Justin Trudeau toured the country’s television sets this week to give his usual end-of-year interviews and deliver a message that could not be clearer to all those who want him to leave. Don’t count on him to go walking in the snow, like his father did in early 1984, before announcing his long-awaited resignation.
“There is so much important work to do,” he explained in an interview with the CBC. It would, he added, go against his nature to now turn his back on the challenges he undertook to take on when he became prime minister eight years ago. He therefore intends to stand for election in 2025.
However, a very large majority of Canadians now believe that Mr. Trudeau is no longer the man for the job. They wonder if the Prime Minister has not himself become an obstacle to resolving the problems he says he wants to solve. The cost of living and the housing crisis are at the top of voters’ concerns, the majority of whom think that certain federal government policies are making the situation even worse.
“Immigration is excessive. Period,” wrote Scotiabank economist Derek Holt in an analysis this week, after Statistics Canada revealed that the Canadian population increased by 431,000 people during the third quarter of 2023. “The The problem remains that there is little or no housing available for them and the situation will only get worse. »
Mr. Holt’s comment demonstrates the extent to which the tide has turned in English Canada since the pandemic, especially since the Trudeau government chose to raise the thresholds for permanent immigration and leave its doors wide open to temporary foreign workers and to international students. Long seen as a source of economic growth, Liberal immigration policy is now seen as a threat to the standard of living of Canadians. Even those who say they are very supportive of immigration accuse the Trudeau government of having lost control of the situation.
Over the past year, the Canadian population has increased by 1.25 million people, or 3.2%. There are now more than 40.6 million of us living in this country and there will be more than 41 million of us by the end of the first quarter of 2024, if not before. At current rates, Canada’s population is growing faster than that of any country outside of Africa. However, if a higher birth rate explains the rapid increase in the African population, international immigration accounts for almost all of the demographic growth here.
Canada has long been a model for immigration. The establishment in the 1960s of a point system based on criteria such as education, work experience, professional skills and language allowed Canada to ensure that it welcomed newcomers the most. more likely to contribute to the economic development of the country. The family reunification and refugee aspects were added to complete an immigration policy which placed great emphasis on humanitarian considerations, in accordance with our international commitments and our collective desire to be generous towards the less fortunate on the planet — but rarely at the expense of our reception capacity.
This is no longer the case. Under Mr. Trudeau, the Liberals have not only continually raised the thresholds for permanent immigration, bringing them to record levels – with the objective of welcoming 500,000 new permanent immigrants in 2025 – they have also, above all, facilitated the arrival of temporary foreign workers and international students. The number of temporary immigrants in the country reached a peak of more than 2.5 million people at the end of the third quarter. This number has more than doubled since 2021.
Quebec is no exception to this trend. More than 500,000 non-permanent residents lived in Quebec at the end of the third quarter, an increase of 46% in one year. The labor shortage has something to do with it. Many Tim Hortons and McDonald’s restaurants would risk having to close their doors if they did not use temporary foreign workers. International students have also become a source of low-wage labor for employers of all kinds across the country.
Contrary to what the Liberals claim, their immigration policy does not contribute to Canada’s economic development. Rather, it tends to harm him. Gross domestic product per capita — a gauge of Canadians’ standard of living — has been declining for five consecutive quarters. Our collective wealth is increasing less quickly than the population, in particular due to the flow of migration into low-wage jobs.
In his end-of-year interview with Radio-Canada, Mr. Trudeau at most conceded that his government was facing “small challenges” in terms of temporary immigration. This is most likely, on his part, the understatement of the year. The Minister of Immigration, Marc Miller, has so far only spoken of possible solutions, without showing any real desire to finally make the difficult decisions that are necessary.
Based in Montreal, Konrad Yakabuski is a columnist at Globe and Mail.