Canada's immigration 180: Part 2

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Canada's immigration 180: Part 2" – Front Burner, CBC (Aug 14, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this second part of Front Burner's documentary on Canada’s immigration debate, host Jamie Poisson examines the political, economic, and social forces that precipitated a dramatic reversal in the country’s immigration rhetoric and policies. The episode follows how an affordability crisis collided with record-high immigration levels, ultimately leading to strict caps, political polarization, and wrenching personal stories among newcomers. The narrative is anchored by the journey of Gurkhoran, an international student whose hopes for permanent residency are now in jeopardy.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Story: Gurkhoran’s Experience as an International Student

• Gurkhoran arrived in Canada in 2021, inspired by her uncle’s success decades earlier ([01:10]).
• Describes paying over $35,000 in tuition, struggling to afford basics, and hustling for work soon after arrival ([01:32], [02:15]).
• Despite earning a diploma and finding a job, she faces a saturated labor market and growing uncertainty about her future ([03:20]).
  • Quote: "Every semester was like a risk on a future which wasn't guaranteed..." – Gurkhoran ([01:32]).
• Gurkhoran is emblematic of the nearly 1 million international students in Canada by 2023 ([04:16]).

2. Temporary Workers & Wage Suppression

• Economist Christopher Warswick argues the influx of temporary foreign workers and international students suppressed wages for Canadians, increasing affordability concerns ([04:55]-[05:57]).
  • Quote: "We're sort almost outsourcing them, but we're bringing the workers to Canada...that's likely to make poverty and affordability worse." – Christopher Warswick ([05:37]).
• The precarious status of temporary workers leads to exploitation and a power imbalance ([06:04]).

3. Economic Pressures & Political Response

• Rising housing costs became the central economic grievance; population growth intensified the crisis ([07:27]).
• Pierre Poilievre, Conservative leader, began linking high immigration numbers to the housing crisis and affordability ([08:30]).
  • Quote: "Let's base [immigration] on common sense, not on Justin Trudeau's ideology and incompetence." – Pierre Poilievre ([08:30])
• Neither major party initially committed to lowering immigration targets, citing the need for workers ([09:06]-[10:09]).

4. Public Opinion & Political Shift

• Andrew Parkin, a pollster, notes an "unprecedented" shift in sentiment: the percentage of Canadians saying there was "too much immigration" doubled from 27% in 2022 to 58% in 2024 ([11:08], [11:38]).
  • Quote: "Pollsters get excited when things change by 5%. ...seeing two jumps of over 15%, two in a row is something that, that just, you know, almost never happens." – Andrew Parkin ([11:38])
• Political leaders responded with caps: international student permits, temporary foreign worker rules, and eventually reductions in permanent resident targets ([13:46]-[14:54]).
  • Trudeau: “Canada’s new immigration plan is straightforward. Lower the number of new immigrants...” ([15:11])
• Narrator notes this as a “complete 180” in tone ([15:19]).

5. Reversal of National Consensus

• By 2024-2025, even politicians who once championed high immigration were lamenting system breakdowns:
  • Pierre Poilievre: “[Trudeau] has destroyed our immigration system...” ([16:16])
  • Daniel Smith shifts from promoting immigration for economic growth to blaming it for overwhelming housing and social services ([16:45]-[17:35]).
• New measures include mass deportations, visa cancellations, and tighter asylum processes ([19:03]).
• The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers calls these “the most significant rollback of refugee rights in more than a decade” ([19:32]).

6. Scapegoating & Broader Societal Effects

• Immigration is increasingly blamed for problems like housing shortages and strained public services, often unjustifiably so, according to advocates like Avni Schnander ([19:32]-[20:17]).
  • Quote: “Immigrants are blamed. They're identified as a problem in a very opaque and imprecise manner.” – Avni Schnander ([19:48])
  • He cites policy failures (e.g., restrictive zoning, lack of rental housing) as the true culprits, not newcomers ([20:36]).
• Economist Armin Yelniesian: The true issue is persistent undersupply in public systems, not simply growing demand ([21:26], [21:30]).
  • Quote: “The problem is this absolutely consistent, crazy approach to not providing the supply. ...you blame others for it, you find a victim to blame, but it's actually of your own doing...” ([21:30])

7. Alberta’s Referendum & Anti-Immigration Initiatives

• Alberta, under Danielle Smith, plans a referendum to take more provincial control over immigration, restrict newcomers’ access to social supports, and introduce service fees ([22:14]-[22:53]).
  • Quote: “Throwing the doors wide open to anyone and everyone ...has flooded our classrooms, emergency rooms and social support systems with far too many people far too quickly.” – Danielle Smith ([22:53])

8. Rising Hostility’s Impact on Newcomers

• Gurkhoran, and others like her, now face expiring permits and diminishing prospects for permanence:
  • Quote: “It makes you feel like temporary in a life that you have already made permanent in your heart, right?” – Gurkhoran ([34:09])

9. Political Hardening & Polarization

• Polievre’s rhetoric intensifies, linking immigration to crime and social system abuse ([24:56]-[26:47]).
  • Quote: “If someone commits a crime...we want them to do a sentence in prison and then get the hell out of Canada.” – Pierre Poilievre ([25:45])
• The partisan gap on immigration grows, risking deeper societal divides ([27:06], [27:23]).

10. Demographic Realities Versus Political Sentiment

• Canada now faces a shrinking population, labor shortages, and adverse economic forecasts if immigration is overly restricted ([29:12]).
  • Reports warn that negative sentiment may harm Canada’s long-term interests ([29:12]-[29:58]).
• Yelniesian emphasizes that immigration has always helped address economic choke points; the debate over valuing newcomers has become more urgent given aging demographics ([30:26], [32:08]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “Every semester was like a risk on a future which wasn't guaranteed...” – Gurkhoran ([01:32])
• “We're sort almost outsourcing them, but we're bringing the workers to Canada to do it, and that's going to hold wages down for Canadian workers.” – Christopher Warswick ([05:37])
• “Pollsters get excited when things change by 5%...seeing two jumps of over 15%, two in a row is something that just never happens.” – Andrew Parkin ([11:38])
• “Canada’s new immigration plan is straightforward. Lower the number of new immigrants coming into Canada, both temporary and permanent.” – Justin Trudeau ([15:11])
• “Immigrants are blamed...in a very opaque and imprecise manner. ...There's some nebulous immigrant. That's the problem.” – Avni Schnander ([19:48])
• “It makes you feel like temporary in a life that you have already made permanent in your heart, right?” – Gurkhoran ([34:09])
• “We will be competing with all the...every other country that is going through this in a few years and everybody's birth rates are falling.” – Armin Yelniesian ([29:58])

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:10] - Gurkhoran’s journey as an international student
• [04:55] - Warswick on wage suppression and worker conditions
• [07:27] - Emergence of housing affordability as a crisis with immigration implications
• [11:08] - Parkin on the "unprecedented" shift in public opinion
• [13:46] - Policy changes: International student & temporary worker caps
• [15:11] - Trudeau government’s official reversal on immigration levels
• [16:16] - Political leaders' changed tone: Polievre and Smith
• [19:03] - New restrictions: Deportations, visa cancellations, rollback of refugee rights
• [22:14] - Alberta referendum and proposed immigration restrictions
• [29:12] - Demographic warning: Shrinking population, risk of overcorrection
• [32:08] - Gurkhoran’s uncertainty; emotional cost for newcomers

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Conclusion

This episode offers a sobering look at the shifting landscape for immigrants in Canada, spotlighting how affordability concerns, labor market dynamics, and public opinion have driven a dramatic change in political consensus. While recent policies attempt to "take back control" of immigration, the debate risks ignoring longer-term demographic needs and deepening divisions. The personal stories of people like Gurkhoran underscore the human cost of policy swings and the uncertain future now facing many hopeful Canadians.

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Transcript

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[Jamie Poisson]

Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. This is part two of our documentary on how Canadian politicians reversed rhetorical course on immigration. To hear the first part, you can go back to yesterday's episode today, how an affordability crisis collided with the big upswing in immigration and where things stand now.

[Gurkhoran]

I always knew that coming to a new country and starting afresh would not be easy.

[Jamie Poisson]

This is Gurkha and car.

[Gurkhoran]

I left behind my parents, my grandparents, and even my cat. I mean, these are not small things for me. This was my whole world.

[Jamie Poisson]

Gurkhoran came to Canada as an international student in 2021.

[Gurkhoran]

And then like most international students, I paid more than $35,000 in tuition for a two year diploma. And I'm not counting rent, food or the cost of surviving. Every semester was like a risk on a future which wasn't guaranteed but. But I was always inspired by my uncle who came here as a student and then he settled well in life and that's what I wanted to do.

[Jamie Poisson]

Her uncle moved to Canada more than 20 years ago, also as an international student at the University of Calgary. Now he's a Canadian citizen with his own animal hospital in Airdrie, Alberta. Gurkhoran's first experience of the country was at the Vancouver airport.

[Gurkhoran]

It was rainy, so it was all sorts of gloomy as it could be. I was crying, it was raining. And then I had my first A&W sandwich that day, I remember, and the whole meal was $17. And that's when I knew that oh my God, you need to be rich to stay. So I started applying for jobs within the first week of coming to Canada. I applied everywhere. Food service, retail, administrative roles everywhere that I could. And within a month I got a job at Walmar Art as a cashier.

[Jamie Poisson]

While she worked, Gurkerin attended the Southern Alberta Institute for Technology where she studied administrative information management.

[Gurkhoran]

More than 50% of the students in my class were international students.

[Jamie Poisson]

But the real reason Gurkhorin came to Canada was to build a life here. Her goal was to become a permanent resident. The degree was a Means to that end. By the time Gurkhorin was nearing graduation,

[Gurkhoran]

the job market in Canada is very saturated. And it took me a long time to understand this. There was this time when I had given up on LinkedIn and indeed, and I actually printed out over 100 resumes and just went on the streets of downtown handing out my resume to every person I saw.

[Jamie Poisson]

Still, if Gurkhorin was feeling discouraged, she might have taken comfort in the words of her province's new premier, United Conservative Party's Danielle Smith, in March of 2023.

[Danielle Smith]

When newcomers choose to build a future in our province, we need to show

[Jamie Poisson]

you that you are valued.

[Danielle Smith]

We need to show you that your hard work and dedication will be rewarded and that there is space for your dreams and ambitions. You should have no doubt that your move to Alberta has been worth the struggle and that this will be the beginning of something great. It is a matter of fairness, but it's also a matter of recognizing the incredible value that new Albertans like you bring to our province.

[Jamie Poisson]

In 2023, Gurkhoran was one of more than a million international students living and working in Canada. There was more temporary foreign workers than ever before in the country, too. 240,000, many of whom were working in restaurants and retail. And while unemployment was still quite low, it was starting to tick up, particularly amongst newcomers and young people. There were other anxieties about the economy at this point, too. The effects of inflation were still being felt. People's paychecks just weren't going as far as they used to. And economist Christopher Warswick thinks that all that temporary labor didn't exactly help with those paychecks.

[Christopher Warswick]

Problem with this approach is it does tend to keep wages down for these jobs, so they don't tend to rise. So in an economy without temporary foreign worker programs, what you'd expect to see is whenever we have sort of demand greater than supply, that should put upward pressure on the price of a good. And you can apply the same logic to the labor market. If at the market wage rate, if demand exceeds labor, demand exceeds labor supply, then you'd expect to see the wage rise until you know there's enough workers in the economy willing to do this work.

[Jamie Poisson]

He sees what happened with temporary labor as sort of like outsourcing.

[Christopher Warswick]

And we're sort almost outsourcing them, but we're bringing the workers to Canada to do it, and that's going to hold wages down for Canadian workers at the bottom end of the wage distribution. That's likely to make poverty and affordability worse. And it's going to make wage inequality worse.

[Jamie Poisson]

Not to mention the conditions for these people here on these temporary foreign worker permits are ripe for exploitation.

[Christopher Warswick]

Because under a temporary foreign worker program, typically what the requirement is that if you leave the job, you have to go back to your home country. You can't just switch to another job in Canada. Whereas for a Canadian citizen, obviously, but also for a permanent immigrant, if they're not happy with their employer, they can move to another job in Canada. And that kind of creates a power imbalance between the temporary foreign worker and the employer. They tend to put up with more. They might even let the employer garnish, you know, hold back some of their wages, you know, unsafe work conditions. You can imagine worse things because they really value the job.

[Jamie Poisson]

I want to bring up an op ed from the Toronto Star here that I think is interesting. It talks about how the number of short term foreign workers has more than doubled and how the governing party hasn't been paying attention to repeated warnings that the temporary foreign worker program, quote, drives down wages and, quote, displaces Canadian workers. This op ed was written in 2014 by Justin Trudeau, when the Conservatives had been in power for almost 10 years.

[Christopher Warswick]

So it's sort of history repeating itself. I think the federal government should have said, look, we can increase the temporary foreign worker program a little, but we can't solve your problems through this. You'll have to raise your wage to try to attract workers.

[Jamie Poisson]

The biggest source of economic discontent in this period though, was the cost of housing. It had been growing for years and had become a full, full blown crisis. And with headline after headline decrying the shortage of housing supply, some started to question whether Canada could really handle adding in all this new demand. With more people than ever before and

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millions on the way in the years ahead, Canada is growing faster than comparable countries. The population now 40 million and counting, already dealing with a shortage of homes. Canada saw housing starts last month, dropped to their lowest rate in three years.

[Jamie Poisson]

Combined with population growth, that can mean trouble. Few politicians were more tapped into Canadians frustration with housing costs than Pierre Poliev. And in the summer of 2023, in a press conference on the high cost of living, he ties it to immigration. He calls the system under Trudeau broken. He describes his own vision.

[Pierre Poilievre]

My common sense policy on immigration will be driven by the number of vacancies that private sector employers want to fill, the number of charities that want to sponsor refugees and the families that want to reunite quickly with loved ones. Let's base it on common sense. Not on Justin Trudeau's ideology and incompetence. And that's how we'll restore the immigration system that has, before his arrival, been more successful than any other immigration system on earth. Thank you.

[Jamie Poisson]

But when pushed on whether he'd change immigration targets.

[Gurkhoran]

Why?

[Danielle Smith]

What's Wrong with the 500,000 target? In your mind, you call it a vanity project. What's wrong with that target?

[Pierre Poilievre]

I think what's wrong is Justin Trudeau's incompetence. So far, we've seen a totally incompetent Justin Trudeau. What would I do? I'll make sure we have housing and health care so that when people come here, they have a roof overhead and care when they need it. When I'll make sure that it's easier for employers to fill genuine job vacancies they cannot fill, I will make sure. Furthermore. Sorry, it's not a debate. You have a question, I'll give you my answer.

[Jamie Poisson]

Poliev's answer did not include whether he'd actually lower immigration targets. Days later, in one of his first interviews as Immigration minister, Mark Miller is also asked if he'd lower targets. He said, I don't think we're in any position of wanting to lower them by any stretch of the imagination. A few months later, Miller champions Canada's immigration levels using the usual liberal arguments.

[Mark Miller]

We are a welcoming country where newcomers can feel like they're part of the community and we can, and where we can understand that immigration helps our economy grow, increases our diversity and builds the communities that we live in.

[Jamie Poisson]

And he also offhandedly refers to international students as cheap labour.

[Mark Miller]

You have industries in low skilled labour, whether it's big box shops or others, looking for cheap labour and wanting to make sure that they maintain a 40 hour work week for some of the students. That's the competing policy with the labor gap that we face in this country. And we need those people working. And why not? If they're paying a whole heck of a lot of money to come to Canada to study more than a domestic student, why would we deny them that right?

[Jamie Poisson]

While acknowledging how hard it was to find reasonably priced housing, he argued that

[Mark Miller]

immigration can and must be part of the solution.

[Jamie Poisson]

But many weren't convinced.

[Andrew Parkin]

I go through my whole life trying to avoid using the word unprecedented. But it was unprecedented.

[Jamie Poisson]

When pollster Andrew Parkin does his survey that year in the fall of 2023, he saw a sharp increase in the proportion of Canadians saying there was too much immigration in the country. And throughout the following year, a year in which a UN Special Rapporteur will deem Canada's temporary foreign worker program a form of modern slavery. And a year in which the youth unemployment rate will climb to the double digits. That proportion of Canadians who say there's too much immigration jumps again.

[Andrew Parkin]

So the proportion actually doubled. We went from 27% in 2022 saying there was too much immigration to 58% in 2024. Pollsters get excited when things change by 5%. And seeing two jumps of over 15%, two in a row is something that, that just, you know, almost never happens. So people are not exaggerating when they, you know, when they say there was a major change in how Canadians feel about immigration.

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[Jamie Poisson]

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[Pierre Poilievre]

location or having great amenities.

[Jamie Poisson]

Ugh, I love my VRBO for the view.

[Mark Miller]

Good reason.

[Jamie Poisson]

Ooh, and the sauna.

[Gurkhoran]

Sweet.

[Jamie Poisson]

Another good reason. And that it's one of those good saunas with the hot rock thing.

[Christopher Warswick]

Ugh.

[Armin Yelniesian]

Love a good hot rock thing.

[Jamie Poisson]

Fancy. That's also a reason. Don't worry about surprises. Book a verbo you'll love with the Love by Guest filter. If you know you verbo, I think you see it in a liberal response. They end up following public opinion. CBC parliamentary writer Aaron Wary. They see public opinion shift against immigration or against the current levels of immigration, and then they scramble to act. Throughout 2024, the Trudeau government takes steps to dial things back a bit.

[Justin Trudeau]

Over the past few years, we've seen a massive spike in temporary immigration, whether it's temporary foreign workers or whether it's international students in particular that have grown at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.

[Jamie Poisson]

They put a cap on international student permits.

[Mark Miller]

The provinces that have been most heavily affected will have to decrease by about 50 and perhaps even more than 50% when it comes to new incoming people. It's a bit of a mess and it's time to rein it in. So this is something they reverse course

[Jamie Poisson]

on some of the changes they'd made to the temporary foreign worker Program.

[Justin Trudeau]

We are tightening the rules and restricting eligibility to reduce the number of low wage temporary foreign workers in Canada with exceptions in certain industries like health care, construction and food systems security.

[Jamie Poisson]

For the first time, they set actual targets for the number of temporary residents allowed into the country and even bring down the targets for the number of permanent residents by the end of the year.

[Justin Trudeau]

Immigration, let's talk about it.

[Jamie Poisson]

Trudeau puts out this slick explainer style video.

[Justin Trudeau]

In the last two years, our population has grown really fast, like baby boom fast.

[Jamie Poisson]

Trying to convince Canadians that he's heard their concerns and is addressing them with a new plan.

[Justin Trudeau]

Canada's new immigration plan is straightforward. Lower the number of new immigrants coming into Canada, both temporary and permanent.

[Jamie Poisson]

The tone in the message is just so remarkably different from what you heard in yesterday's episode. A complete 180 from what we were hearing from Trudeau's government even just a year earlier. You know, beyond the policy, it's a

[Justin Trudeau]

real political kind of adjustment, I guess,

[Andrew Parkin]

from

[Jamie Poisson]

diversity is our strength. We're going to increase immigration to. Okay, hold on. Things have gotten a bit unwieldy. We need to clamp down now. The Liberals aren't the only ones undergoing a tonal shift here. Yes, Pierre Poliev had already started to express some concerns, but by 2024, what he has to say about immigration shifted dramatically from what we heard when he was campaigning for leader just two years earlier, when immigration was nearing its peak. By 2024, not only is he saying, canada's immigration system is broken, it's being destroyed.

[Pierre Poilievre]

First of all, we have to acknowledge that Justin Trudeau has destroyed our immigration system. We had a multi generational consensus in immigration for literally decades before Trudeau came along.

[Jamie Poisson]

In 2022, he said, oh, we're not

[Pierre Poilievre]

running out of space.

[Jamie Poisson]

But by 2024, there's no room. As for Alberta Premier Daniel Smith, in March 2024, she was saying, we're proud

[Danielle Smith]

to be a beacon of hope and safety for those fleeing war in Ukraine. And we are proud to welcome newcomers from around the world. Our growing economy demands it. Across our province, businesses are struggling to fill up job vacancies across industries. We need more skilled workers to continue to propel our economy forward. Six months later, the Trudeau government's unrestrained open border policies, permitting well over a million newcomers each year into Canada is causing significant challenges and has broken this delicate balance. These historically high immigration levels, especially as it relates to those with temporary visas, is exacerbating shortages in housing, job opportunities for young people as well as health, education and other social services infrastructure in a manner that is a severe challenge for all provinces to keep up with.

[Jamie Poisson]

In the first week of 2025, Justin Trudeau steps down. Mark Carney takes his place. And in the spring, an election is called. On the campaign trail, Pierre Poliev links Mark Carney to the Century initiative, calling

[Pierre Poilievre]

it It's a radical crazy idea that's meant for multinational corporate elites to bring in people from poor countries in large numbers to take away Canadian jobs, drive wages down and profits up.

[Jamie Poisson]

But ultimately immigration isn't really on the agenda in that election. All eyes are on Trump and his tariffs. Still, it's clear that the political consensus has reversed and a new one is cemented on the campaign as every major party agrees that Trudeau's government had allowed immigration levels to become unsustainable. We have the immigration system under control. Carney's message on immigration is all this

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government is getting immigration under control about

[Jamie Poisson]

taking back control on immigration control.

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We've taken back control of immigration. Asylum claims are down by a third. Temporary foreign workers arrivals down by half and international student arrivals down by 60%. We can now carefully rebuild a sustainable immigration system consistent with Canadian values.

[Jamie Poisson]

It's not just that his government is bringing intake numbers down. Deportations are up. The Canadian Border Services Agency deported more people last year than ever before. They're currently removing about 400 people from the country per week. And this government has passed a new law giving themselves the power to mass cancel visas and set time limits on asylum claims. The Canadian association of Refugee Lawyers calls it the most significant rollback of refugee rights in more than a decade.

[Avni Schnander]

The federal government has taken a very restrictive approach to immigration.

[Jamie Poisson]

This is Avni Schnander. He's an Edmonton based lawyer and a spokesperson for our Alberta Advantage, an advocacy group pushing back against anti immigrant narratives.

[Avni Schnander]

There's a major shift now. Immigrants are blamed. They're identified as a problem in a very opaque and imprecise manner. Everyone seems to understand that immigration is important, but there's some nebulous immigrant. That's the problem that is taking up too much government services. That is not contributing From Avnish's perspective.

[Jamie Poisson]

Immigrants are being scapegoated like on housing for one.

[Avni Schnander]

We've seen other provinces that had significant in migration internationally and from other parts of the country where we didn't have housing prices go significantly, including in Alberta, like Edmonton has seen massive growth including from international migrants. But we don't have housing prices just skyrocket.

[Jamie Poisson]

Avneish points to other issues like restrictive zoning and speculative investment that caused house prices to skyrocket in cities like Toronto and Vancouver. The current Immigration minister, Lena Diab, has said that we're now seeing positive impacts from the government's immigration caps, pointing to rents trending down in general and in cities like Toronto. Perhaps the outflow of international students has played a role in that. But there are certainly other factors at play here too, like the sharp increase in the supply of purpose built rentals. What about healthcare? As columnist Andrew Coyne recently pointed out, wait times have been lengthening for more than 30 years, way before the recent Trudeau era.

[Armin Yelniesian]

It is impossible to argue against the fact that if you add more people to a system that is already undersupplied, you're going to increase the pressure on the system.

[Jamie Poisson]

Economist Armin Yelniesian the problem isn't the demand.

[Armin Yelniesian]

The problem is this absolutely consistent, crazy approach to not providing the supply. So you know you blame others for it, you find a victim to blame, but it's actually of your own doing that you have not met the demand of your own residents. More people come into the system because you can't find enough workers, and then you blame those new workers. It's a bit of a circular argument.

[Danielle Smith]

The fact is, Alberta taxpayers can no longer be asked to continue to subsidize the entire country through equalization and federal transfers, permit the federal government to flood our borders with new arrivals, and then give free access to our most generous in the country social programs to anyone who moves here.

[Jamie Poisson]

In February, Danielle Smith's UCP government announced they'd be holding a referendum in the fall to get Albertans to vote directly on issues related to immigration. The separation stuff was tacked on later.

[Danielle Smith]

The changes we need to make to immigration are a significant departure from the status quo and therefore I am seeking

[Jamie Poisson]

Voters will be asked if they agree with several proposals, including Alberta taking more control over immigration from the feds, setting up a one year residency requirement before anyone who isn't a citizen or permanent resident can qualify for provincial social support programs, and charging people with non permanent status a fee to access healthcare and education.

[Danielle Smith]

Although sustainable immigration has always been an important part of our provincial growth model, throwing the doors wide open to anyone and everyone across the globe has flooded our classrooms, emergency rooms and social support systems with far too many people far too quickly.

[Avni Schnander]

You know, I have a lot of friends and family who have migrated to Canada and Alberta over the past five to seven years. They work in very difficult conditions in rural hospitals, other low paying, difficult industries and they're asking themselves whether it's worth it if they're the target of these policies. They uprooted their lives to come here to contribute to our province. And now we have a government saying, we don't want you here, you're a threat to us and we're going to tax you more just to be here. It's really undermining that fabric of, you know, our province. That from my view, it made it one of the best places to live is that regardless of where you come from, what you look like, you can come here, you can thrive, you'll be welcomed. And that seems to be on the ballot this ball referendum. Alfonso Davies, he came here as a refugee. He talks about how Canada and Edmonton in particular, gave him a home when other places would not, gave him an opportunity to get involved in soccer. And look at what he's achieved. He's one of the most famous players in the world and he's a kid from Edmonton. That is remarkable. Those are the stories that are often missing current narrative that refugees, we don't want them. When we take a moment and look at those members in the community we really value and look at how they came to this country, you'll realize how many are immigrants, kids of immigrants or refugees themselves. I'm concerned that this political narrative that is dominating this country at this time, dominating Alberta, is causing many to lose sight of the contribution of immigrants as well as refugees.

[Pierre Poilievre]

Look, we're a welcoming country, but the latest news that The Liberals allowed 17,500 foreign criminals to enter our country by sponging their population prior criminal records is just the latest example in the radical Liberal failed experiment with open borders. And Mark Carney refuses to deport any of these individuals. Nor has he changed, nor has he changed any of the radical immigration targets that Justin Trudeau left behind. Our house, our housing, our health care, our jobs are overwhelmed. Our young people are cast aside while low pay.

[Jamie Poisson]

Pierre Poiev's message on immigration has hardened in the last year. He links it to crime, speaking often of the importance of deporting non Canadian criminals.

[Pierre Poilievre]

If someone commits a crime when they're here as a visitor, we want them to do a sentence in prison and then get the hell out of Canada. We don't want to invite criminals to our country. Every single criminal who visits our country and is a non Canadian should be quickly deported from our country. The Liberals under Mark Carney have lost.

[Jamie Poisson]

He argues that while you can't get health care, quote, fake refugees get deluxe

[Pierre Poilievre]

benefits while you can't get health care. Liberals force you to pay higher taxes to fund deluxe supplementary health care benefits for asylum claimants who've been rejected, who are non Canadians, non permanent residents and have never paid taxes in this country. Enough is enough. We can't allow foreign criminals to take advantage of our system, false refugee claims to overwhelm the services that you pay for. We need a system that allows you as a hard working Canadian, to benefit from all that you've contributed to Canada.

[Jamie Poisson]

Pollster Andrew Parkins says that after the massive drop in public opinion support for the levels of immigration in Canada seen from 2022 to 2024, things seem to have stabilized. Public opinion hasn't fallen any further, but it hasn't rebounded either. The partisan gap on immigration, however, is growing.

[Andrew Parkin]

So over the last 20 years, there's always been a gap. Conservatives have always been a little less supportive of immigration than people who vote Liberal or ndp. But in the last few years, that gap has widened quite a bit.

[Jamie Poisson]

Parkin says it makes sense the Conservatives would be hammering on immigration right now

[Andrew Parkin]

because immigration became a weakness of the government. And Conservatives have been very clear that their criticism is about government management of the system. So it's not a surprise to sort of see that this is kind of opening up as an issue between the parties because it's essentially a vulnerability of the government. And if you're in the opposition, why wouldn't you zero in on an area where the public is already feeling that there had been some policy failures? At the same time, there's a potential that this partisan gap now that exists in opinions will keep the issue live and it's not clear what that means going forward and where that will land? Right. So there's a little bit of a Pandora's box issue here of once you open it up, is it clear that things can be managed carefully so that we feel we are having just a straightforward conversation about policy choices and competence in management and not a more uncomfortable conversation about who we would like to have living in our society and who we feel should move here. So that essentially remains to be seen

[Armin Yelniesian]

in every country in the global north that had a baby boom after the Second World War. We're all going through the same thing. Without more newcomers, more people are exiting the labor market than entering it. A result of the population aging out of the workforce and a result of fertility rates having dropped dramatically for the last 40 years.

[Jamie Poisson]

Last year, for the first time since confederation, Canada's population shrunk. The trend is continuing this year too. A report from the Royal bank of Canada and the Eurasia Group warns that an overcorrection on immigration is one of the top risks for the country in 2026 and that the current negative political sentiment towards immigration runs contrary to the country's needs. I'll quote from the report here. It says Canada's aging population is facing declining fertility rates, leaving immigration central to the expansion of the state skilled workforce. Another recent report from the CD Howe Institute argues that Canada's official economic forecasters are projecting growth that may exceed what its new demographic reality can support.

[Armin Yelniesian]

Demographics is the slowest moving train on the planet. And we've been watching this story for ages. And we know that the boomers are retiring in record numbers and that the peak of that won't be passed until 2030 and beyond. So it's not clear to me why we are not cottoning on to the fact that we will be in direct competition with every other country that is going through this in a few years and everybody's birth rates are falling.

[Jamie Poisson]

I think it's likely that two things are true here. That some employers, with help from the government, can use a narrative of labor shortages to bring in vulnerable workers and drive down wages, and that there will be labor shortages in this country because that's just our demographic reality here in Canada and all over for the developed world.

[Armin Yelniesian]

And we're just sleepwalking into it right now. But something is going to wake us up and it will be very difficult to say actually labor isn't valuable, which is what we've been saying all along, because we will be com. We will be competing with all the. Like. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of desperate people, and desperate people will work for anything. But. And that will continue. But given that we're. We seem to be like, I feel like a Bob Marley song, right? Like everything is war. So maybe that will be the pressure that prevents us from saying we actually have to do better by one another. We actually have to protect each other and our quality of life because there's fewer and fewer of us available to lift us all up. So you want a railroad from one side of the country to the other, get the Chinese to build it. You want to get your land settled and homesteaded, bring in immigrants. This is the major we've. This has always been the go to for situations where you've got a choke point in production, Whatever that choke point is, that's just the way it's always been. So if there's people that are willing to do it and they're Willing to uproot themselves to do it. My God, why aren't they good enough to stay here and build their lives here?

[Gurkhoran]

So right now I'm on a postgraduate work permit, which expires in October 2027. The time is ticking. Every day.

[Jamie Poisson]

Gurkhoran finished her degree in Alberta and eventually found work she loves at an immigration law office.

[Gurkhoran]

So, ironically, ironically, I prepare permanent residence applications every single day. And I see people get approved. I see their lives change, and I am happy for them. I understand the system inside and out, but I still cannot secure my own future in it. So with every approval, there's a quiet moment where I just sit at my desk, open my own file, and realize that I'm still waiting.

[Jamie Poisson]

Many of the international students who came here hoping their Canadian education and employment would provide them a path to permanent residency are now facing the prospect of their postgraduate work permits expiring and a government that no longer wants them here. Nearly 2 million study, work and visit permits are set to expire by the end of this year. Next year, the number is still over a million, and Gurkhoran's among them.

[Gurkhoran]

And I do not have any plans after this because this is what I imagined. This is what I came here for, to settle here. So I pay taxes, I contribute. I have built a life here from scratch. I have friends who feel like family. I have a cute apartment that I have carefully made into home. But I don't know if it's actually my home. So this date in October 2027 is the date that sits in the background of everything I do every day. It's a constant reminder that my life here in Canada has an expiry date.

[Jamie Poisson]

If her work permit expires, Gurkhoran will have to leave the country. But she doesn't want to.

[Gurkhoran]

I would be shattered because I built my life here in good faith. I followed every step that I was asked to. I did not just come here, right? I stayed, I worked, I contributed. I did become a part of this country in every way, except on paper. So it makes me feel like. It makes you feel like temporary in a life that you have already made permanent in your heart, right? This country has given me growth and opportunity, but I do question the silence, the lack of clarity, the emotional cost of waiting, the feeling of being good enough to contribute, but not secure enough to stay.

[Jamie Poisson]

All right, that is all for today. Front Burner was produced this week by Joytha Shangupta, Matthew Amha, Sarah Jackson, cecilia Armstrong, Sam McNulty and MacKenzie Cameron. Special thanks to Mia Johnson for Fact checking. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabazin. Our senior producers are Elaine Chow and Imogen Burchard, who made this documentary. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk to you next week.

[Pierre Poilievre]

For more cbc podcasts, go to cbc ca podcasts.