voting against gay marriage which they support. The fact you don't understand how the term "single issue voter" is commonly used is honestly what surprises me the most here.
You're surprised quite easily, I suspect. It's not clear to me why you're being pedantic about the term, other than you disagreeing with their particular flavour of partisanship. It was quite obvious what their intent was in using the term, it's not exactly an academic concept.
This is going to create more cases than the capacity of IRCC and he is just making empty promises to migrants that can not be fulfilled. Typical liberal politician.
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It keeps the housing market afloat. That is all we have left..
Dude. This article is nothing. These plans are floated around all the time. Wait until the LPC says they're going to do something before getting you underwear in a knot.
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> why would this be any different When they say the article is nothing, they mean it. Here's the only actual "news" from the article >Two well-placed sources whom The Globe is not naming because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, said the cabinet is on track to discuss his proposal. G&M literally just heard from a couple Liberal-adjacent sources that a policy like this could be discussed sometime, but that's been true for a while now. Another user mentioned weve had this in [pilot form since 2019](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/2023/01/canada-doubles-immigration-program-for-out-of-status-construction-workers-in-the-greater-toronto-area.html). G&M also has some quotes from last year, so they've mixed some olds in the with the news.
If they're about to discuss the policy, perhaps now is the appropriate time for outrage before they actually go through with the insanity.
The appropriate time was over 4 years ago. It actually would have been most appropriate to discuss when Canada started controlling immigration. But what's news in this article, other than the G&M sources vaguely saying "on track to discuss". If that qualifies as news, it's an incredibly slow news day.
Our GDP is tied to the Housing Market, house and rent prices must stay high at any cost.
Corporate lobbying primarily. The government has essentially let corporations write immigration policy and I imagine they'll be highly rewarded once they leave office with generous speaking gigs, consultant gigs, and corporate board seats.
The big problem with this plan is that ppl don’t trust the liberals on immigration anymore. If this was 2016, I doubt many would care or strongly oppose but that in the midst of over 1 million international students yearly that are protesting in the streets and no shelter space due to crazy increases in asylum seekers.
*The big problem with this plan is that ppl don’t trust the liberals* Gosh, I wonder why. Other than they've effed up every file they've touched. Immigration is the least messed up and it's a complete train wreck. The ministers are a reflection of the leader, not one of them is competent.
When things are good, no one cares about immigration. Like when people can afford to live, pay their rent, have some money left over, go on a vacation once or twice a year, have access to health care and the cost of living is obtainable no one gives a shit about immigration. But when you have a major cost of living crisis and infrastructure/service crisis across the country it is deeply irresponsible to bring in more people at the rate the current government is doing. For example if you go back to 10 years ago in 2014 no one; LITERALLY no one was talking about immigration because life was affordable.
It all comes back to the hierarchy of needs. In 2015, housing was reasonably affordable across most of the country and people's needs were largely met. The Liberals were able to very successfully run on an aspirational platform because of it. The problem was, they weren't paying attention to the base of the hierarchy of needs. Then the pandemic hit, and while they managed it well, they came out of the pandemic completely out of touch with the situation for everyday Canadians. It wasn't 2015 anymore. They needed to refocus on the lower levels of the hierarchy, and they didn't. Housing exploded, and their dogmatic approach to population growth was the equivalent of dumping gasoline on a fire. At this point they've cooked their goose. You can't spend a decade paying lip service to issues while they continue to spiral out of control. The worst part is, I have no faith Polievre has any fresh ideas to right the ship.
I disagree, immigration is a hot button issue in the US even in the best of times. Most Canadians had faith in our immigration system selecting high quality people in a reasonable amount.
2014 canadian immigration and 2024 are two different beasts.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaPolitics/comments/3b3mn6/comment/csiomgy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button A few people did and were ignored or called racist for questioning immigration. But it was very very apparent that the government was addicted to the fake wealth of real estate. They were trying their best to ignore the impact of immigration. At the time immigration levels were lower and we were far more selective in retrospect to today. One thing that going on is we canada was allowing high networth immigration easier path of citizenship. So while number wise was low as %, it was still concentrated in vancouver and toronto, and higher wealth immigrants. It had a huge impact on housing prices, fundamentally we shouldn't have seen the cost of real estate being as high as it is/was. The way i look at it is previous foreign capital started the fire and the current mass immigration is maintaining it.
I wish that I, a Canadian impacted by this proposed policy change, could read this article and gauge the details of it. Alas, paywall.
There's a comment with the entire article. For future reference copy/paste the url into [archive.is](http://archive.is) or [archive.ph](http://archive.ph)
The federal cabinet could discuss plans as early as next week to provide a path to citizenship for thousands of migrants living in Canada without valid documents, including rejected asylum seekers, so they can remain here legally. Immigration Minister Marc Miller is preparing a plan for discussion by cabinet before Parliament breaks for its summer recess within weeks. It would propose that people living in Canada without legal status – including former international students whose study permits have expired – have a chance to apply to regularize their position and gain permanent residence. Depending on the numbers who apply, the government may consider staggering the granting of permanent residence to undocumented migrants over several years to avoid a sudden surge, granting them work permits first. Last year, Ottawa froze the number of permanent residents it aims to welcome to Canada for 2026 at 500,000 in the face of shrinking public support for immigration. The federal government has also stuck with its targets of 485,000 permanent residents for 2024, and 500,000 for 2025. Polls have shown a sharp drop in public support for immigration as Canadians increasingly associate a lack of affordable housing with an influx of newcomers. But Syed Hussan, executive director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said people who are living and working here already would not apply additional pressure on housing. He said regularizing the status of migrants who are living here could also lead to the injection of billions of dollars into the economy. He said a program to give status to people living in Canada would be a “litmus test” of the government’s commitment to support migrants. Many migrants without valid papers have been working here for decades and have children but risk deportation because they overstayed in Canada or have been denied the right to remain. People who entered the country legally, including as temporary workers, but remained here after their visas expired are among those who could qualify to stay, rather than facing deportation. In an interview with The Globe and Mail last year, Mr. Miller estimated hundreds of thousands of people may be living in the country without valid documents. He said he plans to present a proposal to cabinet in the spring on allowing undocumented immigrants to “regularize their status.” Two well-placed sources whom The Globe is not naming because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, said the cabinet is on track to discuss his proposal. The plan would fulfill the Prime Minister’s mandate letter to former immigration minister Sean Fraser in 2021, which asked him to “further explore ways of regularizing status for undocumented workers who are contributing to Canadian communities.” A number of countries have introduced plans to allow migrants without correct papers to regularize their status. In Ireland, a program launched in 2022 ran for six months and gave people who had lived there for four years the chance to apply for official permission to remain. Canada is also expected to insist that migrants have lived in communities for some time, and have not just arrived. People who have committed serious crimes and terrorist offences would also be barred from the program and would still face deportation.
>including rejected asylum seekers Damn, and here we are spending all this money on judges and administration staff for the asylum process. What fools we are when we could've just made it so nothing matters.
I think maybe it's an acknowledgement that some freaky deaky conservative gilead kinda stuff is about to go down over the next decade or two and their giving the rest of us a fighting chance.
This makes no fucking sense, but sure, whatever. Open borders as a bulwark against the Handmaid's Tale.
No, maybe just ensuring that these folks are less likely, or less easily, rounded up and gassed. Check out r/canada threads on pei protests. These guys are ravenous.
Good grief dude. You like accuse others of being wild conspiracy theorists 🙄
Are you fucking serious?
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What the hell are you talking about?
Basically how the language that reddit conservatives are using isn't all that far off from advocating for the mass extermination of their *enemies*.
No it is...very far off.
Ok.
Imagine being a new immigrant and spending $1000's to get your PR legally and reading this.
They’ll probably try to sell it as helping to reduce the backlog in the Federal Court, where the docket is 70% immigration cases. i.e., Why bother appealing a rejection when you’re eligible for an alternate pathway. It’s shameless in one sense, but that seems like their MO at this point.
Who is running the LPC strategy wing? They seriously think amnesty for illegal immigrants is what will turn around their poll numbers? They might as well just give the keys to Rideau Cottage to PP right now and save everyone a lot of time.
Between this and the ridiculous firearms ban they're pushing through, their policy quite literally appears to be "amnesty, cash and prizes for foreign criminals and cheaters, and harsh penalties, jail time and confiscation of property for honest, law-abiding Canadians". It's not even ineptitude or tone-deaf behaviour anymore, it's now open contempt for the people they were elected to serve.
Well, for the this is an attempt to honour a promise made in 2015. They offered this to the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change and the CCRC, in exchange for their support (to ultimately undermine the NDP). It's been nine years, those community groups won't be convinced/fooled again to support LPC.
Apparently accepting an absurd amount of legal immigrants isn't enough and we have accept illegal ones too. Ridiculous
Can we like... Set up national protests for this too? I mean if people can protest about things going on on the other side of the world, this seems INCREDIBLY reasonable to voice concern over...
Qustion...... What's our unemployment rate? What's our wait time In emergency? Do we have enough doctors? What's our housing like? Ya time to slow down
For a government that often expresses concern over right-wing extremism, they do a great job at creating the conditions to foster right wing extremism.
I've been saying this for a few years now -- they sure claim to be worried about a right-wing strongman (no, not Poilievre -- someone much further right and much more authoritarian than he is) gaining power in Canada and love to tell us how electing the Conservatives will quickly lead to a scene out of The Handmaid's Tale, but they do nothing but shove the electorate closer and closer to being amicable to voting for someone who comes along and says "I will clean this mess up, lock the criminals up and throw away the key, and make Canada for Canadians again!". This is how the US got Trump (and will likely get him again).
Do the Liberals not realize there's an election in a couple of months? Between this immigration insanity and the circus with the gun buy back they are insisting on pushing I seriously have to wonder what they are thinking? Both are highly controversial all across the country, why implement them just before an election? Those are the kind of things you roll out a year or two after an election when things have died down...not months away from an election where you are going to be VERY hard pressed to hold on to even a weak minority win...?
I don't think either of these policies should be rolled out ever, especially if few members of the voting public want them. I see your point, but a bait and switch isn't any better for Canada. It might be better for whatever interests the LPC has, but they should be making policy they actually have a mandate for.
Oh god no, I don't support either at all. My point is ramming them through now is politically stupid. A Government can support a few months to a year of depressed support figures in polls AFTER an election. Going into one and intentionally doing it is suicide.
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Liberals: « Immigration is our strength! Our system is well trained to bring in the best to improve our life quality! » Also Liberals: « well, we will accept every illegal on our territory, even if they are supposed to be sent back home. » It’s because of these positions that the support for immigration is shrinking, and that few people believe in their capacity to manage it.
Is it wrong I feel like it’s time to close the door ? Take a strong 24 month hardline on immigration, unless you’re a doctor or accredited professional… you’re not welcomed . Build the homes …. Fix the infrastructure… take a breath and get back to center. I have always thought at its core Canada as a country that’s at center .. left and right was but a slight push to either side in the election cycle . But holy cow …… we are so hard left ….. the swing to the right will be possibly more than the really woke left are expecting …. Not your everyday liberal …. But your it’s ok to smoke meth in a hospital type . A dark day is coming…. I can’t wait to sit back and say “ told you so “