Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Azure]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I think it’s pretty doubtful that PP is going to lower immigration levels, even if he uses it as a dogwhistle to certain elements of his voter base so it’s unlikely that it becomes a contentious enough issue for the liberals to build their platform around

Was actually talking about the Liberals kicking Trudeau and Freeland to the curb, but if you say so.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I think it’s pretty doubtful that PP is going to lower immigration levels, even if he uses it as a dogwhistle to certain elements of his voter base so it’s unlikely that it becomes a contentious enough issue for the liberals to build their platform around

I don’t think it will be an issue come election time. I could be wrong, but I don’t think anyone wants to run a campaign on lowering immigration because you may lose the votes of new Canadians.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Being that I live in Alberta in a riding that is gauranted to go blue, it doesn't matter who I vote for so I'd generally have to look at which ideas I support the most. I still always vote, but I understand the realities of our system and my vote not mattering. So if a local candidate, or some good ideas come out at the time, I'd lean that way. I know that's not the answer you are looking for, but with our limited info right now since we aren't in an election, it's tough to say.

If the best local candidate was Liberal, you would vote Liberal?

What if the best local candidate was CPC, who do you vote for?

Obviously hypothetical, and like you said, it’s a long ways away.


Edit: I see you are in the sin bin so can’t answer. Full disclosure, it would be very very difficult for me to vote Liberal if the roles were reversed in my scenario.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

If the best local candidate was Liberal, you would vote Liberal?

What if the best local candidate was CPC, who do you vote for?

Obviously hypothetical, and like you said, it’s a long ways away.


Edit: I see you are in the sin bin so can’t answer. Full disclosure, it would be very very difficult for me to vote Liberal if the roles were reversed in my scenario.

I would vote for the candidate that best fit my views hoping that they would bring those views to Ottawa (I did the same thing in the last two Provincial elections).

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Reducing the longer-term plan of 500-550K a year? No. I'm sure they'd make a big show of reducing from 2022's huge number, but the Liberals will do that too (COVID backlogs and the Ukraine war won't happen every year).

We're a country whose current population will lose about 100K/year from its labour force without immigration. That, coupled with the fact that the big businesses who largely dictate the Liberals' and Conservatives' policies don't want a labour shortage driving up wages and reducing their profits, means that lowering immigration significantly isn't really a viable option. We need about 350K working-age immigrants (which is about 525K total) to maintain our 30+ year average of 1.25% labour force growth per year.

That calculation of about 525k total immigrants a year looks solid. And no doubt the federal government’s targets are based on a similar analysis.

But we aren’t seeing 525k or 600k immigrants a year. When you factor in temporary foreign workers and student visas, that figure is far higher.

As the former director of planning and accountability at Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration commented in today’s G&M:

When it comes to immigration levels, temporary permits are the elephant in the room

With pressure mounting to rethink Canada’s immigration policies, it’s no surprise to see a new minister, Marc Miller, take charge of the portfolio. Over recent months, we have seen an increasing number of articles, studies and reports warning that the rapid rise in population is stretching housing and health services and that the current immigration levels might be too high. More voices are calling for a course correction or restoring balance in Canada’s immigration policy.

The federal government may, indeed, want to propose a temporary slowdown of the pace of arrivals in response to these calls for a reset, and the new minister might be more open to this approach. However, any realignment in pace, numbers or skill levels of new arrivals will be much easier said than done. Mr. Miller can certainly level off permanent immigration targets, at least for the short term, but this would make little or no difference to the number of arrivals, since almost all people arriving from other countries now do so on temporary visas and permits.

Permanent immigration planning was relevant years ago when the number of permanent residents each year coincided relatively closely with the number of new arrivals. This was because permanent immigration applications had to be made from outside Canada. It is also important to note that people arriving with permanent status benefit from the same protections and public services as Canadian citizens from the moment they land in the country.

The bulk of people granted permanent resident status these days are already living in Canada with some sort of temporary immigration status, such as a work permit or a student visa. These are not the people driving new demand for housing or health services, because they are already here.

Meanwhile, the number of people arriving as temporary residents isn’t directly managed by the federal government – there are no targets and no ceilings. The former immigration minister Sean Fraser was very clear that temporary immigration is based on the demand of postsecondary institutions and employers. The number of temporary work permit holders in Canada at the end of 2022 had soared to 798,100. The number of foreign students in Canada has also soared, with more than 807,260 in the country at the end of 2022.

The requirement to apply for permanent residence from outside the country was abolished several years ago. Most people with temporary study or work status (and their spouses and children) nevertheless arrive seduced by the promise of permanent residence. Multiple pathways for just that purpose have been put in place both federally and provincially.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...-the-elephant/

So we don’t have a single coordinated policy assessing how many new workers/taxpayers Canada needs and our capacity to house them and provide services. We have multiple levels of government and multiples institutions with their own narrow interests bringing in people via different channels. Tim Horton’s wants temporary foreign workers in order to keep labour costs low. Universities want foreign students in order to boost revenue. Neither are concerned with whether the workers/students have homes to live in - not their responsibility.

I doubt any Canadian government is going to reduce that base 500k-550k immigration level. But they could bring some coordination and rationalization of the other sources of migrants, including things like caps on student visas and temporary foreign workers.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by opendoor

I also find it funny how immigration is a hot point right now, but the Conservatives have basically no intention of reducing immigration. Because they too understand the necessity of growing our labor force if we want to be able to afford healthcare, CPP, OAS without significant tax increases.

If they play it right, they may be able to benefit from a reaction against a policy that they'd also implement. They'd basically just need to keep quiet about it other than spouting a few empty platitudes about it being "broken" and it'll probably work.

What makes you think high immigration numbers aren’t a burden on our healthcare? Wait times probably will continue to increase with more people utilizing the system and not proportionally as many entering the field.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

What makes you think high immigration numbers aren’t a burden on our healthcare? Wait times probably will continue to increase with more people utilizing the system and not proportionally as many entering the field.

Immigrants are disproportionately employed in the health care sector. So while they may be a factor in localized capacity shortfalls in some urban centres, I don’t think they’re a significant reason for Canada’s health care capacity crisis.

It’s really down to aging. For instance, at a simple scan 95 per cent of the residents in my dad’s care home are of European heritage, while 95 per cent of the staff are not.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

What makes you think high immigration numbers aren’t a burden on our healthcare? Wait times probably will continue to increase with more people utilizing the system and not proportionally as many entering the field.

Low immigration is a big burden on healthcare. The limiting factor currently in healthcare is not funds, it's employees

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by timun

On sheer volume there hasn't been a PM who's broken more promises in recent memory, but it's also a result of the Liberal Party making more promises in the first place. Fortunately there are people who take it upon themselves to track this stuff, e.g. https://www.polimeter.org/en/trudeau...progress_desc#

Truth be told I'm actually kind of happy he broke several very dumb promises.

I mean, he's been in office a much longer time than most, promises are more recorded now, and yes, they put out more actual policy proposals than the CPC does.

And it's a matter of degree, importance and feasibility, and what we consider promises as opposed to more aspirational statements. Am I mad if a bad idea is recognized and shelved? No. Am I mad at him if he didn't get NDP support (as needed) for something? Probably not.

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1691815018470297641

[Fuzz]

These polls are great, hopefully it leads the Liberals to ditch Justin.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

The problem is that party politics being what they are, that will just lead to Freeland taking over, and that's absolutely not any better, and actually probably worse.

They need to move to someone who isn't tainted by being in the inner circle of this PMO. Not necessarily outside the cabinet, but definitely outside the inner circle.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

The problem is that party politics being what they are, that will just lead to Freeland taking over, and that's absolutely not any better, and actually probably worse.

They need to move to someone who isn't tainted by being in the inner circle of this PMO. Not necessarily outside the cabinet, but definitely outside the inner circle.

You never know what a leadership race will look like until you have one, though. Like, it's worth a fricken' try already.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by Yoho

https://twitter.com/user/status/1691815018470297641

Quite the story. It’s good to share your 2 cents in the hopes that people who have been straight up bull####ted by certain people and politicians realize it.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You never know what a leadership race will look like until you have one, though. Like, it's worth a fricken' try already.

More than worth a try. At this point it seems like the only reasonable course available.

I don't put much faith in polls outside of an election campaign as a barometer for what will happen in the next election, but neither can you ignore polling this bad. So I think they do have to replace him... I'm just saying that the outcome is of a leadership race is very likely not going to be good either. But it would probably position them better for the next election than just staying the course so they should probably do it.

Notwithstanding that his agenda doesn't really get talked about in this thread, PP has been far better in his role at articulating frustrations with the status quo than I expected. But I still think that when it comes time to campaign, the average voter is going to find him incredibly unlikable and he'll shoot himself in the foot enough times to undermine any polling advantage. It just really seems like this is inevitably going to end up in a "well absolutely #### off with all of these options" election, again, at least at the leadership level.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Quite the story. It’s good to share your 2 cents in the hopes that people who have been straight up bull####ted by certain people and politicians realize it.

Aww are you getting too scared to confront people directly?

[Firebot]

Reality doesn't conform to narratives unfortunately. While Trudeau is currently on a 3 day retreat in PEI to discuss home affordability, news comes of housing projects being cancelled at significant numbers, further exacerbating the housing affordability impact.

https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-re...-prince-edward

https://www.thestar.com/real-estate/...er%20of%202023.

At a time when Canada desperately needs to build more housing — and Premier Doug Ford is opening up part of the Greenbelt to be developed — the construction industry “remains downbeat” amid high interest rates, with 22 per cent of Canadian homebuilders cancelling projects entirely in the second quarter of 2023.

Immigrants are also getting a raw deal with rising costs, and it's starting to show in application numbers dropping significantly. This means the threshold quality may need to drop as the country still needs to meet government policy targets, as it is unlikely that targets are going to be dropped for political reasons.

https://www.immigration.ca/canada-im...od%20in%202022.

Applications to immigrate to Canada dropped in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, possibly indicating a future fall in newcomers to the country.

The latest data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reveals immigration applications dropped 12 per cent, to only 73,358 in the first quarter of this year, compared to 83,691 for the same three-month period in 2022.

Even more dramatic is the 39.3 per cent drop in the monthly average number of applications in the last quarter of last year, 40,312, compared to the only 24,453 in the first three months of this year.

Fueling the overall drop in applications are significant reductions in the number of applications from foreign nationals from some countries that are important sources of new permanent residents to Canada.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That calculation of about 525k total immigrants a year looks solid. And no doubt the federal government’s targets are based on a similar analysis.

But we aren’t seeing 525k or 600k immigrants a year. When you factor in temporary foreign workers and student visas, that figure is far higher.

As the former director of planning and accountability at Quebec’s Ministry of Immigration commented in today’s G&M:

So we don’t have a single coordinated policy assessing how many new workers/taxpayers Canada needs and our capacity to house them and provide services. We have multiple levels of government and multiples institutions with their own narrow interests bringing in people via different channels. Tim Horton’s wants temporary foreign workers in order to keep labour costs low. Universities want foreign students in order to boost revenue. Neither are concerned with whether the workers/students have homes to live in - not their responsibility.

I doubt any Canadian government is going to reduce that base 500k-550k immigration level. But they could bring some coordination and rationalization of the other sources of migrants, including things like caps on student visas and temporary foreign workers.

But that all gets captured in overall population growth, which hasn't been that far out of whack. In the last 5 years, the population has increased by 2.96M, which is 592K a year. In recent years births have exceeded deaths by about 50-100K a year, so that would suggest net migration (including temporary students/workers) of a little over 500K a year, which is right on target for maintaining labour force growth.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Immigrants are also getting a raw deal with rising costs, and it's starting to show in application numbers dropping significantly. This means the threshold quality may need to drop as the country still needs to meet government policy targets, as it is unlikely that targets are going to be dropped for political reasons.

https://www.immigration.ca/canada-im...od%20in%202022.

That really doesn't mean a whole lot. COVID backlogs meant that applications in 2022 were higher than normal.

And comparing Q1 2023 to Q4 2022 doesn't make much sense either, because application rates are normally seasonal. Q1 2022 applications were 41% lower than Q4 2021 applications for instance.

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1691877694613397991

Pre rehearsed question didn’t go great.