Immigration Watch International (2): Canada slams the brakes on immigration levels

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Canada slams the brakes on immigration levels

Canada is to sharply slow the number of immigrants the country will allow to arrive, leading to a decline in the population for 2025 and 2026.

The aggressive intake of immigrants positioned Canada as having the fastest population growth among Group of Seven countries by a significant margin, and officials acknowledge newcomers helped fuel a strong economic recovery following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The influx of newcomers, though, placed considerable strain on housing affordability, infrastructure and social services, and officials say it’s time to slow down.

“We didn’t get the balance quite right,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who’s struggling in the polls and faces re-election in a year, or maybe sooner.

Two polls released last week indicated that a majority of Canadians believed the country was admitting too many newcomers.

Officials said with its new plan, they expect the population to decline marginally, by 0.2 per cent in both 2025 and 2026, a dramatic slowdown from the current 3 per cent-plus year-on-year pace.

Mr Trudeau and Immigration Minister Marc Miller said the number of permanent residents, or immigrants legally allowed to work and live in the country without a visa, would be reduced by about 20 per cent in 2025 from previously planned levels, to 395,000, and dwindle further to 365,000 starting in 2027.

Furthermore, Canadian officials will work to reduce the number of temporary immigrants in the country, either on work or student visas, by about 500,000 next year and 2026.

Mr Miller previously said the government would reduce the share of temporary-visa holders to a 5 per cent share of the population over a multi-year period. Current data indicates temporary-visa holders make up over 7 per cent of the Canadian population, which is now above 41 million.

“It is a responsible plan to grow immigration, while the net effect is a pause on the population growth,” Mr Miller said.

Curtailing the intake of immigrants marks one of the biggest policy sea-changes from the Liberal governments. Since coming to power in 2015, Liberal administration officials have advocated for an aggressive immigration policy, and lauded how the country is better than its developed-world peers in welcoming newcomers and incorporating them into the economy.

Economists and policy analysts argue Canada would find itself in a recession were it not for population growth.

The new immigration plan will have immediate ramifications on the economy, analysts say. The Bank of Canada’s latest economic forecast, released this week, anticipates growth of 2.1 per cent next year on the assumption population growth would slow in 2025 to 1.5 per cent. Canadian officials now say the population will shrink. The Bank of Canada cut its policy rate by a half-point on Wednesday, to 3.75 per cent, citing slowing inflation and soft economic conditions.

Economist Derek Holt of Bank of Nova Scotia said the government’s new immigration plan should lead to a drop in the unemployment rate and Canada’s potential output. As a result, the amount of excess supply, or spare capacity, in the economy could disappear faster than the Bank of Canada projects.

“The Bank of Canada will wish to tread carefully,” Mr Holt said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/canada-slams-the-brakes-on-immigration-levels/news-story/b0cbd6fbe66968a770adf897954be46f

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.

The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:

1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Canada slams the brakes on immigration levels

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