Jamie Sarkonak: New Liberals offer more of the same old attitude on immigration
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Hence a question from Saskatoon MP Brad Redekopp: 'How can you set immigration targets, minister, if you do not know how many people have left the country.' The reply: border services and the public safety department are responsible for exit numbers. It's as if Diab views immigration as a force of nature rather than a completely human-controlled process, under the complete responsibility of elected officials in Ottawa.
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And while the new plan projects less extreme inflows than the post-COVID years, they're still uncomfortably high. It aims, for example, to issue 437,000 study permits in 2025. That's more than twice the number of new international students who came to Canada in 2017 (196,400), and quadruple that of 2012 (106,250), per Statistics Canada.
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For permanent residents, the target number for this year is now 395,000 — better than the previous 485,000, but still vastly greater than 2014's 260,000. And yes, the Liberals are now looking to close some asylum-seeker loopholes with the proposed Bill C-2, but to actually pull off meaningful change, they will need a minister who's actually willing to say 'no.'
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Whether Diab has that capacity, we've yet to see. Her words are little consolation for those who are currently feeling the most heat due to Canada's rapid population growth: last year, banks were warning that youth unemployment was under pressure from large inflows of unskilled workers; now, even the Bank of Canada admits that high immigration from low-income countries has depressed wages.
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'Does the minister believe that the large influx of foreign workers is depressing wages for young Canadians?' asked Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan MP Garnett Genuis. 'Immigration is our strength,' responded Diab.
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Quebec MP Bernard Généreux noted the nationwide housing shortage in a question, which was met with moralizing from the minister. 'Once again, it is not the fault of immigrants,' Diab said, attempting to malign the observation that immigration is linked to housing pressures.
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In 2023, the country saw 240,000 housing starts — relative to 1.2 million newcomers, per the Aristotle Foundation. That's one house for every five newcomers. Back in 2015, we built one home for every two-or-so new entrants. Anyone with a basic awareness of the real estate and rental markets will know that there have been real, painful consequences to this widening ratio.
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Even the Liberals are aware: Diab's department was warning in 2022 that immigration was outpacing construction, to the detriment of affordability, and their latest immigration plan explicitly aims to reduce the housing shortage. There's nothing wrong with understanding the critical, and obvious, link between these two factors.
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