The Decibel - ‘We could have acted earlier’: Canada’s Immigration Minister

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a major reduction in the number of permanent residents the country will admit over the next three years, saying his government had not gotten the balance between labour needs and population growth “quite right.”In 2025 and 2026, the government had initially planned to bring in 500,000 permanent residents – now, they’ve set a target of 395,000 and 380,000, respectively. In 2027, that target is 365,000 permanent residents. This signifies a major policy reversal for the Trudeau government – and would mean that Canada’s net population is projected to decline by 0.2 per cent per year over the next two years.Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, joins us to discuss why the government is cutting Canada’s immigration targets, and why he says Canadians should trust the Liberals to fix the problem.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

When Justin Trudeau first ran for office, back in 2015, he campaigned on a platform that strongly promoted immigration. But there is more we can do to help our economy grow and to help Canadians succeed. I'm talking about immigration. Immigration is now, as it has always been, critical to job creation and long-term economic growth. In so many ways, Canada is what it is today, thanks to the entrepreneurial spirit of those who chose to build their lives here.

In the nine years since, Canada has accepted an estimated 3 million permanent residents, which wasn't really seen as that big of a deal. Immigration has historically been popular among Canadians. But recent polling has shown that public opinion has shifted around immigration growth amid the rising cost of living and a tight housing market. And then last week, on Thursday, the federal government did a U-turn and cut immigration targets. Because in the tumultuous times as we emerged from the pandemic, between addressing labor needs and maintaining population growth,

we didn't get the balance quite right. Now they're trying to strike the right balance. The plan aims to bring in 395,000 permanent residents in 2025. That's down from the previous target of 500,000. That number decreases the following two years as well, so the target in 2027 is 365,000. The government also introduced a new cap on temporary residents coming to Canada.

Next year, that cap is just under 446,000. Now, that's a lot of numbers. But what it means is that if things go according to plan, and that's a big if, our population is projected to decline by 0.2% in each of the next two years. And that has businesses worried about Canada's labour force, and economists worried about declining growth. So on Friday, I spoke to the Honourable Mark Miller, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, about his new plan. He's on today's show to explain why the government is cutting Canada's immigration targets, and why he thinks Canadians should trust the Liberals to fix this.

I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Minister Miller, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me on. So we're talking about these new immigration targets today. These are substantial changes, right? And in making these changes, your government has acknowledged there's a problem with how our immigration system has been working. of immigration increase, including the volume. And that's a fair criticism. I think it's one that we absolutely have to own, but the immigration system is more complex than stamping visas at a border in a certain amount. It reflects a careful calculation about the type

of person that we bring in this country for what purpose. Largely economic or humanitarian or family reunification, all super important categories, as well as temporary residents, which have increased significantly over the last few years to close to 7% of the population. That's a really significant amount. It's a significant increase over a relatively small period of time. Lots of good has happened from that. We prevented a recession. The labor forces got significantly and marketingly younger compared to other workforces that have aging challenges to them. That is a challenge for a country that prides itself, for example, on healthcare, free healthcare, universal,

can't provide that if you don't have the people doing things. But the prime minister said that we didn't quite get the balance, right? I guess that's what I'm wondering about, right? So what wasn't working? And I think that's accurate. You know, I think even though I acted rather swiftly when I got into this position and the prime minister expected me to do that, on reflection, I think we could have acted quicker on temporary residence and that swift increase, which is important coming out of COVID. There's lots of the job market needed those people. Businesses were crying out, provinces were crying out to fill that labor gap. And largely it was the right thing, but I think we could have adjusted certainly earlier.

That responsibility is ours, but it's also partial. I mean, there is in the temporary resident numbers that are significant, half of that is occupied by international students and the postgraduate work permits that come with it. That is entirely, other than the stamping of the visas, you know, just to be illustrative about it, in the jurisdiction of provinces. And provinces have failed, and that's been pointed out by Auditors General, particularly in Ontario, to regulate those institutions, the flow. There was lots of money coming into it. The federal government was the only person in that food chain that wasn't making any money. My point is there's responsibility to go around. And as responsible governments, we need to act. This is a really, I think, important plan. It gives a complete snapshot of population growth of the migration picture in Canada, but it's also, I think, a responsible plan going forward that

reestablishes control of the federal government over the immigration system. I think that's important for the next three years. You're talking about temporary residents. So let's talk about that in a bit more depth. So this is the first time the government is setting a cap on temporary residents. Canada now has just over 3 million temporary residents as of the summer, as of July. And that represents about 7.3% of our entire population. Your goal is to reduce temporary residents now to 5% of the Canadian population over the next three years. How are we going to get to that number from 7.3% to 5%? So it's going to be a challenge and it will be something we'll have to make sure we keep an eye on. Economists rightly so said when I announced my student policy changes to make

things more restrictive and more quality-based rather than quantity-based, that that was sort of an incomplete policy package to address that reduction from 7% to 5%. My colleague Randy Bussinov and I have put in changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which will reduce the numbers, as well as the suite of measures that I put into place more recently with respect to postgraduate work permits

and even lowering the student cap even more. We believe the suite of policy will reduce that temporary flow of people by a net amount by over 400,000 next year, 400,000 the year after, and then a slight increase as people adjust in the final year. That'll require some adjustments in the economy. I think some healthy ones, namely relying on the workforce and the labor market that is here. We're lucky to have that here, but I think there's been a sense in Canada, and I think an addiction to temporary foreign work in Canada that businesses have profited from,

and indeed has been important, but in some senses is unhealthy. So there will have to be some adjustment. I'm not there to ruin good business models, but I think we owe it to ourselves to have some discipline to bring those numbers down. And we will talk about businesses because this is an important part of this. But I'm just trying to, I guess, still understand the math a little bit of how this will work with temporary residents, because essentially people are going to have to leave is really how it's going to work, because people are still going to be coming in, even though those numbers are reduced. Based on those numbers, we're banking on a decline of, I think it's around 900,000 temporary residents leaving. How are we going to, I guess, ensure that they've left, that that math

actually works out? Well, first, I'd hasten to add that these changes, even though the changes on the student visas are starting to be felt because we've put in the measures several months ago, these measures we feel will start to be felt by StatsCan in the second quarter of 2025. We've seen probably the biggest slowdown in temporary workers in the last StatsCan publication recently. I just want to say, are we tracking this though? It is admittedly an imperfect science, but people have two or three, we have two or three ways of addressing this. One, which is important, making sure that the strong labor force that is qualified and skilled has an access to permanent residency.

The plan that I put out yesterday has a real focus on in Canada draws for people that have the skills and talent to be part of the permanent residency population. So people will be drawn into that by making sure that we're focusing on the domestic labor force, super important for affordability because we're not going abroad to bring someone in that would need all the resources that people are already using here. That's not everyone. Temporary in Canada needs to mean something. It can't mean temporary with a guarantee to become permanent resident. People will have to

leave on the expiration of their visa. People already do that. If someone stays beyond the time in their visa, they are in a situation of irregularity. They need to leave the country. So people do have a choice, and people do leave on the expiration of their visa. This is sort of a misconception that everyone stays. That isn't the case. And I should just say, though, of course,

this is not the fault of immigrants, of people coming into the country. We're talking about the problems in the system. In no way is the blame being laid on these individuals. You mentioned permanent residency. So let's talk about that too, because the changes also apply to permanent residents. It sounds like we just talked through a huge number of issues that are around unregulated growth when it comes to temporary residents. So it sounds like the problem is really focused there. So why touch the caps for permanent residency in this country? You know, it's a really good question.

I think what became quite obvious to me over the course of the last year, as I was doing these consultations, talking to economists, talking to business leaders, talking to Canadians at the doors, that there was a need to reduce the flow of permanent residents in this country. The sweet spot for most economists was somewhere between 350 to 450. You'll find out liars. You'll find people that disagree on both ends of the spectrum. This is a 395, I think is fair.

I think it's reasonable. It takes us roughly back to an equally ambitious plan that was put forward in about 2020, 2021. So it still is reliant on immigrants coming to this country, contributing to the country. Indeed, those are very, very, very valuable members of society and they'll contribute to building Canada.

As we looked at adjusting the most important part, temporary residence, that we had to make a corresponding change to permanent residency to address some of the needs, for example, in housing, obviously not entirely attributable to immigrants. The interest rate's not the fault of immigrants. There's plenty of low volume immigration countries that have real affordability challenges, real housing challenges, but it was on volume presenting some pressure. So the two changes and reductions in temporary residence and permanent residence will result in about 670,000 units over the next three years not having to be built, which is important. As we continue to make investments, there's shared responsibility here. Provinces have responsibility over the immigration system. Indeed, over the last few years, the provinces have controlled a quarter to a third of the economic migration into their

own provinces and haven't necessarily been responsible, whether it's on the temporary side with international students or on permanent residence. So this plan is a message to provinces to get their acts together and the federal government's willing to work with them on their own responsibility to make sure that immigrants are welcomed and properly accommodated in this country as they integrate to a new reality. But there's work and responsibility to go around. And I'm willing absolutely to work with them. You mentioned housing affordability. So let's talk about this, because this is a big part of the issues that we're seeing in this country right now. In your statement on Thursday, you're talking about how the issue of how these changes affect housing affordability. And the quote you said was that these lower permanent residence targets are expected to

reduce the housing supply gap by about 670,000 units by the end of 2027. Can you take me through how we got to that number? You know, these are estimates that are based not only on the 105,000 permanent resident reduction that is for immediately in next year, but it profiled over the reduction of permanent residency down to a little over 360,000 in 2027, matched with the reduction of temporary residents, which is much more significant over that same time span. You look at it and then apply the new plan

that plans for about 40% of the permanent residency numbers being occupied by people that are already temporary residents in Canada. And what you come up with generally is a need to build about 670,000 fewer units. You can play with the ratios and say it's a, you know, it's not one person, one house, or it's not, it's not 15 person family. There is a sweet spot there that represents sort of the median family. And then you can do the, you can do the numbers yourself. This isn't always, always the federal government building it. It is also, you know, private industry. There's a lot

of factors that play into sort of the housing counts that we provide. But that's the best estimate that we have at government. We'll be back in a moment. Let's talk about economic repercussions here. The government has talked about how we need immigration to sustain our labor force very basically, right? Our birthright doesn't kind of make up for that in Canada. But sustain our labor force, very basically, right? Our birth rate doesn't kind of make up for that in Canada. But it's not just about labor shortages, right? It's about having a tax income. It's also about supplying money for the Canada pension plan.

And according to the new plan here, population growth is expected to decline in Canada by 0.2% in each of the next two years. So if we're decreasing immigration to this point, how much of an economic slowdown are we ready to take on? I think what we can anticipate from the plan is actually an increase in the GDP per capita, which is very important in a country like Canada. It is in the be all end all of metrics when we look at GDP analysis, but it has been significant to look at it. We also have a relatively young labor force, which kind of skews the data as far as younger people make less

than people at the end of their career. Of course, our GDP per capita has been lowering the last few years, right? Our GDP has increased, but that's because we've had more immigrants and to kind of soften that low. More immigrants, younger workforce, and there's all sorts of challenges with that.

Legitimate criticisms around innovation. I think these are all things that we need to take to heart. Not underestimating at the same time, the real powerhouse that immigration has been, but there's some good

and some bad that comes with that. Just take the simple analogy to international students. You get a hundred thousand for about three years, but then something, you fall off the cliff if someone doesn't find a job

or finds a job in the restoration area. It's not the best way to attract the best, bright and brightest talent. So I think at the end of the day, this will be good for the economy because we'll be asking businesses and I, who have become perhaps over-reliant on the easy fix of bringing immigrants into the country and relying on temporary foreign workers.

We've gotten slightly addicted to that, but I think we have to be able to talk to businesses, talk to labor groups and say to them, look, there's a pool of talent in this country. You don't need to go abroad constantly to get that. That has its impacts on integration, the social safety net, social fabric of the country. And there's better ways to do things and also innovate. It's a delicate conversation because the federal government should never be the one that decides everything in an open economy like we have, but it does have a role to play. As a country, I think we have unfortunately become

a bit complacent about the beautiful consensus we've built around immigration, which has caused some fraying. And I obviously have a duty as a minister of immigration to act, but so do a lot of other people who've benefited immensely from immigration over the past few years. So to go back to this point about temporary foreign workers, because this is a huge part of the conversation, the recent announcements that your government made did get pushback from different business groups saying that they needed these workers. Why have we relied so much on these temporary foreign workers? How has our system been set up in such a way that we were so reliant on these workers? You know, there's probably a much longer podcast that we could have on this. There's a long arc to that in the perfect storm coming out of COVID. In fact, in my own province, we went into COVID

Quebec with a labor shortage, the government sort of refusing to do things. And then in their responsibility, Quebec's a bit of a unique animal as far as it has its own relationship with Canada, even tripling some of the areas where they have temporary foreign workers under their jurisdiction. A similar profile happened here in Ontario. But isn't it maybe an issue of government that there were too many loopholes essentially here, and this is why we have this problem now? You know, and then we relaxed things coming out of COVID for very good reason.

And I think it made sense at the time. It no longer makes sense now. And I think one of the criticism I think that we own is we, we yes, could have acted earlier. Perhaps we wouldn't have been as aggressive as we are now. It's very hard to speculate

based on hindsight. But I think that let's not underplay the importance that this played for the economy. But as things get overhe's not underplay the importance that this played for the economy, but as things get overheated, as we see the temporary spaces increase in Canada, it became eminently clear that we do not have the space to fully accommodate those people as permanent residences, permanent residents, and that isn't fair. So, you know, I think this current plan not only gives a more complete snapshot than it ever has in prior years, but also proposes a reasonable plan that people can get behind and I think help continue to build the consensus in Canada.

We've talked a little bit about housing affordability, but let's come back here, Minister, because when you spoke on Thursday, you actually, you touted that the changes you'd already made, international students, which you referenced earlier, these were changes from January. You said that they have worked. These were your words. And you mentioned that rents have dropped in Vancouver and Toronto by 10% and 8% respectively. That's for one bedroom and two bedroom units. How did you determine that drop in rent is actually the result of the drop in international students? I think it's a very good point because the causation chain is one, I think, that can be analyzed and broken down a bit.

Clearly, we've acknowledged that the volume of students and temporary workers is one that has contributed to the increase in rent, particularly in areas where you have a lot of the designated learning institutions that get international students.

Surrey, for example, has half of the designated learning institutions in BC. So there is a strong correlation. This is happening at the same time as the Bank of Canada is cutting interest rates. Yeah, and so is there, is it the entire reason? No. And I, I said that on the other side of the analysis, which is let's not be too quick to, uh, blame these people for all the ills

of society. There's a really good study that came out of McGill studying the BC market, showing that the regulation of, of things like, like Airbnb contributes to the decline in prices and increases affordability. There are plenty of other factors that play into this, but clearly you can't deny volume and the corresponding reduction in volume that we've seen over the last six months. We're still measuring the data. I was very careful about even talking about initial success of this because, I mean, my fundamental duty is to tell the truth to Canadians. I wanted to see the student numbers coming in through August and September. And then we've seen sort of independent studies that come out that do tie this. So it's important to say

that these measures are working. But again, there are always other factors that play into these results. I do want to point out, though, that in making these statements, when you're unveiling this plan, you were making an explicit connection between immigration growth and the affordability crisis that all Canadians, including immigrants, are dealing with. But I think it's just relevant because your government has spent a lot of time in the last couple of years really trying to make the case that those issues are separate. And I guess, do you worry that by mentioning them together, that maybe this is helping to promote any anti-immigrant sentiment here? Well, there's a distinction between 100% and 20%. We've never denied that there's a connection. It's just some, I look at the politics and the weaponization of the issue in my own province. Oddly, perhaps ironically, based on the last Enveronics report, I have the highest positive views of immigrants.

In Quebec. In Quebec. That is not the general idea that people form of Quebec, outside Quebec. Yeah, the Enveronics report is 58% of Canadians now think the country accepts too many immigrants. And I would say yet at the same time, in particularly the provincial legislature, there's been a weaponization of this issue. So politicians speaking carefully and deliberately is really important in this debate because the first people to pay for this instrumentalization, weaponization are immigrants and newcomers themselves. Very important not to scapegoat them. But you can't deny the impact of volume. Ever since I've gotten into office, I've never denied the impact of volume. I've sometimes denied the characterization of that as on the backs of immigrants. Again, there are low immigration countries where the challenges are

the same. There are other factors like regulation of shops like Airbnb that are very important and the impact that everyone's felt, the psychological impact that everyone's felt for probably the first time in a generation of actually having to pay interest on your mortgages, right? And if economists say, point to anything that is almost axiomatic true is that this is an effect that is felt differently in different sectors. If you're renting to international students, you're probably not feeling so good about Mark Miller. If you're trying to find and lease a space in a high density college town, I mean, most people never heard of me, so let's be honest, but you're probably feeling a little bit happier about your prospects of getting an affordable rent.

We've talked around a whole bunch of different issues and the things that you're planning on doing here, but, you know, your government has said that you got the balance wrong. How will you know if it's been corrected? Like, what are the numbers? What are the metrics

that you're looking at here? Look, we're all human and this is our best snapshot at this moment for the next three years. I believe it's accurate. I believe it's fair. I believe it's just.

We struggled a lot. You know, it's easier to do a lot of things when you're trying to, when you're increasing immigration. you increase a bucket here, you say, well, take in this many humanitarian people, you take in this many family, parents, grandparents, and you take in this whack of economic migrants,

which is essentially the pride of our immigration system. Even when we compare ourselves to the US, the 60% immigration bucket that we have of people coming to this country contribute directly to the GBP compares really favorable to the 25% the US does, but those policy choices do have consequences. So when you're establishing that mix, particularly in an era of reducing, there's some really painful discussions that go on with caucus members, with policy makers, directly with the prime minister, and they're not easy. So I don't think anyone should think that we took this decision easily or hastily. It was a product of months and months of work. The economy has also changed significantly in the last year. So governments owe it to

Canadians to adjust as they see things changing. But in this area in particular, it is important to have some predictability and stability. So I hear what you're saying, kind of looking back in all those different aspects there, but I didn't hear any specific metrics. Are there any specific metrics that you'll be looking towards? You and I can sit down with a plan and go through it on another podcast that will get like probably terrible ratings because no one will watch it about the plan we put forward. It's very detailed.

If you ask me what I was keeping, you know, to be clear and to answer your question, if you ask me what I was keenly keeping my eye on, yes, obviously the permanent residency numbers, but also the temporary residency numbers and how that is working and how that is ironing out. I take to heart some of the comments the Bank of Canada made about the ambitiousness of bringing that temporary resident number down from 7% to 5%. They said when they last issued their report that it had an incomplete policy package to substantiate that they were right. What we rolled out in the fall largely completes that analysis, but I'll be keenly watching the numbers on, on temporary residents because that is the bigger challenge.

And to your earlier questions is fraught with a number of, of potential pathways that could not go as anticipated. And at the end of the day, we're dealing with numbers, but we're also dealing with human beings who have set their hopes and dreams on Canada. And not everyone will be able to stay in Canada. That's the reality of any form of temporary work. But in all cases, we owe it to them not to weaponize the conversation and to deal with

them fundamentally with humanity and respect. Just very lastly, before I let you go, Minister, I want to ask you about trust. I mean, your team actually pitched us to come on the podcast. So I imagine you want to- Why did they do that? Well, I imagine it's you want to make your case to the public, right, about why they should trust your government on immigration. So let me just ask you that then.

Why should Canadians trust your government to fix this when your prime minister has said, you know, didn't get the balance quite right? Why should we trust you to get it right now? I mean, we owe it to Canadians first and foremost, to be honest with them, whether we've done something right or wrong or in between. I believe what the prime minister said yesterday is true. When Canadians ask us to adjust, we have to be honest with what the challenges are. I believe that that's what we're doing. You know, I was taught a very important lesson in my prior portfolio when I had the honour of being the Minister of Indigenous Affairs for about four years, that you can put as

much money to bear and as much resources to bear to trying to solve some historical harms. And I had the challenge of doing that in COVID where indigenous communities have dealt with epidemics and how they had unduly affected them over, over the course of history, the suspicion towards the federal government. If you don't have that trust, nothing works. And I take that to heart in the portfolio that I have and people can judge me, but I owe them a duty of honesty. It's people may not like what I say sometimes to provinces,

but I believe it and I believe it to be the truth and I think that's how Canadians should judge us going into the next election. I believe that's sort of an ethos that the Prime Minister

takes to heart as well. Minister Miller, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wellms.

Special thanks to Matt Lundy and Joe Friesen. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein, and Allie Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.