New Canadian student immigration rules hit marriages in Punjab. ‘IELTS weddings’ had become a new route to Canada in Punjab where 9.51% of Punjabis migrated abroad on a spousal visa. : CanadaHousing2
New Canadian immigration rules hit marriages in Punjab - "It is commonplace for families to place matrimonial advertisements seeking IELTS-passed girls, with the groom’s family covering the wedding expenses, sending the girl to Canada, and bearing the financial burden—often exceeding 25 lakhs. Jagseer Singh Jhumba from Jhumba village in Bathinda highlighted this trend, stating, “It was a gateway to enter Canada.”"
Transactional marriages help fuel surging Punjab exodus to Canada: study - "In their eagerness to gain a foothold in Canada, some residents of the Indian state of Punjab and elsewhere have gone to unusual lengths — including transactional marriages... the English-exam marriages are just one symptom of a surging migration to Canada and other developed nations that a new Indian study warns could wreak social and financial havoc on Punjab. The state has a unique connection to Canada as homeland of the Sikh people, who make up about half the Canadians of Indian origin — close to 800,000 individuals. A full 73 per cent of foreign migration from rural Punjab occurred in just the last seven years, suggests a new study from the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), details of which were provided to the National Post. By far the largest chunk of those people — 42 per cent — ended up in Canada. Most of the migrants who came here were on student visas, their goal in most cases to eventually gain permanent-resident status. The “sharp increase” in migration from the state risks having a major financial impact, with families spending as much as four times their average yearly income to send a child to school in Canada, the survey of hundreds of families concluded. The exodus is also undermining the region’s social fabric, the study suggested, with many family elders reporting unusual levels of depression and loneliness as their young travel overseas... With fewer and fewer young people to look after the elderly, Punjab may even need what has traditionally been unheard-of in Indian culture: old-age homes"
As a Chinese immigrant, I couldn't make a life for myself in Canada—so I went back home - "Halifax had turned into a different city than the one I’d left behind. Between 2016 and 2021, Halifax’s population grew 9.1 per cent. Through immigration and interprovincial migration, the city added about 36,000 new people. There was more traffic, and people were angry on the road. Halifax was no longer the cozy, friendly place I remembered. My friends shared stories about people breaking into their cars, especially if they were parked on the street. Even in some underground parking garages of apartment buildings, people would sneak in and smash the windows of every car just to see if there was anything valuable inside. The cost of living in Halifax was definitely part of the problem. I considered buying a new condo townhouse in Halifax. The prices were around $450,000 a few years ago, but they’ve doubled to almost $900,000. By this point, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment, paying $1,670 a month—a relatively cheap rate. Even then, 70 per cent of my salary was going toward my rent and utilities bills. I still needed my parents to send me money every month to make ends meet... The homelessness issue in Halifax was also getting worse. It’s heartbreaking. I’d never seen people living in the park before. The park near my apartment building was full of tents. It seemed like there were unhoused people in every corner and empty field."
Damn racism and xenophobia!
Why lack of ‘Canadian experience’ is a barrier for immigrants in the job market - "only one-quarter of internationally trained immigrants in Ontario were employed in the regulated professions for which they trained or studied... Claire Fan, an economist at the Royal Bank of Canada, said Canada is massively underutilizing its current immigrant workforce. An RBC report released in September, which Fan authored, said 30 per cent of immigrants to Canada with a degree in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine or optometry worked in unrelated fields, compared with just 4.5 per cent of non-immigrants also educated in these fields. For immigrants with foreign credentials and degrees, the barriers to entry are high, including for those who have trained in specialties like medicine abroad."
Globe editorial: Ottawa’s inaction is fraying the consensus on immigration - The Globe and Mail - "It’s a stunning, yet entirely predictable, turnaround in public opinion. Less than a year ago, polling by Nanos Research showed 61 per cent of Canadians thought that immigration levels should either be increased or stay the same, in keeping with a decades-old consensus that welcomes newcomers to this country. Public opinion has inverted, according to Nanos. In December, 61 per cent of Canadians said immigration levels should be reduced, with just 34 per cent still believing that Canada should maintain or increase the number of newcomers. There is scant precedent for such a volte-face in public opinion. When asked, Nanos chairman Nik Nanos pointed to the free-trade debate of the 1980s, when widespread opposition morphed into solid support. That switch happened because of political leadership. The reverse on immigration has resulted from a lack. For years, the Liberals chose to ignore the obvious contradiction of boosting immigration numbers amid a housing shortage that has sent home prices and rents soaring. It’s not as if the government wasn’t warned... So far on immigration, there have only been the most tentative of measures: no boost to permanent immigration targets in 2026, following years of increases; and a doubling of the amount of financial resources that international students must have before entering the country. The Liberals have to date been unwilling to make the bigger reforms needed to roll back the sharp rise in the number of temporary workers and international students... The top reason for wanting immigration levels ratcheted down is the housing crisis, with nearly a third of respondents citing a lack of housing. A lack of social infrastructure is a close second. That indicates Canadians have practical concerns about the current pace of immigration, not ideological opposition. But that forbearance is not a given... the federal government should eliminate the ability of international students to work off-campus. At a stroke, that would eliminate the incentives to issue dodgy diplomas from strip malls and restore the program to its proper function. Similarly, the temporary foreign worker program needs to radically downsized and limited to sectors that have critical labour needs, such as agriculture. Businesses should not be subsidized through the import of cheap labour, particularly when the mobility rights of those workers are curtailed."
Canada's rapidly fraying social cohesion - "a Postmedia-commissioned Leger poll asked Canadians specifically about what the Israel-Hamas conflict was doing to the country’s social fabric. A majority (51 per cent) agree that Canadian society was not doing enough to instill newcomers with values “of tolerance of other faiths, races, and orientations.” A slightly larger majority (55 per cent) said the “best way” for Canada to deal with new immigrants was to encourage them to leave behind whatever cultural identity was “incompatible” with Canada’s “values and traditions.” Above all, respondents of every age, ethnicity and political orientation expressed skepticism in the maxim “diversity is our strength.” Only 26 per cent said diversity was “definitely a strength”; roughly the same proportion (21 per cent) who said it was “often causing problems.” The majority (56 per cent) took a mixed view; diversity “can” provide strength, but it can also introduce conflict. Probably the most visible rift that’s emerged as a result of the last three months is that mainstream views of Canadian Muslims – which were generally trending upwards – have suddenly dropped off a cliff. The Angus Reid Institute will regularly ask Canadians whether they think select mainstream religions are “benefitting or damaging” Canadian society. When they asked in 2022, 29 per cent gave the “damaging” label to Islam; not a great showing, but about the same proportion that respondents gave to Catholicism (31 per cent). When pollsters asked again in 2023, just a few weeks after the events of Oct. 7, the sentiments on all the other major religions mostly remained unchanged. But the number of respondents calling Islam a “damaging” force for Canada had spiked to 43 per cent; more than triple the number (13 per cent) who called the faith a net benefit."
Opinion: An immigration system that’s lowering national wealth? Yes, the Liberals did that - The Globe and Mail - "Canadian immigration used to be a model for the world. It was built around the selectivity of the points system. Most immigrants were selected for above-average education and skills; the target was immigrants who were more educated and would earn higher wages than the average Canadian. That would tend to boost GDP per capita. Everyone wins. What’s replaced it is a system dedicated to facilitating the arrival, through the temporary visa stream, of essentially unlimited numbers of low-skill workers, to fill low-wage jobs. Even now, when unemployment is rising. If that’s what the Liberals really want, so be it. But choices have consequences. An immigration system aiming for high numbers of low-skill workers, rather than lower numbers of high-skill immigrants, may make it easy to get an Uber Eats meal at any hour of the day. But it’s not fostering a high-productivity, high-wage, low-inequality economy. It’s delivering the opposite... Another likely future outcome of current policy? Something that has long roiled the politics of the United States and Europe, but which Canada has never had to deal with: a big population of non-citizens who have no intention of leaving, regardless of their legal status. The Trudeau government has the power to fix all of this, but as problems have grown and grown some more, it has chosen its usual course: inaction. It has run its mouth and its Twitter, while doing nothing. This past weekend, Mr. Miller did a round of TV interviews, threatening to do some undefined something, “in the first quarter or first half” of this year. Maybe."
Meme - Kirk Lubimov @KirkLubimov: "Canada is becoming an open doors dumpster for the world's problems. Interestingly, the Liberals have not made a comment or reached out to the Christian communities in Africa being systematically slaughtered by Islamists. Will they pack a tent or get more $$$ hand outs?"
Marc Miller @MarcMillerVM: "Canada to offer humanitarian visas to those fleeing Sudan"
Meme - "r/ontario
People are pooping on the beaches in Ontario small towns
So, I hate writing this but it's getting out of hand. Just spoke to some family members in Southern Ontario and went to visit them, and there are literally people POOPING on all the beaches along Lake Erie. These are small towns and most of them don't have bathrooms on the beaches, so instead of driving to a local Tim Horton's (or planning their bowel movements to NOT be in public on a beach) these terrible people are just... well, pooping all over the beaches, trespassing on people's property for photos of "how beautiful Canada is", then leaving behind garbage- we're talking mounds of trash just being left behind on the beaches. Some residents try to talk to them but the people don't speak English and just continue to litter massive amounts of garbage, and take dumps on the beach. Sadly, the people pooping on the beaches are all of the same demographic- new Canadians from India. The fact that we have such a high demographic of Indian immigrants choosing Canada as their home means that we need to have provisions in place to teach people the differences in our culture, such as the importance of hygiene and other things we have that may not be the same in their country of origin."
Of course this got removed
Terry Glavin: The Liberal-induced housing disaster cannot go on - "Even the bureaucracy that is designed to push all this through its system is wholly overwhelmed. By last October, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada was groaning under the weight of 2.2 million applications, roughly a million of which were officially designated as “backlog,” half of which were for the fastest-growing status: non-permanent residency... It’s not that Canadians’ values have changed. What’s changed is that without any substantive national debate, Ottawa has scrapped Canada’s traditional points-based approach, which assessed prospective citizens’ suitability in advance of their arrival. We’ve outsourced immigration policy to employers who couldn’t be bothered to invest in labour training, budget-hungry university administrators eager to scoop foreign-student tuition fees that are sometimes ten times as high as Canadian students pay, and shadowy storefront colleges profiting from the sale of citizenship lottery tickets. And it allows the Trudeau government to maintain the charade of being immigrant-friendly while duping voters into thinking the expansion of the overall gross domestic product translates into gains for everyone, which it doesn’t."
Trudeau's mass migration cult is destroying Canada - "Canada’s elite suffers from a syndrome known as “Canada’s pro-immigration consensus”. This has its origins in Canada losing its identity with the death of the British Empire in the 1950s and 60s. British loyalism had been the country’s dominant ideology and raison d’etre since the American Revolution, but lay in ruins. The vacuum was filled with 1960s vintage left-liberalism, with Canada reinvented as a kinder, gentler United States. Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father, ushered in more liberal immigration and the country’s disastrous 1971 Multiculturalism Act. Its 1988 successor, created an official duty to “promote the understanding that multiculturalism is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity”, and the new 1982 constitution allowed for naked racial discrimination in hiring and criminal sentencing. Any questioning of immigration is viewed as offensive to minorities, hence out of bounds. Père Pierre has passed his worldview down to his son Justin, who gushed to a New York Times reporter upon attaining office in 2015 that Canada has “no core identity, no mainstream.” This boast, that the country is post-national and therefore more modern and morally superior to others, is rooted in the same cultural left set of beliefs (“majorities bad, minorities good”) that has given rise to speech policing and reverse discrimination, the hallmarks of woke. Wokeness in turn helps shut down debate over immigration. Canada is a sterling example of how cultural leftism meshes with the expansionist ethos of global capitalism. Nothing symbolizes this progressive neoliberal synthesis better than Toronto’s 18-lane, perpetually snarled, Highway 401, accompanying the unchecked urban sprawl that is a feature of the country’s major metropolitan areas. In Vancouver, when locals resist expansion, developers cry “racist” and “xenophobe” to relax zoning and planning restrictions. EThere is constant pressure on established neighbourhoods, lowering the quality of life for existing residents. The lie that immigration is a solution to the ageing problem (apparently immigrants don’t age) is routinely trotted out, with no opposition, to justify higher numbers"
How Quebec turned into a hotbed of Islamist antisemitism - "From the mid-1990s to 2005, about 20 Montrealers were involved in terrorist plots. Most famously, Algerian Ahmed Ressam — the “Millennium Bomber” — settled in Montreal after receiving Al Qaeda terror training in Afghanistan. Former Morocco-born Montrealer Abdellah Ouzghar, convicted in absentia of abetting terrorism in France, circulated here in virtually complete freedom for years before our sluggish judicial system finally endorsed his extradition to France in 2009. He reportedly returned to Canada after serving his sentence. For an up-to-date example of imported trouble, we have well-known Morocco-Canadian imam Adil Charkouai who, at an Oct. 28 Montreal Free Palestine rally, called for the eradication of all “Zionist aggressors.” Many years before he received citizenship in 2014 and could easily have been deported, he was arrested on a security certificate, CSIS alleging he was a sleeping Al Qaeda agent, and represented a danger to Canada. Long legal story short, a Supreme Court judgment regarding security certificates — and having nothing to do with what seems to have been excellent evidence — luckily fell Charkouai’s way. He obtained Canadian citizenship, and is still purveying robustly Islamist antisemitism to his fan base. Fabrice de Pierrebourg, Quebec’s leading journalist on terrorism, followed the trajectories of up to 30 hard-core jihadists for many years in the 1990s, making frequent trips to Lebanon and the North African countries from which most Montreal Islamists derive. In 2007 he published Montrealistan, an examination of the route to radicalization of young Muslim men in Montreal. De Pierrebourg found the two main vectors were sermons in the mosque the recruit attended and the Internet chat rooms he surfed obsessively. Many of the recruits talked candidly to de Pierrebourg. They went, via Internet lures, from merely bored or socially awkward to radicalized within weeks. It’s important to note that focusing on Islamist antisemitism isn’t to gainsay the extreme antisemitism on the academic left and their indoctrinated acolytes, whose hateful words and antics we have also witnessed in the aftermath of Oct 7. But, while lefties are happy to participate in the rallies and the marches, it is international Islamist groups that organize them and mainly Islamists who are calling for harassment and violence against Jews... The question, as Europe has discovered, is whether law enforcement and political resolve will be sufficient to stuff an angry, Judeophobic genie back into a bottle most western governments blithely uncorked through their infatuation with multiculturalism, or in Quebec’s case fixation on language, both of which, alas, necessitated a self-destructive indifference to the epidemiology of terrorism"
Cineplex pulls South Indian film screenings after incidents of threats, intimidation and talk of turf war - The Globe and Mail - "Movie exhibitors including Cineplex Inc. have pulled screenings of a South Indian-language film across Canada after individuals opened fire at four cinemas in the Greater Toronto Area last week, the latest incidents of intimidation related to Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam blockbusters. Videos obtained by The Globe and Mail show a person in a hoodie shooting a gun multiple times through the passenger window of a vehicle at the entrances of Cineplex locations in Scarborough and Vaughan. In a separate video, the driver of the vehicle fires at a Cineplex in Brampton. York Cinemas, a theatre in Richmond Hill, Ont., was also hit by gunfire. The shootings shattered glass and left bullet holes in windows. According to York Regional Police, the incidents occurred in the early morning hours, when the theatres were closed. The videos were e-mailed to a few theatres and film distributors just ahead of the Jan. 24 premiere of Malaikottai Vaaliban, a fantasy-action epic. Cineplex pulled the movie, as did CinéStarz, which owns six theatres in Ontario and Quebec. Film distributors have contended that a turf war is being waged and that a group of individuals is trying to control the lucrative market for South Indian-language films in Canada, using vandalism and intimidation to pressure theatres and distributors to drop certain titles and ensure the films run in favoured cinemas... Incidents of vandalism started around 2015 in the GTA, as Cineplex, the country’s largest theatre chain, was making a bigger push into the Tamil film market. Vandals have slashed screens at Cineplex theatres showing Tamil movies and released noxious substances such as pepper spray inside auditoriums, prompting the chain to pull some titles. In recent years, Telugu and Malayalam movies have been affected, too. The Globe has found more than 20 incidents at Cineplex locations, independent theatres and other chains such as Landmark Cinemas across Southern Ontario, Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Surrey, B.C... both Mr. Padinharkkara and 2kerala received an anonymous e-mail demanding $200,000 and threatening to stop the distributors from obtaining rights in the future. “Remember we know everything about you and your family,” the e-mail read. “Don’t be [an] idiot.”... Distributors lose money when film screenings are cancelled, and some have abandoned the market. International distributor Aashirvad America, which partnered with Mr. Padinharkkara on Malaikottai Vaaliban, is now reconsidering bringing movies to Canada. “I don’t see us doing a film in Canada until we get this resolved,” said representative Neil Vincent. Moviegoers, meanwhile, are being deprived of the chance to see blockbusters in theatres when companies are forced to drop titles."
Cineplex pulls South Indian film screenings after incidents of threats, intimidation and talk of turf war : canada - "I’m a Canadian born Indian. I’m a Canadian first. I don’t have a religion or an affiliation with anyone other than being Canadian. Guess who got told I better support the local South Indian community otherwise I would need protection? Like wtf. RCMP was called and they said they’ve received multiple instances like this. It’s a new problem and it’s going to lead to violence"
Trudeau Liberals have no solutions, not enough money on asylum seekers - "The real problem in Miller’s announcement is that he offered no plan, not even a hint of a solution, for dealing with this issue on a permanent basis. The Trudeau Liberals have opened up the floodgates when it comes to people showing up and claiming asylum. Between 2011 and 2016, the annual number of people claiming asylum ranged from 10,000 to 25,000; this year, it is more than 144,000 — up from 91,735 last year. At a certain point, Miller and the rest of the Trudeau government will need to deal with this, but so far, Miller simply ignored the issue when questioned."
Thousands of Ukrainians to come to Canada - "The federal government has issued 936,293 temporary emergency visas since March 2022 for Ukrainians who want to work or study in Canada while they wait out the war. A total of 210,178 people had actually made the journey to Canadaas of Nov. 28. As many as 90,000 more emergency visa holders are thinking of coming before the deadline, pre-arrival surveys by Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Operation Ukraine Safe Haven suggest."
Time for property tax to go up even more!
Canada’s Ukrainian refugee crisis about to get worse: Gen. Hillier - "Feb. 24 marks the second anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Gen. Rick Hillier, irrepressible even in quasi-retirement, is sounding the alarm on Canada’s lack of preparedness to absorb yet more displaced Ukrainians. He’s particularly galled by stories of newcomers — at-risk families we invited to our country — living in tents in downtown Toronto. It will likely only get worse: the feds anticipate 90,000 newcomers from Ukraine will land in Canada in the next two months. “We have not had a national vision, a national strategy, and a national effort to make this (Ukrainian refugee response) happen. But we can do this. We’ve done it before,” Hillier says. His marching orders to the feds? Draw up a logistical plan for Ukrainian refugees, in consultation with provinces and cities. And make sure it’s realistic. Canada has a housing crisis and our homeless shelters are filled to overflowing; we need better ideas... Displaced Ukrainians in Poland or western Ukraine may get panicky about the fact their Canadian visa will expire. And should Putin’s forces get a breakthrough in Ukraine — Hillier cautions sombrely — it won’t be thousands of Ukrainians on flights to Canada, it will be hundreds of thousands hammering on Canada’s door... We can build modular shelters in major centres to house the displaced in a humane, dignified way until they transition from big cities to smaller centres where jobs and accommodation are available. “Take a piece of flat ground out near Pearson (airport), for example,” Hillier explains. “On one acre you can put in a modular town to house 100 people….That’s not gonna be $120 a night per person because you’re effectively building the equivalent of that hotel. It’s gonna cost more. But these are the kinds of solutions available, and right now.” That Ukrainian family living in a tent in downtown Toronto, Hillier concludes, they’re likely going to head back to Ukraine. “How sad is that?” he laments, shaking his head. “Canada is so bad that they’re going to head back to a war-torn, beaten, brutalized country rather than stay here.”"
If you raise any questions about this you are heartless and support Putin
Kirk Lubimov on X - "In the past 2 years Canada took in 250,000 refugees from Ukraine. Many are living in tents. In the next 60 days another 90,000 are expected to arrive. That's the size of a small town. Where will they live?"
Refugees and Housing : CanadaHousing2 - "I recently learned that refugees are given $740/month for living expenses. Of that $360 is supposed to be allocated for rent. (I could be off my numbers by $10-20) I recently learned this because I rented out my house to 4 men and the basement to a family of 3. It’s a short term rental for 6 months that was arranged by a property management company and I didn’t take on the headache to learn everything about these tenants’ jobs and lives etc. Things are being handled. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I get a call from the city saying there are 13 people living at this address who are receiving social assistance. I’ve been to the house a few times and never saw extra people so I didn’t know. Anyway, here’s what I’m getting at. How does the government expect anyone to get housing for $360 a month? Isn’t this going to lead to large groups of people living in crowded spaces? If the government can’t house these people, why are we taking in so many refugees? I went over to deal with the situation and found out only a couple of them have work permits. So the rest of them aren’t even allowed to work. I’ve told them it’s a fire hazard and I need the extras to leave. But can you imagine the headlines if something happened? “Evil slumlord houses 13 refugees and the house burns down” bla bla bla. Meanwhile I had no idea and honestly had never seen a single hint this was going on."
FIRST READING: Canada 'addicted' to cheap labour (says government who flooded it with cheap labour) - "the “addiction” claim is a notable turnaround for a government that has spent much of the last two years framing the Canadian economy as being on the precipice of a ruinous labour shortage... Even as recently as last month, the Liberal government was issuing a statement claiming that Canada’s post-pandemic recovery was dependent on sky-high rates of immigration."
Canada's immigration backlash is far from populist - "unlike the rest of the West, Canadians are not advancing this argument via populist rabblerousers or angry mass protests. Instead, Canada’s turnaround is being led by cadres of respectable, credentialed and, for the most part, small-l liberal experts and commentators, who are making the case for immigration reduction in terms that are academic and utilitarian, rather than emotive and atavistic. And, while there has been a rise in populism in recent years, within the Conservative Party and elsewhere, these forces have been unable or unwilling to capitalise on anti-immigration sentiment. This unique set of circumstances has led to a distinct form of restrictionism, a “polite backlash”, with stereotypically Canadian characteristics. Being driven by educated elites, it plays out in the rarefied spaces of establishment opinion, where opposition to Ottawa’s temporary migrant policies (which has seen more explosive growth than the permanent stream) has materialised... We are seeing that rare thing: a pragmatic, context-driven response among segments of Canada’s expert class that also matches recent shifts in public opinion. Because data from the country’s major polling firms, collected over the last few months, all show overwhelming support for cutting immigration numbers as a response to cost-of-living challenges: “68% agree — Canada should put a cap on international students until the demand for affordable housing eases” (Ipsos-Reid); “An increasing proportion of Canadians [61%] want Canada to accept fewer immigrants in 2024” (Nanos Research); “Canadians… believe that immigrants are contributing to the housing crisis (75%) and putting pressure on the health care system (73%)” (Leger). This convergence of views across large swathes of Canadian society has proved unignorable. Last week, Trudeau’s minister for immigration, Marc Miller, announced cuts to the country’s intake of international students, which has seen exorbitant growth in the last year, and now accounts for a staggering 1 million people, or 2.5% of Canada’s population. (To put the figure in perspective: this means that Canada is hosting almost as many international students as US institution, despite the US population being roughly nine times bigger.) This comes after Statistics Canada figures revealed that “as many as 1 in 5 study permit holders in Canada are not actually studying at the institutions to which they have been accepted”, demonstrating how education has become a back door to the job market. The new policy will see international undergraduate visas capped at 360,000 in 2024, a one-third reduction from last year, and a rationing of these visas among the provinces, along with changes to the “Post-Graduate Work Program”, widely regarded as a pathway to permanent residency for students. Beyond policy details, this volte-face amounts to an admission of a longstanding truth: the existing system has served as a cash cow for tuition-hungry schools and rent-hungry landlords, as well as a source of cheap labour for employers. The new changes are expected to offer some temporary relief to runaway rents prices (though economists disagree by how much)... it is important to understand the deeply entrenched nature of the status quo that prompted this polite backlash, for even Miller’s moderate reforms have invited a backlash of its own from the powerful interests whose income has been threatened by the announced cuts... the Century Initiative, an influential business-linked group that advocates for immigration maximalism, issued an anodyne statement on the cuts, appearing to assent to them but nonetheless arguing for the 1.5 million permanent resident targets to be retained — even though these are precisely the numbers that must be cut if Ottawa is serious about easing affordability. What is likely to follow is a protracted debate between two segments of expert opinion on the future of immigration, one that will largely take place within the bounds of elite discourse, confirming the closed nature of political decision-making in Canada... But the progress of this debate still begs the question: what happened to Canada’s populists, who ought to be challenging the elite conversation from outside the system? For some reason, they have counted themselves out of the immigration issue... Canadians should hope that it succeeds in restoring balance to the system eventually, because should the polite backlash fail to do the job, the next backlash will be anything but."
Calling other responses "theatrical (but toothless) populisms" ignores how, in Europe, mainstream parties have been forced to change their migration policies due to popular pressure
