National
“No public events scheduled”
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The PM is on a national campaign tour. He lies about it every day.
Here’s Justin Trudeau at the Saldenah Mas Camp in Toronto on July 18. Volunteers spend months making costumes every year for the Toronto Caribbean Festival. It’s a fantastic tradition. My father, who lived in Barbados for a while, used to drive us up from Sarnia every year for the parade.
The prime minister’s public itinerary, which is emailed daily to members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and posted on his website, said that on July 18 he’d be in Ottawa for the Change of Command ceremony. It acknowledged no other public event.
The itinerary usually goes out around 7 p.m. each night and lists the PM’s public activities for the next day. Then on the morning of the day, we get an itinerary that either repeats the night-before email, or modifies it. On July 15 the night-before itinerary said the prime minister would be in “Southwestern Ontario” and would have “no public events scheduled” the next day, July 16.
Here’s where it gets a little weird. I never received an itinerary for July 16 that said anything else. The itinerary that went out on the morning of July 16, like the night-before email on the 15th, said “no public events scheduled.” But on the PM’s website, the itinerary that’s there now lists a meeting with Kitchener mayor Barry Vrbanovic.
Later that day, Trudeau was in Scarborough at Junior Carnival. “You could just feel the energy in the air!”, the PM tweeted.
The first I learned of the PM’s meeting with Kitchener mayor Vrbanovic was when reporters received a pool report from a CP reporter, a couple of hours after the meeting ended.
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Pool reports have been used in many countries for many years. If there’s not room for every reporter or photographer who might want to attend, a smaller number are designated, on the understanding that they’ll share their observations and images with everyone who couldn’t go. It’s not great, because typically the pool reporter is not permitted to ask questions.
Sometimes journalists vote to determine who among them will be the pool. Sometimes it’s a Canadian Press reporter, by tradition and convention. In all recent cases with Trudeau, it’s been a CP reporter — because no other news organization except CP has been informed of these events.
There’s also a separate broadcast pool, in which all the broadcast networks participate. That way one camera goes to pooled events, and every network gets the images and audio.
The CP reporter’s account of the Vrbanovic meeting said Vrbanovic “thanked Trudeau for his government’s programs that provide funding to municipalities.” Trudeau “said he will discuss issues that matter to the region including housing and climate change with Vrbanovic.” At this point, “The pool reporter was then asked to leave the room.” I’ll bet she was.
So here’s what I’m here to write about today. This has become standard operating procedure for Justin Trudeau and his staff during the difficult summer of 2024: they claim in public every day that the the PM has “no public events scheduled.” Even though he is in a different city every day. And he has public events scheduled. In fact, he is in the city in question so he can attend the public events he claims aren’t on his schedule.
And a small number of journalists are told, every day, “for information purposes only” — i.e., on the condition that they not tell other journalists or the public — about the public events the PM has scheduled but is lying about.
On Monday Trudeau’s itinerary said he was in “Northern Alberta” and had “no public events scheduled.” Later on Monday he was in Hinton, AB to “get a briefing on the status of the Jasper wildfire, as well as meet with the province’s premier and evacuees who fled the blaze.” I know this because it was in the CP report. “Trudeau did not speak with reporters while he was in Hinton,” the story adds.
I wrote about this on Notes, Substack’s fun short-form social-media platform. A reader responded (and here I paraphrase) that, well, maybe the PM wanted to do serious business in a crisis situation without having to dodge snarky questions from rude reporters. And, you know what? Fair enough.
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But here’s the thing. I’ve covered a lot of political leaders in emergency settings. It’s perfectly routine for the advisory to say what a leader will do today, but to say a given event is “Closed to Media.” Or for reporters to be sequestered in a room, well away from the meeting between PM and premier, with time for questions only after the meeting ends.
What’s rarer — what I’d never actually seen before — is for a PM to fly to Alberta, for his staff to say he’s going to be in Alberta, but for them to claim he won’t be doing anything while he’s there.
Incidentally, the version of the PM’s itinerary for Monday that’s on his website now says he had a meeting with Danielle Smith and with emergency responders. This version was never sent to reporters, either before or after the meeting. Absurdly, the itinerary has also been corrected to put Hinton in “Central Alberta” instead of “Northern Alberta.”
A colleague at a large news organization who’s vocationally preoccupied with following politicians’ schedules tells me this has happened “multiple times” in recent weeks: the itinerary on the website gets updated after the fact, in ways that do not reflect what reporters were told in real time. This is the smallest possible routine coverup, for the smallest possible benefit, that I have ever seen.
Pretty soon, news organizations are going to have to start explaining why Justin Trudeau’s summer schedule is so surprising to us.
Here’s Justin Trudeau making a “surprise appearance” at Vancouver Pride on Sunday. Here’s the PM making a “surprise appearance” at Winnipeg’s Filipino Folklorama pavilion on Monday. I’m here to tell you, reporters were not informed of either event — except the ones who were given a quiet heads-up so there’d be cameras on hand. Although how can you be expected to believe me? The PM’s gaslighting website says he “will attend” Pride on Sunday. At least they haven’t rigged the Monday advisory so it retroactively lies about having told us he’d be at the Winnipeg event.
I suspect today’s post will create some buzz, so I want to be careful to say precisely what I mean to say. Politicians are under no obligation to tell anybody how they spend every minute of their day. (It’s worth noting, however, that the public agendas of leaders in other places are sometimes more detailed than in Ottawa: here’s Emmanuel Macron’s and Joe Biden’s agendas for today. The UK’s Keir Starmer seems less forthcoming.) And it’s routine for leaders’ teams to acknowledge calendar events while also emphasizing that the public and journalists can’t attend. What’s an innovation is this business of claiming the PM has nothing “public” on his schedule when he is, in fact, on tour to do public events for which he will seek tightly controlled media and social-media credit.
It’s become entertaining to learn, after the fact, what the hell has been going on. Last week the PM was on vacation in British Columbia. We receive daily itineraries during a vacation, with no public events scheduled, and I don’t begrudge anyone any vacation time. Then he was back in Ottawa for two days, and then he was back in the “Lower Mainland” of BC with “no public events scheduled.” That was Pride, as it turned out. I’m pretty sure that when the big guy was on an airplane for the second time in as many days, he knew why. Eventually so did we.
Since I’ve started making a fuss about this stuff on Notes, I think the PMO is starting to get nervous. Here’s the itinerary we were sent for today, Tuesday, at 7:03 a.m. EDT:
And here’s the updated itinerary we received at 2:33 p.m.
Thanks for the update! Unfortunately, every event in the updated itinerary occurred before the PMO sent it out. When covering your tracks, try not to be so terrible at it. Fortunately the pool report should be landing in my inbox any minute.
I asked Andrea Baillie, the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Press, for an explanation of the national newsgathering cooperative’s role in these activities. She replied:
“It’s long been part of CP’s mandate to be with prime ministers as they carry out their duties. Alongside major broadcasters, we provide ‘pool coverage.’ That means we gather details on what the PM said and did on behalf of all press gallery journalists, at events where there is limited space. Typically, the PMO provides embargoed information (i.e. times and locations) on the PM’s schedule on short notice so we can get there on time. The pool is bound by an agreement to use this information for planning purposes only until the events take place, at which point the CP reporter provides details on what they saw and heard in a note sent to all press gallery journalists.”
I want to be clear that I intend no criticism of CP, which has come in for some cheap shots from Pierre Poilievre and others. Reporters who are told of politicians’ activities ahead of time routinely keep this information to themselves, as I have done for politicians from many parties. Including, come to think of it, while covering elections in other countries. It’s the only way to reconcile coverage of an event with politicians’ preference for planning in secrecy. In particular, readers who are quick to dream up heroic scenarios for reporters to act as their proxy to sabotage politicians’ schemes — You should just refuse to cover it! You should just shout your questions until they’re forced to answer! — are typically less thrilled when reporters try that stuff against the politicians they like better.
But reporters are obviously getting played here. When the prime minister of Canada deploys half-way across the country, with his staff photographer and videographers; and then tells hundreds of journalists he’s got nothing planned for the next day or the day dawning; and smaller numbers of journalists already know that’s not true; and then the PM meets public officials or crowds of voters, speaks on public-policy issues, and sends out his own shop’s versions of those conversations and professionally curated images; and then (I can’t believe I’m writing this part) his staff sneaks into the website to cover their tracks ex post facto — well, this is a lake of bullshit so deep I can’t touch bottom, and at the very least, we should let you know it’s going on.
Now watch the commenters under this post line up, like iron filings in a magnetic field, to reveal their polarity.
People who hope the Liberals will win will be furious at me for nitpicking. THIS MAN IS DOING THE BUSINESS OF THE COUNTRY AND YOU JUST WANT TO TEAR HIM DOWN, they’ll say. YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN BOB FIFE. HE’S SMART TO KEEP YOU AWAY FROM SERIOUS WORK.
The ones who wanted him gone years ago will say, AH-HA. THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA IS PLOTTING WITH LIBERALS TO HIDE THE SATANIC PM. YOU HOWLED WHEN POILIEVRE DID FAR LESS, BUT NOW YOU’RE PLOTTING! PLOTTING! WITH YOUR LIBERAL PAYMASTERS.
What’s much rarer will be voters who would actively prefer, say, a Liberal government that doesn’t routinely lie about what its PM is doing. Let me tell you, I sure notice every time a supporter of the Liberals who claims to support the Liberals because they like honest reporting and evidence-based policy suddenly complains about the reporting and evidence that make their guy look bad.
As for Poilievre, I’ve written about his media manipulation at length and, I suspect, will again. These attitudes — good coverage good, bad coverage wicked and worth any artifice to avoid — are widespread and party-agnostic. But it’s worth pointing out that Poilievre now routinely sends out advance notice of his rallies, and has lately been setting aside a few minutes for brief sessions with individual reporters after such events. This one with a Sudbury reporter was chippy but informative; this one with The Gazette’s Aaron Derfel caught Poilievre in a relatively introspective mood.
Mostly I’m not surprised when any public figure avoids scrutiny. Journalistic scrutiny is so rare these days, for reasons I’ve written about at length, that nobody should be surprised when it draws an annoyed and defensive reaction from politicians who view any surprise as an attack. Or, indeed, from anybody at all. “Freedom of the press” loses friends quickly in almost any concrete case.
But again, I’ve never seen this before, a Prime Minister of Canada who demands that his staff enable him as he claims to be taking the summer off even as he’s campaigning for re-election. One more irony: If you’re paying half the salary of most Canadian journalists, even while you’re sending emails to them full of lies about your schedule, you’ve made destroying their credibility a very expensive object of government policy.
Finally, what does all this tell us about the year Justin Trudeau’s having?
I’m not Catholic, but I view this extended fibbing campaign as a venial rather than a mortal sin. It’s mostly kind of baffling.
But it has precedent. In his memoir, Trudeau recollects the times he introduced himself as “Jason Tremblay” or as “Justin St-Clair” as a student or a young adult, to avoid being judged before he could make his case. He learned early how much of himself he wanted others to see.
What’s harder to discern is the point of the artifice. Trudeau gave an extended interview to the CBC days before the disastrous Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection. Within days after the returns from St. Paul’s were in, he adopted this duck-and-cover routine. To what end? Does he seriously hope to pick up 15 points of polling deficit by pushing out Instagram photos of parade floats? Does he think he can keep this up for a year until an election?
While we wait to find out, if I were on the PM’s communications staff and I had pre-existing plans to be working somewhere else in a year, this would be an excellent week to resign, because this week you’d get to do it on principle.
I hear the PM will be in St. John’s tomorrow. Tonight we’ll see whether it’s on the itinerary.For the full experience, subscribe to Paul Wells.
Economy
Canada should not want to lead the world on climate change policy
From the Fraser Institute
Some commentators in the media want the the federal Conservatives to take a leadership position on climate, and by extension make Canada a world leader on the journey to the low-carbon uplands of the future. This would be a mistake for three reasons.
First, unlike other areas such as trade, defence or central banking, where diplomats aim for realistic solutions to identifiable problems, in the global climate policy world one’s bona fides are not established by actions but by willingness to recite the words of an increasingly absurd creed. Take, for example, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres’ fanatical rhetoric about the “global boiling crisis” and his call for a “death knell” for fossil fuels “before they destroy our planet.” In that world no credit is given for actually reducing emissions unless you first declare that climate change is an existential crisis, that we are (again, to quote Guterres) at the “tip of a tipping point” of “climate breakdown” and that “humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction.” Any attempt to speak sensibly on the issue is condemned as denialism, whereas any amount of hypocrisy from jet-setting politicians, global bureaucrats and celebrities is readily forgiven as long as they parrot the deranged climate crisis lingo.
The opposite is also true. Unwillingness to state absurdities means actual accomplishments count for nothing. Compare President Donald Trump, who pulled out of the Paris treaty and disparaged climate change as unimportant, to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who embraced climate emergency rhetoric and dispatched ever-larger Canadian delegations to the annual greenhouse gabfests. In the climate policy world, that made Canada a hero and the United States a villain. Meanwhile, thanks in part to expansion of natural gas supplies under the Trump administration, from 2015 to 2019 U.S. energy-based CO2 emissions fell by 3 per cent even as primary energy consumption grew by 3 per cent. In Canada over the same period, CO2 emissions fell only 1 per cent despite energy consumption not increasing at all. But for the purpose of naming heroes and villains, no one cared about the outcome, only the verbiage. Likewise, climate zealots will not credit Conservatives for anything they achieve on the climate file unless they are first willing to repeat untrue alarmist nonsense, and probably not even then.
On climate change, Conservatives should resolve to speak sensibly and use mainstream science and economic analysis, but that means rejecting climate crisis rhetoric and costly “net zero” aspirations. Which leads to the second problem—climate advocates love to talk about “solutions” but their track record is 40 years of costly failure and massive waste. Here again leadership status is tied to one’s willingness to dump ever-larger amounts of taxpayer money into impractical schemes loaded with all the fashionable buzzwords. The story is always the same. We need to hurry and embrace this exciting economic opportunity, which for some reason the private sector won’t touch.
There are genuine benefits to pursuing practical sensible improvements in the way we make and use fossil fuels. But the current and foreseeable state of energy technology means CO2 mitigation steps will be smaller and much slower than was the case for other energy side-effects such as acid rain and particulates. It has nothing to do with lack of “political will;” it’s an unavoidable consequence of the underlying science, engineering and economics. In this context, leadership means being willing sometimes to do nothing when all the available options yield negative net benefits.
That leads to the third problem—opportunity cost. Aspiring to “climate leadership” means not fixing any of the pressing economic problems we currently face. Climate policy over the past four decades has proven to be very expensive, economically damaging and environmentally futile. The migration of energy-intensive industry to China and India is a very real phenomenon and more than offsets the tiny emission-reduction measures Canada and other western countries pursued under the Kyoto Protocol.
The next government should start by creating a new super-ministry of Energy, Resources and Climate where long-term thinking and planning can occur in a collaborative setting, not the current one where climate policy is positioned at odds with—and antagonistic towards—everything else. The environment ministry can then return its focus to air and water pollution management, species and habitat conservation, meteorological services and other traditional environmental functions. The climate team should prepare another national assessment but this time provide much more historical data to help Canadians understand long-term observed patterns of temperature and precipitation rather than focusing so much on model simulations of the distant future under implausible emission scenarios.
The government should also move to extinguish “climate liability,” a legal hook on which dozens of costly nuisance lawsuits are proliferating here and elsewhere. Canada should also use its influence in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to reverse the mission creep, clean out the policy advocacy crowd and get the focus back on core scientific assessments. And we should lead a push to move the annual “COPs”—Conferences of the Parties to the Rio treaty—to an online format, an initiative that would ground enough jumbo jets each year to delay the melting of the ice caps at least a century.
Finally, the new Ministry of Energy, Resources and Climate should work with the provinces to find one region or municipality willing to be a demonstration project on the feasibility of relying only on renewables for electricity. We keep hearing from enthusiasts that wind and solar are the cheapest and best options, while critics point to their intermittency and hidden costs. Surely there must be one town in Canada where the councillors, fresh from declaring a climate crisis and buying electric buses, would welcome the chance to, as it were, show leadership. We could fit them out with all the windmills and solar panels they want, then disconnect them from the grid and see how it goes. And if upon further reflection no one is willing to try it, that would also be useful information.
In the meantime, the federal Conservatives should aim merely to do some sensible things that yield tangible improvements on greenhouse gas emissions without wrecking the economy. Maybe one day that will be seen as real leadership.
Author:
Economy
Federal mismanagement to blame for Canada’s immigration backlash
From the Macdonald Laurier Institute
By Sonia Orlu for Inside Policy
Canada’s welcoming attitude towards newcomers makes it one of the most sought-after places to live in the world. However, this image is being tested by a growing backlash against immigration. Immigrants make up 23 per cent of the population, yet economic, social, and cultural anxieties are increasingly challenging the country’s commitment to diversity. More than four-in-ten Canadians now agree – either strongly (23 per cent) or somewhat (21 per cent) – with the statement, “There is too much immigration to Canada.” It is crucial to understand that this backlash is not rooted in opposition to immigration or immigrants themselves, but rather in frustration over mismanagement and inadequate planning by the federal government. It reflects a growing unease about the country’s economic outlook, raising urgent questions about how Canada can uphold its values while addressing legitimate and pressing concerns.
Public reactions and political responses
Canadian political leaders have generally maintained a measured tone on immigration, focusing on economic pressures and service delivery rather than hostility toward immigrants. However, tensions are rising, and a thoughtful debate is increasingly needed.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused the Conservative Party of spreading misinformation to stoke fears about immigration. Such remarks risk alienating those with legitimate critiques of his administration’s policies and practices. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has linked immigration to housing shortages, criticizing Trudeau’s policies as disconnected from infrastructure needs. This aligns with public frustrations over housing availability and the need for better coordination between immigration levels and capacity. Quebec Premier François Legault echoed similar sentiments, raising issues of resource management and culture. His critics accuse him of xenophobia, but dismissive responses like Immigration Minister Marc Miller’s remark that people are “always blaming immigrants” overlook genuine challenges and deepen frustration.
These exchanges illustrate the delicate balance required in navigating immigration policy and public sentiment. Canadians’ attitudes toward immigration are more nuanced than a simple pro- or anti-immigration divide. Most Canadians aren’t driven by fear or racism; rather, they are focused on how immigration impacts housing affordability, strains public finances, and increases job competition. While apprehension about immigration levels is growing, attitudes toward immigrants themselves remain largely positive. In fact, more than four-in-ten Canadians (42 per cent) say that immigrants make their community a better place, with fewer than one-in-ten (9 per cent) feeling that they make it worse. Still, public concerns must be addressed to prevent further polarization.
The housing crisis: a catalyst for frustration
A significant driver of the immigration backlash is the housing crisis. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reported in 2024 that Canada needs an additional 3.5 million housing units by 2030 to restore affordability. Cities like Toronto and Vancouver have seen housing prices soar, partly due to increased demand from population growth.
The “housing theory of everything” highlights how housing affects multiple societal issues – such as economic inequality, social mobility, and political polarization. Immigration is no exception. Housing shortages drive up costs, deepen inequality, and create competition between immigrants and long-term residents, eroding social trust and cohesion.
The rise in temporary residents, including international students and temporary foreign workers, compounds these issues. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reports that the number of temporary residents increased by over 50 per cent from 2017 to 2022 and continued to rise sharply into 2024. This influx contributes to increased demand in the rental housing market, particularly in urban centres with large universities, driving up prices and reducing availability.
The Trudeau government’s ambitious plan to admit nearly 500,000 new permanent residents annually by 2026 marks one of the highest per-capita immigration rates globally. By comparison, Canada admitted around 200,000 landed immigrants per year in the 1990s and 250,000 per year in the early 2010s. Without matching investments in infrastructure and housing, these elevated immigration levels – often referred to as “mass immigration” – could exacerbate housing shortages, strain public services, and heighten public frustration. Internal documents from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada revealed that as early as 2022, officials warned that large increases in immigration could worsen housing affordability and strain public services. Yet, no substantive steps were taken by the government to revise its targets.
Given the realistic timelines for development, it is improbable that infrastructure can keep pace with rapid population growth. The construction industry faces labour shortages, regulatory hurdles, and lengthy timelines for project completion – often several years. The CMHC maintains that due to these complexities, expecting cities to rapidly scale up infrastructure to meet immediate demands is unrealistic.
If these housing issues are not resolved, public frustration could escalate, potentially shifting from concerns about immigration policy to resentment toward immigrants themselves.
Cultural integration: balancing diversity and cohesion
Economic challenges, such as housing affordability, often intersect with social and cultural anxieties. As communities experience rapid change and strained resources, questions arise about society’s ability to integrate newcomers without compromising its social fabric. While only about 4 per cent of Canadians express fears that immigration weakens local culture and identity, concerns about the effectiveness of integration are more widespread. In fact, approximately half of Canadians are concerned that some immigrants may not be adopting Canadian values or fully participating in the broader community. When asked which values immigrants should adopt, Canadians often prioritize language proficiency and respect for the country’s history and culture, highlighting the importance placed on cultural integration. Interestingly, both native-born and foreign-born Canadians largely agree on the values newcomers should embrace, indicating a shared vision for integration.
Canada’s sense of nationhood is deeply tied to its history of migration and its commitment to cultural and ethnic diversity. However, diversity is not inherently beneficial in all forms; its value depends on whether it leads to greater tolerance, creativity, or economic growth. When cultural and ethnic diversity is celebrated without deliberate efforts to foster interaction and promote unity, it risks becoming fragile. Poorly managed diversity can lead to social fragmentation, lower trust, and weakened civic engagement.
The challenges of integration are well-documented. Language barriers, different social norms, and unfamiliarity with Canadian institutions can make it difficult for immigrants to fully integrate. This can sometimes lead to the formation of cultural enclaves, where newcomers find comfort in communities with shared backgrounds but have limited interaction with the broader society. While these enclaves provide crucial support, they can inadvertently hinder full participation in Canadian life. Sociologist Robert Putnam found that, in the short term, diversity can reduce social capital and lower community engagement, particularly when institutions fail to promote integration – a concept he refers to as “hunkering down.” In such cases, both newcomers and long-term residents may feel isolated.
Despite these challenges, diversity, when managed effectively, can yield benefits. Exposure to different cultures fosters creativity, innovation, and economic growth, even though research suggests that immigration itself is neither inherently good nor bad for the economy. Cities like Toronto and Vancouver have thrived in part due to their multicultural populations, which have helped them become global hubs for technology and the arts. Additionally, evidence shows that successful integration is common in Canada. Many immigrants actively embrace Canadian values, contribute to the economy, and participate in civic life. The majority of eligible immigrants become Canadian citizens, demonstrating a strong commitment to their new country. Many immigrants choose Canada precisely because they align with its principles of democracy, equality, and respect for human rights. Cultural integration, in the end, is a dynamic process – one that, when approached thoughtfully, strengthens rather than weakens the social fabric.
Bridging policy failures with sustainable solutions
Addressing public frustrations with immigration requires a serious reassessment of the policies that have exacerbated these concerns.
First and foremost, tackling the housing crisis through integrated planning is essential. Governments should incentivize affordable housing development and reform zoning laws to allow for higher-density projects. Recognizing the realistic timelines for construction and development, planning must begin immediately and be synchronized with immigration targets. Public sentiment strongly supports this approach. A recent Nanos Research survey found that 72 per cent of Canadians want to reduce immigration levels until housing becomes affordable.
Aligning immigration levels with the country’s capacity is crucial. Dynamic targets based on real-time economic data and infrastructure development would ensure that immigration aligns with Canada’s ability to provide services and opportunities. Returning to historical admission levels of 200,000 to 250,000 immigrants per year could help ease pressure on housing and public services. Adjusting the composition of immigration streams is equally important.
Temporary measures – such as pausing or reducing programs for international students and temporary foreign workers – could relieve immediate pressures while infrastructure catches up. For instance, although international students contributed over $30 billion to the economy in 2022, lowering their numbers could help reduce housing demand in university towns. Likewise, managing temporary foreign worker intake would address labour shortages without overwhelming resources.
Effective integration and support services must also be given priority. This should begin with implementing consistent selective immigration measures that evaluate an applicant’s potential to integrate both economically and culturally into Canadian society. Such measures would reduce reliance on extensive post-arrival support and help ease cultural tensions. According to a 2018 Angus Reid survey, two-in-three Canadians believe that greater emphasis should be placed on screening for alignment with Canadian values. However, it’s important to note that defining “Canadian values” can be subjective and risks being perceived as discriminatory.
Improvements to post-arrival services like community centres offering language classes, job search support, and cultural orientation programs are necessary to significantly ease the transition for newcomers. Research shows that when immigrants are effectively integrated, they are more likely to find employment, increasing tax contributions and reducing their reliance on social services. Additionally, well-integrated immigrants are more likely to engage in civic life, fostering social cohesion and strengthening community resilience.
Cultural diversity, while valuable, cannot be assumed to sustain itself without active support. Integration is not just about where people live or demographic representation; it also involves cultivating a shared sense of purpose and belonging. Successful integration depends on a reciprocal relationship: immigrants need the resources and opportunities to succeed, and in turn, they must engage with and contribute to the broader societal and cultural framework. Without deliberate policies that encourage community engagement, cross-cultural dialogue, and mutual respect, there is a risk that cultural diversity will falter.
Finally, responsible political discourse is crucial. Leaders must choose their words carefully, as rhetoric shapes public perceptions. By fostering nuanced and empathetic dialogue, they can bridge the gap between public concerns and policy realities, preserving national unity.
Canada stands at a crossroads. While immigration has long been one of our greatest assets, the current backlash highlights cracks in its management. This is not a rejection of immigrants – it’s a call for better policies and improved management. High immigration levels without careful planning will continue to harm our society. Our leaders now face a choice: fan the flames of division or unite the country around meaningful, evidence-based solutions.
Sonia Orlu is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at Simon Fraser University and a commentator on politics and culture. She is a contributing writer to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
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