For decades, Canada won a deserved reputation as a country with a sensible immigration policy that brought in large numbers of workers, entrepreneurs and innovators. Yet Canada’s current immigration policies do not align with the country’s economic reality or popular opinion.
Almost three-quarters of Canadians, according to a Leger survey, think Canada’s system is “too generous.” It’s not just Conservatives who feel that way: a majority of Liberals, and even roughly half of NDP voters, also are opposed to the current system. Three-quarters of Canadians also think immigrants are putting pressure on housing prices and having a negative impact on health care and schools.
What went wrong? Like many other western countries, Canada has shifted away from an emphasis on people with useful skills to what boils down to something of an open border. I was first made aware of this a decade ago by a former Montreal refugee board judge who was alarmed at the growing lack of scrutiny given to newcomers by gullible, politically motivated officials.
Last year, Canada took in over a million migrants, including those in the country on temporary work and student visas, which is an enormous number for a country of around 40 million. It’s no surprise, then, that nearly two-thirds of Canadians lack confidence in the screening process.
Similar pushback is increasingly common throughout the West. In the United States, a serious debate over immigration has been stymied by Donald Trump’s repeated exaggerations. Yet overall, American attitudes about immigration have hardened.
According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who wish to reduce immigration has soared to 55 per cent, from 35 per cent in 2012. Roughly 60 per cent of Americans and a majority of Latinos support mass deportations.
Even diehard progressives like the ever malleable Kamala Harris, long an advocate of ultra-liberal immigration policies, has started talking about finishing Donald Trump’s border wall, something she previously denounced ferociously.
Read the rest of this piece at National Post.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: Canada Customs officer preparing immigration papers, by Dave Sideway, Postmedia Files.
Email this Story
