Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to today's episode of Red Eye. I'm Jane Williams.
Speaker: Coming up in this episode, Lorraine Chisholm speaks with Lisa Brunner. She's an expert on immigration policy and she's discussing Trudeau's message on cutting immigration and how the rhetoric presents a simplified explanation for some complex realities.
Speaker: In a pair of videos this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke directly to viewers to explain his government's new plan to reduce immigration by roughly 20%. A pair of migration experts have scrutinized Trudeau's explanation for immigration cuts and analyzed how they align or don't with the government's own policies and programs and the realities on the ground for would -be immigrants.
Speaker: Lisa Bruner is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Migration Studies at the University of British Columbia, and she joins me now. Hello, Lisa. Hi, it's wonderful to be here.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's great to talk to you. Let's lay a bit of groundwork before we get into what Trudeau was communicating. You say in your article that since the early 2000s, the Canadian public maintain a largely positive view on immigration, but public opinion has recently shifted. What do we know about that? Yeah, we can measure this based on an ongoing survey of Canadians that asks basically if people feel like there's too much immigration in Canada.
Speaker: And from around the late 1970s to the late 1990s, the majority of people asked that question agreed that there was too much immigration. And this sentiment kind of increased during recessions. But that changed around the early 2000s when Canada uniquely kind of maintained a consistently positive public opinion of its immigration system. So unique that a lot of countries around the world looked to Canada as an aspirational public opinion of immigration because many global North countries deeply depend on immigration for many different reasons. And so governments are often trying to ensure that the public is on board with the levels of immigration that many policymakers feel is necessary. ah We noticed around 2023 that public opinion polling started to show a shift. So that positive
Speaker: sentiment about immigration levels from the early 2000s started to shift. And most Canadians don't list immigration as their most important problem when you ask, you know, what is your top concern? They usually, since the pandemic, say like the economy, followed by housing, and then a distant third kind of is healthcare. But if you ask people whether they think there's too much immigration in Canada, more likely than not, recent immigrants as well as people born in Canada agree that they feel that there's too much immigration. Now, Lisa, temporary residents feature prominently in the video with Trudeau claiming that most return home and have never been part of a long term immigration plan. What is two step immigration and how does his assertion square with the reality of two step immigration on the ground?
Speaker: Yeah, we can say that post World War II, a lot of immigrant dependent countries like Canada recruited most of their immigrants through one step migration, where immigrants are selected from abroad based on potential contributions. So for example, you have work experience as a doctor, and Canada says we need doctors, you have experience, we think you'd be great in Canada, etc. We give you some points based on your ability to speak English or French.
Speaker: And people arrive in Canada and become permanent residents upon arrival. Two -step migration refers to a more recent process in the past, let's say 20, 25 years. Instead of recruiting um immigrants to come to Canada as permanent residents, other actors are recruiting people to come temporarily to Canada. So employers are recruiting temporary foreign workers and higher education systems are recruiting international students to come ah as students. And then students graduate and might get a post grad work permit, and then compete in the labour market with other temporary foreign workers. And Canada selects immigrants from people who are already in Canada based on proven labour market contributions. You know, this is all from the eyes of the state based on what is seen to be as predictors for the best
Speaker: economic output, essentially measured by like taxable income over one's lifetime after having shown that you can succeed, quote unquote, in the labor market. A lot of people celebrate two -step migration for two reasons. One is that immigrants who come through two -step migration do tend to have better economic outcomes as defined by the state and measured by you know labor market integration or earnings over one's lifetime.
Speaker: and two It's trying to avoid the system that people have described as brain abuse or underemployment, where that doctor we referred to earlier comes to Canada and then isn't able to find the job that they're qualified to do or they're skilled to do. So we know that a lot of immigrants who come through one -step migration are unfortunately unable to succeed in what is a very discriminatory, racist, et cetera labor market. So the idea is that the labor market will
Speaker: select who can succeed in Canada according to those measures. But there are also many critiques of the two -step migration system in the sense that it requires an extended period of precarity where you have no voting rights, you have no security in the country and guarantee that you'll like be able to stay long -term. It can be quite exploitative because people are ah willing to work under conditions that might not be fair in order to try to get that permanent residency. So there are you know ah sort of a debate whether this is an ethical system to pursue. And Trudeau says that it's never been part of the long -term immigration plan. Does that bear out? Yeah. I mean, one of the reasons why I wanted to write this piece with my colleague is that we really felt frustrated by that point that
Speaker: There really has been a deliberate focus on two -step migration by both the Conservative and the current Liberal government for the past 20, 25 years. It's been very explicit. It's been very clear that two -step migrants were being attracted to Canada. So I guess it could be true some years that the majority of temporary residents do not succeed in becoming permanent residents. I think probably Trudeau is trying to portray this in a certain way, but it's definitely not true to say that two -step migration is not a major part of Canada's immigration system. Now, there's been a lot of finger -pointing at higher education, trying to raise their bottom line by recruiting international students. Is that justified, that finger -pointing? I think to an extent it is, but it's it's a pretty complex situation because you know we know that since the 1970s,
Speaker: late 1970s, early 1980s, things changed because international students became seen as undeserving of taxpayer support and started getting charged differential tuition fees by schools. And it kind of marked what people have described as shift from aid to trade. Before that, international students were seen as a diplomacy action or like a humanitarian activity or a way to exert soft power by Canada. But Around the 1980s, it became seen as an export industry to generate funds. And we know and in the late 1980s and early 90s, international student recruitment then becomes a priority for institutions giving funding cutbacks. So yes, I think it's true for sure that higher education institutions have exploited the consensus that we seem to have in society that citizenship is a justifiable
Speaker: differential factor for who should be able to access public support. At the core of this debate, I think is the enduring legacy of colonial borders, this colonial government that is the Canadian state, as being a differential tool for saying who the public should support. So higher education is seen as a public good, but only within the boundaries of the nation state to some extent. So institutions do rely on this differential factor based on citizenship to make up for funding. It's either declining or stagnating funding, depending on which province you're in. So I think that, you know, higher education institutions are to blame to some extent, but definitely I would say not the main perpetrators, I guess, of of the system. Because the system ultimately is rooted in
Speaker: both exploitation and settler colonialism in the sense that Canada is set up as being seen as having a superior education system, that people are willing to go through a lot of challenges and precarity in order to access permanent residency, that you know English is a kind of colonial language or French in Quebec, for example, or throughout different parts of Canada, where people ah are you know kind of willing to learn another language in order to participate in social mobility on a global scale. So all these different factors of the immigration system, the higher education system, the imperialism of certain languages through colonialism coalesce in this issue of international student recruitment. And I think one further point is just to say that institutions are not equally, I think, responsible for what's been happening because
Speaker: some institutions are public institutions, some are private non -profit institutions, and some are private for -profit institutions. And so institutions have different motivations for why that you're even engaged in the education sector. And you see very different levels of recruitment numbers at certain institutions. It's unfortunate to me that higher ed is being painted with a broad brush at a time when it's really struggling as a sector to attract public funding. yeah Lisa, in the video, Trudeau says some temporary workers may, quote, turn to our asylum system when their visa expires as a shortcut to stay in Canada. But he says if their claims fail, they'll be sent home. Should we take this at face value? You know, within my academic and practitioner networks regarding immigration, this is the main
Speaker: issue that people are discussing regarding the immigration levels plan. Because the levels plan that was announced in October that lays out the number of immigrants that Canada is hoping to attract between 2025 to 2027 for the next three years, it's the first levels plan that included temporary residence. Before that, Canada always said, okay, we'd like to get 425 ,000 immigrants this year, 500 ,000 immigrants next year, et cetera, but they didn't actually have a plan for temporary residents. And that's the population that really grew quickly in 2022 and 2023 and led Canada to having the highest overall population growth since the late 1950s. So in the levels plan, you can see that the government is predicting, OK, we're going to have this many people come in as temporary residents. We're going to have this many people leave who
Speaker: their temporary status expires and thus this will be the population of Canada. What the levels plan assumes is that everyone whose permit expires on a temporary status will leave Canada when that permit expires. However, as we mentioned, this two -step immigration system has been promoted so heavily that a lot of people here in Canada on temporary status are expecting to have at least a fair chance at staying in Canada. And many of them probably came to Canada temporarily with the expectation of trying to stay permanently. And because the two -step immigration process is quite long, we're talking about let's say four years in an undergrad degree, three years as a temporary foreign worker after graduation. This is like seven, eight, nine years on temporary status. Many people have developed communities
Speaker: um They've worked for many years. They have partnerships. They may have a family here. you know They're invested in their neighborhoods. It's going to be really difficult for people to say, you know what, my status is over. I've been here all these years, but I got to go home. like Where is home? Home might be in Mount Pleasant and or you know in Surrey. This is going to be a challenge because most people look at the levels plan.
Speaker: and look at those temporary resident entries and treson exit and say, I don't think those numbers add up. And we know that deporting someone is extremely expensive and difficult and time consuming. Is that really what's going to happen that Canada is going to engage in a mass deportation program like is being threatened in the United States? I don't even know if that's logistically possible, let alone the ethics of doing that.
Speaker: So there's a lot of questions about whether the government is going to be able to achieve its goals that are set out in the levels plan. But you can see the government being very fearful of increased potential asylum claims as a result of people not having a pathway to permanent residency. So for example, a few weeks ago, the government changed its instructions to visa officers who are assessing visas for people to come to Canada. It used to be that a multiple entry 10 -year visa was kind of the default and now there's new instructions to say, look at these applications with more scrutiny, consider the conditions in the person's home country before issuing a multiple entry or a long duration visa. That's just one example, but we see a lot of examples of tightening of Canada's immigration system and in anticipation for
Speaker: what the government surely knows will become an issue in the next couple of years. This is obviously not taking place in a political vacuum. Trudeau's fortunes right now are a bit on the decline and blaming and scapegoating immigrants in Canada seems to be on the rise as part of a wider trend we're seeing in the US and in Europe. What should we be watching out for as the Conservatives communicate their strategy on immigration?
Speaker: Mm hmm. I mean, that's a great question. You know, debates about migration are very polarized, and it's really difficult to make room for nuance. It's either that migration is a problem to be solved, where discussions focus on housing and social services, depressing wages, competition for job, threats to cultural identity or like cohesion of society. Like, these are the issues that are evoked when migration is a problem to be solved.
Speaker: Or on the other hand, migration is positioned as a solution to problems. It's something that produces innovation or fills labor shortages or solves demographic challenges. And you see this tension back and forth. So many governments from different political spectrums have often focused on migration as a solution to problems for the like kind of dehumanized but economic contributions of immigrants.
Speaker: And now we're seeing a lot more discourse about migration as a problem to be solved. And you can see that shift in the Trudeau government moving from migration as a solution to now migration as a problem. The question is now that Trudeau is talking about migration as a problem and Minister Mark Miller is also focusing on migration as a problem to be solved, how far will the Conservatives try to counter those arguments and differentiate themselves and intensify the rhetoric about migration being a very problematic issue, et cetera. And I think we have to be very aware of what can happen. Obviously, people have seen what's happened with the racist and dehumanizing language in the US. I don't know. I think a lot of Canadian politics over the next year but
Speaker: leading up to the election will depend on what the rhetoric is like in the US and what happens with the supposed deportations that Trump is looking to enact. If that does create a significant move of migrants to Canada claiming asylum, it may be further politicized as an issue. From my perspective, in as someone who studies migration, migration is more of an inevitability as opposed to a debate. It's part of our global society and it's not something that's going to go away. I just think it's problematic because it reveals this core tension that we really want an open market economy with with a labor market that creates lots of jobs, but we want less immigration. right like that's That's the challenge that I think migration really highlights is people looking for self -serving benefits from immigration, but and not wanting to
Speaker: accept people fully into the society. And so there's this like politics of exclusion and politics of denial and not not accepting migration as an inevitability. Well, it's been great talking with you and i I really appreciate it. It's been helpful for me to think through things with ah with you here. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker: I've been speaking with Lisa Bruner. Lisa is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Migration Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her article was co -authored with Capucine Cousteir, and it was published on The Conversation, and you can find it at theconversation .com.
Speaker: The Red Eye Collective is based in Vancouver. You can check us out at coopradio dot .org slash redeye.
