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TOP STORY
On Sunday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially announced that he was reducing permanent immigration into Canada by 20 per cent. Under the new plan, Canada will now bring in 365,000 newcomers by 2027.
This is a marked turnaround for a prime minister who has just finished overseeing the most dramatic immigration intake in Canadian history. In just two years – 2022 and 2023 – the federal government has overseen an influx of 2.3 million newcomers, with another 240,000 arriving in just the first quarter of 2024. That’s the equivalent of adding the entire population of Metro Vancouver in just 27 months.
By virtually any measure, this has exacerbated Canada’s existing health care and housing shortages, with some food banks now reporting that up to 80 per cent of their clientele are recent immigrants. Which is probably why pro-immigration sentiment in Canada has now plummeted to lows not seen since the 1990s. A report last month by the Environics Institute found that 58 per cent of Canadians now believe the country is taking in too many people.
The reaction of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to the immigration cut was a social media post reading “the great irony of Trudeau’s video attacking his own immigration policies is that if anyone else had said the same thing 2 years ago, he would have called them racist.”
And Poilievre has a point. Below is a cursory list of times that Trudeau – and members of his cabinet – have slammed people as xenophobes for questioning immigration policy.
‘This intolerance towards immigrants has no place in Canada’
In 2018, Canada was just at the beginning of an unprecedented influx of illegal border crossers that hasn’t really subsided.
In 2018 alone, 20,598 would illegally cross the border in order to claim asylum – most of the crossings happening at a ditch on the Quebec/New York border known as Roxham Road. It’s why, in March 2018, the Quebec government officially asked the Trudeau government for $146 million to cover the cost of all the arrivals.
While Trudeau was speaking at a Quebec rally in August 2018, a heckler cited the number, telling him in French, “I want to know when you’re going to give us $146 million for your illegal immigrants. It’s we who have paid for them.”
In response, Trudeau said “this intolerance towards immigrants has no place in Canada.” And when referencing the exchange at a later event, Trudeau said, “I will not flinch from highlighting when the politics of division, of fear, of spreading misinformation is actually harming the fabric of this country.”
‘It’s not Canadian, and it’s very dangerous’
About the same time as Quebec was calling in a $146-million reimbursement for illegal border crossers claiming asylum, the Ontario government claimed that their bill was closer to $174 million.
This was raised at a July 2018 meeting between Lisa MacLeod, then the Ontario minister responsible for immigration, and Ahmed Hussen, who was then the federal minister of immigration. MacLeod also said that all the illegal crossings constituted “queue jumping” around Canada’s legal immigration system.
At a press conference following the meeting, Hussen said there was “no such thing” as queue jumping, and that claiming otherwise was “divisive,” “fearmongering,” “not Canadian” and “very dangerous.”
‘We all know immigration creates jobs and prosperity’
In Trudeau’s video announcing cuts to immigration, he says he should have done it sooner. “As a federal team, we could have acted quicker, and turned off the taps faster,” he said.
This contrasts sharply with a House of Commons statement from last November. At the time, many of the most conspicuous consequences of the immigration surge were already obvious, particularly in the realm of rent and housing prices. “Immigration is excessive full stop,” was the view of one Scotiabank economist at the time.
And yet, it only took a question about rising rents from Poilievre for Trudeau to imply that the Conservative leader was anti-immigrant. “I am certain the leader of the opposition was not about to suggest he was anti-immigration, because we all know immigration creates jobs and prosperity, and that is what we are all for,” he said.
Trudeau would have a similar response in January when Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet asked why immigration rates were rising without provincial consultation. “Immigration is essential for Quebec and for Canada … our immigration levels are based on our capacity to welcome and integrate newcomers,” replied Trudeau.
‘Tired of people always blaming immigrants for absolutely everything’
In June, Quebec Premier François Legault said “100 per cent of the housing problem” was due to unsustainably high immigration.
When asked about the comments outside a cabinet meeting, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he was “quite tired of the fact that people are always blaming immigrants for absolutely everything.” He added, “the increase in mortgages, in mortgage prices, has nothing to do with immigrants.”
Miller’s view would be slightly different in a similarly off-the-cuff comment from last month, in which he seemed to say that people could blame immigrants for some things. “It is easy to blame immigrants for everything. It’s also undeniable that the volume of migration has contributed to affordability (issues),” he said.
Cutting immigration is not “the solution to our housing challenges”
On June 16, 2023, Canada’s population officially passed 40 million for the first time, according to Statistics Canada estimates. This was up from the 38,005,238 recorded at the same time just three years prior.
In the House of Commons, Poilievre noted that homebuilding was down 19 per cent before asking “where are we going to put everyone?”
Then immigration minister Sean Fraser (who was shortly to be appointed housing minister), replied “I think it is very important that we do not start to believe that the solution to our housing challenges is to close the door to more newcomers.”
“I think that all members of the House, hopefully, support continuing to integrate newcomers into our society,” he added.
IN OTHER NEWS
One unexpected consequence of the Trudeau government announcing plans to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in Canada is that it could potentially incur sanctions from the United States. This week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would honour an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Netanyahu. The United States had a very different reaction. U.S. President Joe Biden called the warrant “outrageous.” And U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said he would be tabling legislation to punish any country that complies with the ICC order. “Any nation or organization that aids or abets this outrage should expect to meet firm resistance from the United States,” he said.
The above is a third-hand account, but Lawrence Martin is one of the country’s leading Jean Chrétien, experts, having written a two-volume biography of the man. Anyways, according to a friend of Lawrence Martin, the former prime minister (who never lost an election) is saying that Justin Trudeau is “toast” in the next election.
The Liberals may have hoped that the election of Donald Trump in the United States would provide some boost to their popularity. Trump remains broadly unpopular in Canada, and the thinking was that his victory would steer voters away from right-wing politicians generally. But that doesn’t appear to have happened. The first Abacus Data poll conducted since the U.S. election shows the Conservatives polling higher than the Liberals and NDP combined (43 per cent versus a 21 per cent tie).
Heart of Oak is the Royal Canadian Navy’s official march (the lyrics above excerpted from a Royal Canadian Sea Cadets songbook). The navy has recently signalled an intention to abandon the 1760 march because it contains references to colonialism and slavery. “‘Heart of Oak’ contains language that does not align with values and ethos of today’s Royal Canadian Navy or the broader Canadian Armed Forces,” reads a statement by the Department of National Defence.
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