By Michael Bonner

A new ministry should be held responsible for ensuring we’re letting in people who will further our economic interests, and that infrastructure can keep up

Canadians deserve an immigration system that serves the national interest. This is exactly what we once had when most Canadians agreed with the economic and cultural arguments in favour of immigration.

For a long time, Canada avoided the sort of backlash seen in many places abroad. But the economic argument for immigration has collapsed during a time of stagnant wages, housing shortages and high youth unemployment. Likewise, cultural arguments about diversity and multiculturalism have given way to doubts about our ability to integrate newcomers.

Now, half of Canadians believe immigration harms the country. And according to a 2024 survey by the Environics Institute, 57 per cent of Canadians agree that too many immigrants “are not adopting Canadian values.”

In response, the Trudeau government began to reduce immigration targets and tinker with eligibility requirements. It was especially wise to reinstate caps on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which many employers abuse to keep wages artificially low.

But Canada’s immigration system requires fundamental reform, with a sharp eye on integration — both economic and cultural. This reform will become increasingly urgent amidst a backdrop of deglobalization, domestic protectionism and falling birth rates.

Other countries will be motivated to hold onto as much of their own populations as they can, so we cannot count on a large and mobile cohort of educated professionals and low-wage workers for much longer. Canada must remain open to immigration, but immigration cannot be our only source of economic and population growth.

The federal government should begin by ending easy access by immigrants to the lower end of our labour market in nearly all sectors of the economy. That means phasing down and eventually eliminating the TFWP, except in limited areas such as seasonal agricultural work. High-wage, high-skill immigration should continue, but in lower numbers.

Meanwhile, governments should use incentives (tax credits, etc.) to encourage businesses to invest in domestic skills training and develop their workforces. Business, government and post-secondary institutions must work together to integrate domestic and international students into a general industrial strategy.

This means creating a pipeline of engineers, researchers and scientists for jobs in areas such as high-end manufacturing, robotics, batteries and advanced engineering. In short, we must gain much better control of immigration and ensure that it serves the national economic interest.

To make it all happen, Ottawa should create a new “population” ministry, formed out of every existing federal ministry and department that deals with immigration, housing, the labour market and family formation (such as Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation).

Of course, this is no small task and would take time. But the main policy areas (immigration, housing, labour, parental benefits and population growth) must be viewed as a single system, and a single ministry must be held accountable for the success or failure of future reforms.

In consultation with the provinces, this new ministry would be required to keep immigration at a manageable level, taking into account the state of infrastructure, housing and integration services, along with labour market needs. Artificial Intelligence could be a useful tool in helping predict labour and housing shortages before they happen.

This consolidated ministry would favour high-skill, high-wage immigration above all other categories. And, like some other countries, the ministry would be required to publish total immigration numbers, along with all other relevant population and labour-market information, as part of every federal budget, to ensure maximum transparency.

This ministry would also work with the provinces to develop pro-natal strategies to stabilize or, ideally, reverse the decline in domestic birth rates. This should be informed by successful policies implemented by our peers abroad.

Incentives could include cash bonuses, tax breaks, awards, more generous leave and other signs of public esteem for parenthood. Meanwhile, governments across the country must remove regulatory hurdles and revisit post-war mass production and prefabrication, in order to increase the supply of new housing.

Canada’s immigration policy has failed Canadians. But if properly managed, a new population policy, which includes immigration, can be a powerful force for nation-building and help create and maintain a prosperous and orderly society in an increasingly uncertain world.

Michael Bonner is a senior fellow at the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, a former senior policy advisor to a federal immigration minister, former director of policy to four Ontario ministers and the author of “Repairing the Fray: Improving Immigration and Citizenship Policy in Canada.” 

By Peter MacKinnon

The program is part of an ideological crusade within our universities, one that includes identity-based admissions and faculty appointments, and discourages those who differ from speaking out or taking issue with its direction.

It needs to end

I must disclose my background here; I was employed by the University of Saskatchewan for 40 years including 13 years as president. The institution’s distinctive origins combined the development of liberal education with a responsibility to build the province’s agricultural industry, and it did the latter with world-class agricultural programs and research institutes, and with faculty and students of many backgrounds from around the globe.

Now, we are told, the academic personnel in this worldly environment require mandatory training on racism: an Anti-Racism/Anti-Oppression and Unconscious Bias Faculty Development Program. It is compulsory; those who decline its offerings will be shut out of collegial processes previously thought to be their right as tenured faculty.

It was earlier reported that the program emerged from collective bargaining at the initiative of the university’s faculty union; if so, this does not relieve the administration from responsibility; it signed the collective agreement.

“Program” is a euphemism. It is a propaganda module in which scholarly expertise and balance will not be found. It does not appear that the instructor has a university academic post and the program’s ideological hue is revealed in the two required readings, one by Idle No More co-founder Sheelah McLean whose theme is that the success of Saskatchewan’s white people is built on “150 years of racist, sexist and homophobic colonial practices.”

The second is by five “racialized” faculty who claim that Canadian university systems are rigged to privilege white people. Dissent, contrary views or even nuance are neither expected nor tolerated here. Opinions that are different are not on the reading list.

One participant, a law professor, was invited to leave after 30 minutes because he did not lend his voice to its purpose and orientation; he revealed that he was present because it was required. The purpose of the program is indoctrination and there is no room for dissent.

The program is part of an ideological crusade within our universities, one that includes identity-based admissions and faculty appointments, and discourages those who differ from speaking out or taking issue with its direction.

It is not present to the same degree in all of these institutions, but it is visible in most and prominent in many. It disparages merit, distorts our history and rests on the proposition that a white majority population has perpetrated a wide and pervasive racist agenda against others. It takes its conclusions as self-evident and not requiring evidence. It is authoritarian and intolerant, and should have no place in institutions committed to excellence and the search for truth.

The question, of course, is what is to be done. There is a view that “this too shall pass;” it is a fad that will recede in time.

But we must note, these are public institutions supported by tax dollars, and by the contributions of time and money by alumni and supporters. We should not tolerate their politicization and sidetracking of the academic mission in favour of the ideology on display here. The pushback should begin with governments and extend to others who care about these vital institutions.

But first the ideology must be recognized. There is no public uproar and little clamour from within the institutions; dissenting professors and students fear that negative professional and personal repercussions may follow. University-governing bodies stand down or away, not wanting to be involved in controversy. Resistance must come from outside the institutions: governments must insist that the propaganda must end, and they should be joined by alumni, supporters and the general public. The credibility of our universities depends on their willingness to say no.

Peter MacKinnon has served as president of three Canadian universities and is a senior fellow at the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. Photo: WikiCommons