Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The Liberal government is deporting migrants at an unprecedented pace compared to the last decade, despite pledging to allow more undocumented people to stay in the country, according to numbers obtained by The Breach. In 2022 and 2023 alone, Canada deported more than 23,000 undocumented migrants, at a price tag of more than $111 million. It’s the highest level of deportations since 2012, when Stephen Harper’s Tory government deported nearly 19,000 people in a single year . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

Immigration Minister Marc Miller remarked that the country has become “quite addicted” to temporary foreign workers. He wasn’t wrong. In recent years, the number of temporary residents overall who come to Canada to work and study had ballooned seemingly unchecked with no apparent overarching strategy or thought about the knock-on strains it would place on housing, health care and education. Canada's population grew by 1.3 million people to total population of 40.7 million in 2023, the highest growth rate since 1957, according to Statistics Canada. Most of that growth -- some 804,901 people --was from temporary immigration. There are 2.7 million temporary residents in Canada, up from 1.4 million just two years ago . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

Canada is imposing a national cap on the intake of international students into the country, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced on Monday. Miller announced a slew of other curbs while speaking at the Liberal cabinet retreat, which he said would reduce the intake by 35 per cent over the next two years. He said the measures were temporary and were going to stay in place for two years ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Canada is set to welcome nearly 1.5 million new permanent residents over the next three years, according to the new targets recently announced by Immigration Minister Marc Miller. Canada does not foresee a cut to immigration levels and plans to hold its target of annual newcomers steady at 500,000 people starting in 2026, according to plans tabled in Parliament by Miller. A closer look at the data and breakdown by category can give an idea of who these new immigrants headed to Canada will be. The Immigration Levels Plan sets guidelines and targets for how many permanent residents Canada plans to welcome under economic, humanitarian and family reunification streams ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Much has been said and written about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s predictably disastrous trip to India for the G20 Summit (including by yours truly; I hope you have read the article ‘PM Trudeau’s India Disaster 2.0). This issue is important enough to keep bouncing around in the public sphere for some time. I will be putting out a podcast episode to sum up my reaction to the responses that I received on Twitter / X to my article. In the meantime, there are other developments that also merit our attention.  Today, I wish to focus on some of these developments at the municipal level. Before I get to the specific instances, it bears noting that our political system has morphed into something where the credentials required for electoral success are mostly related to activism, rather than any demonstrated ability in the areas of policy making or administration. Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in municipal politics. I consider this to be a ‘foundation crack’ in the edifice...

  Prominent economists from some of Canada’s largest banks are raising the alarm over Canada’s record level immigration targets set by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.    Despite these warnings, Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said that revising the half a million per year target was out of the question and instead he might even increase the number of permanent residents accepted into Canada.    As Canadians face increasingly unaffordable housing costs, the Trudeau government is feeling the pressure to address the exploding demand for housing. On this issue, however, it’s not the Conservatives who are calling out the Liberals but some of Canada’s most influential economists ... CLICK HERE for the full story

        As the issue of housing/ international students/ immigrants heats up, one side is pretending to want to close the barn door, while the other side is pretending that the animals are still in the barn, so closing the door is unnecessary.    For my latest article CLICK HERE