Trudeau to Canadians: My Migration Policy Cuts Your Wages

Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, speaks at the Montreal Chamber of Commerce i
Graham Hughes/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Neil Munro

Migration cuts wages, Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said Tuesday as he announced plans to trim his unpopular migration inflows that have forced his nation backward.

“Increasingly, more and more businesses are relying on temporary foreign workers in a way that is driving down wages in some sectors,” Trudeau told reporters on April 2 as he announced plans to slightly reduce his mass migration that has imposed much poverty and chaotic diversity on Canadians.

He continued:

So we want to get those numbers down. It’s a responsible approach to immigration that conntinues on our permanent [immigration] residents as we have, but holds the line a little more on the temporary immigration that has caused so much pressure in our communities.

The partial reversal comes as his polling numbers crash because he has been importing roughly one million people per year — or roughly three migrants for every Canadian birth.  That massive inflow is roughly twice the per-person inflow engineered by President Joe Biden and his pro-migration deputies.

His flood of migrants is boosting the country’s stock market as it suppresses wages, spikes inflation, makes homes unaffordable, deters marriages and births, creates homeless encampments, and also fuels civil strife.

The civic damage is so great that Canada’s version of the FBI — the Royal Canadian Mounted Police — is warning of a coming economic and civic collapse:

The coming period of recession will also accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations. For example, many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live.  The fallout from this decline in living standards will be exacerbated by the fact that the difference between the extremes of wealth is greater now in developed countries than it has been in any time in several generations.

Trudeau tried to shift the blame for his policy catastrophe to the subset of migrants — mostly Indians — who rationally use his “temporary” border loopholes to move into Canada.

However, there is little evidence that migrants on temporary documents cause less housing and wage harm to Canadians than the many more migrants on permanent documents.

Trudeau claimed:

It’s really important to understand the context around immigration. Every year. we bring in … now close to 500,000 permanent residents a year and that is part of the necessary growth of Canada. It benefits our citizens, our communities, it benefits our economy. These are the levels that we have stablized, and grown steadily over the past years because that’s what Canada needs to continue to have a strong economy and strong communities.

However, 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, they have grown far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb. To give an example, in 2017, 2 percent of Canada’s population was made up by temporary immigrants. Now we’re at 7.5 percent of our population comprised by temporary immigrants.

That’s something that we need to get back under control, both for the benefits of those people because international students we’re seeing [are] increasingly vulnerable to mental health challenges, to not being able to drive and get the education they want. But also, increasingly, more and more businesses are relying on temporary foreign workers in a way that is driving down wages in some sectors.

So we want to get those [temporary migrant] numbers down. It’s a responsible approach to immigration that continues [to import] on permanent residents as we have [done], but holds the line a little more on the temporary immigration that has caused so much pressure in our communities.

There is plenty of evidence that Trudeau’s migration wave has reduced productivity and wages, and has spiked housing costs.

However, there is no evidence that Trudeau recognizes the harm caused by his investor-developed migration policy. For example, he even defended his migration in his statement, saying migration “benefits our citizens, our communities, it benefits our economy.”

Trudeau’s blame-shifting towards the supposedly temporary migrants is similar to the diversionary tactics used in other countries.

For example, President Joe Biden’s deputies blame the damage caused by his migrants on asylum-seeking migrants who do not have permission to work. In the United Kingdom, the pro-migration Conservative Party tries to blame the few “boat migrants” instead of the many legal migrants. In Ireland, the pro-migration government tries to focus attention on asylum seekers instead of legal economic migrants.

Trudeau’s mass migration policy is fully supported by Canada’s establishment. It gets little criticism from Canada’s right-of-center conservative party. However, the policy is opposed by Maxime Bernier, the head of the People’s Party of Canada.

Trudeau’s partial backtrack came just after Bloomberg posted an April 2 article praising Trudeau’s policy under the title, “Canada shows the world how to make immigration work.”

“Immigrants do not bring an immediate economic boom,” admitted Bloomberg author Tyler Cowan, who is a pro-migration libertarian at George Mason University, Va. He continued:

Whatever the benefits of the migrant arrivals may be, they lie in the more distant future, which does not help its political popularity now.

And yet, for all the cultural and economic adjustments immigration may require, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, for many countries, high rates of immigration are simply flat-out necessary.

Canada needs migrants to replace the Canadians that are not being born, he said: “In general, Canada — like Ireland, where the fertility rate is about 1.77, higher than in Canada but still below replacement — faces a choice: Either take in migrants or depopulate.”

Canada, he said, “is willing to give up some of its present cultural identity to achieve a brighter cultural and political future.”

Canada needs more people to defend its territory from the United States, said Cowan:

If Canada wants to maintain a reasonable balance of power with the US, and have the resources to develop and protect its Arctic and Arctic-adjacent areas, it needs a commensurately large population and economy.

Canada needs better restaurants “to show how Canada is connected to many global trends that will help keep it vital,” he added.

Cowan does admit that immigration hurts the locals, especially the young Canadians who remain childless because Trudeau’s migration makes housing so expensive.

“To be sure, ” he said, “the higher home prices may be bad for many younger Canadians, who may be locked out of housing markets, but eventually many of them will inherit high-valued homes from their parents.”

 

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