The Great Canadian Immigration U-Turn

In the spring of 2023, I founded Dominion Review and began to send some of my scribblings to various papers. My most controversial stance is widely shared by my fellow Canadians, and reviled by the small hard-left minority which has minimal public support but extensive control over our institutions.

I have consistently opposed a policy of mass immigration which Pierre Trudeau laid the groundwork for, was set in motion by Brian Mulroney, and subsequently worsened by every successive government until it reached a crescendo under the tragicomically inept leadership of Justin Trudeau.

I was a voice crying out in the wilderness, broaching a topic that most columnists wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot-pole. I elicited a great deal of entertaining opposition. On Twitter, my esteemed critics said I looked like an “Aryan frat boy” and compared me to “Archie Bunker if he went to university but remained incredibly racist”. Recently, theories have been floated that I am funded by the Conservative Party (as if!) or the American government (if only!).

Over the past year, immigration restriction went mainstream. The public has had enough of soaring housing costs, overcrowded schools, strained infrastructure, swamped hospitals, the erosion of national identity, and the decline in social cohesion. The mainstream media and the political class can no longer pretend not to see the tidal wave of discontent lapping at the edges of their ivory towers.

On August 29th, a Leger poll revealed that 65% of Canadians think immigration is too high – this includes a majority of all regions, all age groups, and both sexes. It includes a majority of people living in urban, suburban, and rural Canada. In other words, basically everybody.

Canadians are incredibly kind people, but their forbearance runs out when they sense they are being sold a pack of goods.

The political class tells us immigration grows the GDP, but forgets to mention that it worsens living standards by shrinking GDP per capita. The business lobby says that immigration is needed to “supply labour…”, but Canadians are starting to realize there’s a second part: “…so we don’t have to raise wages”.

The mainstream media confidently proclaims that we need immigration to offset an “ageing society”. They fail to explain that ageing is a transitory demographic phenomenon which all countries will go through, which has plenty of benefits along with the challenges, and which countries like Japan are meeting head-on without relying on immigration.

Our educational institutions solemnly teach that Canada needs immigration because “diversity is our greatest strength” – even as we watch faraway conflicts in the Middle East and India imported to our peaceful shores.

Politicians sense the tectonic shift in public opinion, and are running scared. Trudeau is backpedalling, and beginning to cut the number of foreign workers. Poilievre, who would prefer to nerd out about debt and inflation, has at long last promised to slow population growth.

It will be up to concerned citizens to hold them to account. But before signing off, I must say: I feel vindicated.

Editor’s note: My Counter Current column is published once every two weeks in the Islands Marketplace paper on Salt Spring Island. This piece will appear in the September 6th, 2024 issue.