Carney government’s immigration overhaul risks pushing Canadian wages down

2026/10/29 Leave a comment

Commentary on proposal of interest:

…Fortin said he does not yet know what dropping the LMIA will mean “on wages and job prospects for Canadian workers, but I am not optimistic.”

“After all, business is about maximizing profits, and maximizing profits requires minimizing labour costs,” he said.

That same incentive could go beyond holding down wages. Without the LMIA’s requirement to first look for Canadian workers, employers able to bring in cheaper hires from abroad could also choose to replace existing Canadian staff to reduce payroll costs.

Fortin also pointed to recent economics studies that have found the rapid pace of immigration to Canada in the past decade hurt Canada’s stagnant per capita GDP and the relative wealth of many Canadians. “There is compelling evidence that the Trudeau migratory explosion of 2016–2024 has affected Canadian productivity and income inequality among Canadians negatively,” citing various recent economics studies.

He blamed two forces. Investment went to housing and equipping newcomers rather than raising productivity. And Statistics Canada researchers found nearly half of employed temporary workers are in low-skilled, low-paid sectors such as agriculture, accommodation, and retail.

Fortin credits Diab for moving away from “this huge concentration of admissions of cheap labour in low-qualified occupations,” calling it “a step in the right direction.” But overall volumes must also come down, Fortin argues. He also warned that tying points to occupational codes rather than strictly earnings will add red tape….

Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, told The Hub that economics research has generally found little harm to Canadian earnings from high-skilled immigration of the past. Where wage pressure or displacement occurs, it is more often concentrated among “lower-skilled or lower-paid workers who compete more directly with newcomers in specific occupations.”

“[But] a high-wage occupation does not guarantee that a candidate will earn a high wage in Canada,” she said.

She also flagged fraud as a major concern. “A substantial points advantage for job offers can create incentives for fraudulent or non-genuine offers,” Mahboubi said, noting Ottawa scrapped job-offer points in 2025 amid concerns about the buying and selling of LMIAs. She added that Ottawa lacks the data to tell whether current LMIA-exempt foreign workers are “complementing Canadian workers or putting pressure on wages and job prospects.”

However, Mahboubi, through her research, believes Canada inviting more highly educated immigrants in the past to live and work here has almost always been a net gain for Canadians….

Source: Carney government’s immigration overhaul risks pushing Canadian wages down

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Globe editorial: The PQ sees a dire threat: schoolchildren

2026/10/29 2 Comments

Sigh. Same misguided thinking as per parent volunteers:

…Many Quebeckers could view it as an oppressive federal decision that threatens their autonomy and culture. It would be a gift to the PQ as it attempts to hold an independence referendum, says Western University history professor Jeffery Vacante.

Muslim groups have spoken out against the proposed ban. Other religious groups and civil society organizations should also make it clear that targeting children for their religious beliefs is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, escalating intolerance has become the norm inside the PQ in recent years. When Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon launched his PQ leadership campaign in 2016, he criticized the party’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values, which aimed to prohibit public servants from wearing religious symbols, saying that the PQ should apologize for its actions and become a party for all Quebeckers, regardless of their mother tongue or religion. He would be wise to reflect on the wisdom of his own words.

Quebec’s culture and language are important, and measures need to be taken to ensure they stay strong. But the PQ doesn’t need to do so by repressing cultures and religions that are part of the province’s fabric. And especially not by targeting schoolchildren.

Source: The PQ sees a dire threat: schoolchildren

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C.D. Howe: A Matter of Degrees: Understanding Immigrant Skills and Labour-Market Outcomes

2026/10/28 Leave a comment

Reasonable recommendations:

…The report, supported by the Future Skills Centre through the Government of Canada’s Future Skills program, identifies three areas for improving immigration’s economic outcomes and making better use of immigrant talent:

First, the Express Entry program could raise its minimum language threshold and place greater emphasis on advanced proficiency in Canada’s official languages, with ongoing evaluation of longer-term outcomes.

Second, faster, more consistent credential recognition and better employer recognition of foreign qualifications could help address persistent earnings and occupational gaps.

Third, employment-focused language training after arrival should be rigorously evaluated to ensure programs effectively support immigrants’ labour-market integration.

“Immigration is central to Canada’s workforce and economic growth, but attracting educated newcomers is only part of the equation,” says Mahboubi. “Helping immigrants put their skills and qualifications to work is an important opportunity to strengthen productivity and improve economic outcomes for newcomers and Canada alike.”

Read the Full Report

Source: A Matter of Degrees: Understanding Immigrant Skills and Labour-Market Outcomes

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Anora: “In Immigration – We Miss Trust”

2026/10/27 Leave a comment

Thoughtful analysis on the linkages between immigration, absorptive capacity and other policy areas, a major gap in the past. Will see the extent to which the forthcoming levels plan addressing these interlinked issues:

….Rebuilding trust requires integration across domains that policy often separates. Demographic need must be connected to economic strategy; economic selection to credential recognition and productivity; immigration levels to housing and service capacity; national ambition to regional delivery; and administrative data to lived experience. The measure of success is not simply how many people Canada admits, but whether newcomers and existing residents can build secure, productive lives in communities that remain functional and welcoming.

The proposed approach is disciplined but not technocratic. Family reunification, refugee protection, compassion and equal dignity are not residual categories to be considered after labour-market optimization. They are part of the legitimacy of the system and of Canada’s identity. History warns what can happen when anxiety overwhelms evidence and humanity. Recent experience warns what happens when aspiration is not matched by execution.

Canada’s choice is therefore not between open borders and closed doors, or between economic interest and moral obligation. It is between a fragmented system that asks the public to trust promises and an integrated system that earns trust through evidence, transparency, adaptability and fair treatment. Immigration will remain central to Canada’s future. The task is to build institutions capable of aligning that future with the country’s capacity, ambitions and values.

Source: “In Immigration – We Miss Trust”

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Public opposition to immigration declines as Ottawa mulls newcomer targets

2026/10/27 Leave a comment

Latest survey showing same trend:

Public opposition to immigration has shifted, with the proportion of Canadians who think too many people are moving here declining by 10 percentage points since 2024, a new poll by the Environics Institute has found.

The findings come as Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab prepares to announce in the coming weeks the government’s immigration targets for the next three years, both for permanent and temporary residents, including international students.

The government is facing calls to increase the numbers of immigrants it will admit to meet skills gaps to supply the work force needed for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ambitious list of major projects, including a new oil pipeline to the West Coast….

Public support for immigration has plummeted in recent years, after a rapid increase in new arrivals to the country. The number of newcomers doubled from 1.2 million in 2021 to 2.4 million in 2023.

Between 2022 and 2024, the proportion of Canadians who thought there was too much immigration doubled from 27 per cent to 58 per cent, the Environics Institute’s surveys showed.

In response to plummeting public support, starting in 2024, the federal government reduced the number of permanent residents it would accept each year, and capped the number of international student visas it issued. This led to a small drop in Canada’s population in 2025….

Source: Public opposition to immigration declines as Ottawa mulls newcomer targets

From the Environics Report:

Public discussion and public policy relating to immigration in Canada have evolved significantly over the past five years. As the pandemic receded, the intake of new arrivals – both permanent and temporary –rapidly increased, sparking criticisms about the selection criteria and the country’s capacity to build the necessary infrastructure – particularly housing. These criticisms were accompanied by a stark shift in public opinion: between 2022 and 2024, the Environics Institute’s Focus Canada surveys tracked a doubling in the proportion of Canadians who agree that there is too much immigration (from 27% to 58%). Beginning in 2024, the federal government made a number of policy changes, including significant reductions to the numbers of new immigrants across all categories that the country would welcome each year.

In the wake of these developments, the latest Focus Canada survey conducted this past September finds that – after a year of little change in 2025 – public opinion has begun to swing back toward more openness on immigration. While the extent of the opinion shift varies from question to question, the direction of the trend across all questions is consistent: the public is somewhat less concerned this year about the overall level of immigration, and the possible negative impact of immigration on the economy and jobs. Despite these changes, opinions on the whole remain more negative than they were prior to the shift that began in 2023….

In 2026, Canadians are evenly split on the question of whether, overall, there is too much immigration to Canada: 48 percent agree and 48 percent disagree. This represents a significant shift compared to last year toward more openness on immigration.

ƒ A large majority of Canadians continue to agree that immigration has a positive impact on the economy. Most Canadians also reject the proposition that immigrants take away jobs from other Canadians.

ƒ The proportion agreeing that too many immigrants are not adopting Canadian values, and that Canada accepts too many immigrants from racial minority groups, have both seen modest declines since last year.

ƒ In the case of these two questions – on immigrants adopting Canadian values, and on racial minority immigrants – the opinions of immigrants and non-immigrants, and of white and racialized Canadians, are very similar.

ƒ There has been no significant change since last year in the proportion agreeing that many refugees are not legitimate (a decline of only 2 points), although the direction of change is consistent with that for the other questions in this year’s survey.

ƒ A significant difference of opinion between supporters of the Conservative Party, onthe one hand, and supporters of the Liberal Party and the NDP, on the other, is evident on most of these questions. For instance, Conservative Party supporters are currently twice as likely as Liberal Party supporters and four times as likely as NDP supporters to agree that there is too much immigration. And, while large majorities of Liberal Party and NDP supporters agree that the economic impact of immigration is positive, Conservative Party supporters are divided.

In 2026, more than twice as many Canadians say that immigrants settling in their local community makes it a better place, rather than a worse place.

ƒ Among those who believe that immigration makes their communities a better place, the top reason given is that they value what immigrants bring in terms of multiculturalism and diversity.

ƒ The top reason given by those who say that immigrants make their communities a worse place pertains to concerns about weakening local culture or identity. A much smaller, and declining, proportion mention the impact of immigration in their community on housing affordability and availability. This proportion has fallen by seven percentage points since 2025.

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Coyne: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is targeting immigration. But what do the numbers say?

2026/10/27 Leave a comment

Valid critique:

….But never mind. Isn’t Alberta being overrun by immigrants? Hasn’t there been a sudden and extraordinary surge in immigration to Alberta, particularly temporary immigration, that has forced the Premier to take bold, decisive action, or at least ask the public for permission to do so?

No, actually. Leave aside that Ms. Smith was begging for immigration to Alberta to be accelerated not so long ago: a doubling of the province’s allocation under federal immigration quotas, in addition to another 10,000 Ukrainian refugees. The immigrant share of Alberta’s population, while it has been growing faster than in most other provinces – no kidding: you say that immigrants want to live in the richest province in the country? – remains below the national average.

As for the dreaded “non-permanent residents” (including refugees, foreign students, temporary foreign workers and their families): not only are their numbers, at 5.5 per cent of the province’s population, well below the national average (6.7 per cent), they’re lower than they are in Quebec (5.9 per cent)….In any event we are no longer admitting high numbers of immigrants, permanent or non-permanent, and haven’t been for some time. It’s striking, indeed, how the focus of the debate has changed. It used to be the issue was “illegal” immigration: asylum-seekers crossing the border (it is not illegal to claim asylum) thereby “jumping the queue” (there is no such queue). Then it was “out of control” immigration. Then it was “high” immigration. Increasingly, the target now is just “immigration.”

Which at least has the virtue of being honest.

Source: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is targeting immigration. But what do the numbers say?

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Saskatchewan, Newfoundland push Ottawa for greater control over immigration

2026/10/27 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary and yes, control doesn’t necessarily correlate with outcomes:

…Lisa Lalande, chief executive officer of the Century Initiative, a non-profit think tank that wants to see Canada’s population grow to 100 million by 2100, warned that “greater control over selection doesn’t automatically mean better outcomes.”

While Albertans’ demands deserve to be taken seriously, she said, “the real test is whether the system meets local needs, helps newcomers settle in and gives them reasons to stay. Ottawa sets the overall numbers, but provinces and communities know where the jobs are, so they need to plan together.”

Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo, cautioned against handing more control over immigration to provinces. There has been “an ongoing devolution of power away from the federal government towards the provinces, and that’s had a very high cost,” he said.

A once robust federal points-based system for choosing who settles here has over decades unravelled, Prof. Skuterud said. “What we have now looks like a lottery. It’s a patchwork system that you cannot navigate by yourself because it’s so complicated.”

Newcomers granted permanent residence in one province have a right to move somewhere else in Canada to work.

“We live in a federation with a constitution that guarantees people freedom of mobility,” Prof. Skuterud said, adding “there’s no way to ensure that they don’t leave. And so the whole system is flawed.”…

Source: Saskatchewan, Newfoundland push Ottawa for greater control over immigration

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Temporary Workers (IMP, Temporary Foreign Workers) and International Students: Permits and extension breakdown

2026/10/26 Leave a comment

Given the corrections from previously excessive levels of temporary residents, I though it would be interesting to obtain data breaking down permits and permit extensions for temporary workers (IMP and TFWP) and international students, 2016-25.

The following tables highlight the impact of the pandemic in increasing the percentage of extensions compared to new permits, which is also the case following the reductions in 2024 and 2025.

Not too much surprising but does highlight the considerable “overhang” from previous excess numbers.

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Canada’s anti-immigrant sentiment softening, according to new poll

2026/10/26 Leave a comment

Expect trend will also show in forthcoming Focus Canada survey:

Canadians in the Atlantic region and on the Prairies are most likely to think there are too many immigrants coming to this country while British Columbians and Quebecers are least likely to see it that way, according to a new poll.

When you look at all 10 provinces, 45 per cent of Canadians polled said we have too many immigrants, 31 per cent indicated we have about the right number, and 13 per cent said we don’t have enough, according to the poll conducted earlier this month by EKOS for the Association for Canadian Studies.

“We’re still seeing the large plurality of Canadians saying there are too many immigrants,” said Jack Jedwab, the association’s president.

“But clearly relative to the previous three years, we are seeing some change in feeling around that and some loosening of concern on the part of Canadians.”

Manitoba and Saskatchewan respondents were most likely to say Canada has too many immigrants (52 per cent), followed by Atlantic Canada (50 per cent), then Alberta and Ontario (both at 46 per cent).

British Columbians were least likely to say Canada has too many immigrants (39 per cent), followed closely by Quebecers (40 per cent).

“The poll comes ahead of Mark Carney’s Liberal government announcing immigration levels for the next three years in the coming weeks before presenting a budget on Nov. 5.

British Columbians topped the list of those who said Canada has about the right number of immigrants (34 per cent), followed by Alberta and Quebec (both at 32 per cent). Those polled in Manitoba and Saskatchewan were least likely to say Canada has the right number of immigrants (26 per cent).

British Columbians were also the most likely to say Canada doesn’t have enough immigrants (18 per cent), followed by Quebec (16 per cent), Atlantic Canada (13 per cent), and Ontario (12 per cent).

Immigration concerns have declined across the board, but they’re still high in Atlantic Canada and lowest in B.C. and Quebec, according to the poll.

Quebecers were most likely to strongly agree with the need for a common set of values (42 per cent strongly agreed with that, and another 42 per cent somewhat agree).

Only 31 per cent of respondents in Manitoba and Saskatchewan strongly agreed with the need for a common set of values, while 42 per cent somewhat agreed.

“But a near equal share believes cohesion requires people accepting others with different values, according to the poll.

In all 10 provinces, 40 per cent of respondents strongly agreed with that statement, while another 39 per cent somewhat agreed.

Those who indicated Canada has too many immigrants was down 13 percentage points from a separate Leger poll conducted in March 2025. Those who say we don’t have enough was up 10 percentage points over that same period…..

Source: Canada’s anti-immigrant sentiment softening, according to new poll

Filed under Immigration, Polling

Rempel Garner: Immigration levels must go way down, not up.

2026/10/23 1 Comment

Pre-levels plan political positioning, principles with few details, no numbers and lots on the failures of the Trudeau government.

Closing line of interest sounds more NDP than CPC: “It’s time for Mark Carney to deliver an immigration levels plan that works for people, not just for corporations:”

…First, bring the numbers down.

Bring them down so unemployed and underemployed Canadians get first crack at Canadian jobs. The Liberals love to talk about buying Canadian. It’s time they started talking about hiring Canadian and training Canadians.

Bring down levels so housing starts can catch up and rents can come down.

Bring down levels so our hospitals and family doctors aren’t asked to do the impossible.

And bring down levels so immigration policy goes back to what it should be: helping newcomers succeed and integrate, not handing corporations a tool to drive down wages.

Second, restore integrity to the system.

That means swiftly removing the large number of people who are in Canada with no legal right to be here. It means making sure social benefits go to people who genuinely need protection, not to those filing bogus asylum claims. It means stronger security, criminal and identity checks on every applicant. And it means ending lenient sentences handed to non-citizens convicted of serious crimes so they can avoid deportation.

It also means cracking down on fraud, from fake documents to study permit scams to the buying and selling of job offers. My colleague Brad Redekopp will describe one recent program change that is an example of a step in the wrong direction….

It’s time for Mark Carney to deliver an immigration levels plan that works for people, not just for corporations.

Source: Immigration levels must go way down, not up.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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