Statistics Canada Reports II

[BaddieB]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

In American political commentary I've actually heard some people say that border/immigration is the "gun control of the left": in the same way that the American right is so obsessed with the idea of absolute gun rights that they'll oppose even basic common sense gun controls and even oppose their own core beliefs to enable this position (ie. Will reject banning terrorists from buying guns while simultaneously being hardline against terrorism), the American left does the same thing with migration issues.

This is such a good way of phrasing it.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

This is another element of the left being silly on immigration: they will often prioritize favoring looser borders & more migrants so much that they will violate all of their other core beliefs. You just have a classic example. Another is when socialists attack capitalist ideas of growth and favour "degrowth" & say low birth rates are good because of overpopulation.. and then support massive population growth from more immigration!

In American political commentary I've actually heard some people say that border/immigration is the "gun control of the left": in the same way that the American right is so obsessed with the idea of absolute gun rights that they'll oppose even basic common sense gun controls and even oppose their own core beliefs to enable this position (ie. Will reject banning terrorists from buying guns while simultaneously being hardline against terrorism), the American left does the same thing with migration issues.

Are we speaking about Canada or the USA? Who on the "left" in Canada is advocating "open borders"?

[Spocket]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Are we speaking about Canada or the USA? Who on the "left" in Canada is advocating "open borders"?

Well, Justin Trudeau seems to be listing that way. After all, we're now a "post national state" apparently.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Spocket

Well, Justin Trudeau seems to be listing that way. After all, we're now a "post national state" apparently.

Only if one chooses to call high levels of immigration and visa issuance "open borders". To me it means the absence of immigration process and border control, neither of which apply to Canada.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Only if one chooses to call high levels of immigration and visa issuance "open borders". To me it means the absence of immigration process and border control, neither of which apply to Canada.

They took in over one million people more than they thought because they lost count, so they really didn't know how many people were here. I say it's the samething. Let's not get too focused on an actual border crossing, the federal government is simulating the same thing.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Only if one chooses to call high levels of immigration and visa issuance "open borders". To me it means the absence of immigration process and border control, neither of which apply to Canada.

When anyone from anywhere on Earth can show just up at the border, walk right in, claim that they're an "asylum seeker", and still be allowed to stay here if that claim is rejected, then yes, we don't really have border control anymore. Remember, the feds want to "regularize" failed asylum seekers instead of deporting them.

[Beedok]

When our country's wealth and living standards were built upon plundering the rest of the world and the country's low population densities actively hurt the economy by forcing us to pay more per capita on infrastructure it seems rather nonsensical to be anti-immigration to me.

Also, the reason temporary workers and undocumented folks have to work in terrible conditions akin to scab labourers is a lack of legal protections, which, y'know, Left leaning folks fight agains?

It's conservative leaning types who want more foreign labourers in the labour market without proper rights so they can have cheap labour. Sure, they talk up about cruel deportations to make their base happy, but they generally don't actually want to stop the flow. Look at how American conservatives chant about building a wall, when people crossing the border by land are only a tiny fraction of the source of undocumented migrants and it's actually people who entered the country legally but then had their visas expire due to an understaffed bureaucracy that are the vast majority of undocumented people in the US.

[BlackDog204]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^no, but down South, if the Dumpster Fire gets back in, I suspect it will happen, and it is most unfortunate that his hateful rhetoric has evidently found a lot of sympathetic ears up in Canada.

I'm for calling out people that advocate for mass deportations.

I mean, didn't this awful thing happen a few centuries ago, in Acadia?

I was being tongue-and-cheek, when it comes to deporting 750,000 people. If I called the shots, it would be all temporary workers, not legitimate citizens of Canada. Is there anyone with a straight face that can tell me that admitting this many people post-Covid, has improved Canada?

Unless one is a real estate agent, or perhaps the top 5% of income earners, people around the country are far worse off than they were at the beginning of 2022.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

When anyone from anywhere on Earth can show just up at the border, walk right in, claim that they're an "asylum seeker", and still be allowed to stay here if that claim is rejected, then yes, we don't really have border control anymore. Remember, the feds want to "regularize" failed asylum seekers instead of deporting them.

Roxham Rd was the very definition of an open border. We even set up infrastructure and assigned staff to make it happen.

Also of course see the PM's now famous tweet from a few years ago that made the message clear to the world. Mostly meant to one-up Donald Trump and the Americans of course. We just couldn't resist.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by Beedok

When our country's wealth and living standards were built upon plundering the rest of the world and the country's low population densities actively hurt the economy by forcing us to pay more per capita on infrastructure it seems rather nonsensical to be anti-immigration to me.

Also, the reason temporary workers and undocumented folks have to work in terrible conditions akin to scab labourers is a lack of legal protections, which, y'know, Left leaning folks fight agains?

It's conservative leaning types who want more foreign labourers in the labour market without proper rights so they can have cheap labour. Sure, they talk up about cruel deportations to make their base happy, but they generally don't actually want to stop the flow. Look at how American conservatives chant about building a wall, when people crossing the border by land are only a tiny fraction of the source of undocumented migrants and it's actually people who entered the country legally but then had their visas expire due to an understaffed bureaucracy that are the vast majority of undocumented people in the US.

They aren't being anti-immigration, they simply don't want to be overrun to the point that we can't keep up with the changes, like housing prices, cost of living, sudden cultural landscape changes, etc.

It would be the Liberals who would be at fault for not having enough staff to renew visa's. They have been in power for 4 years, they had enough time to hire and make changes.

As far as white guilt and having a bleeding heart about plundering other nations, the worse plundering happening is the brain drain that keeps happening at a very accelerated rate due to mass immigration to our nations that leaves those nations devoid of bright minds. We take the best and they're left with the rest.

[Acajack]

Liberals have been in power for 9 years.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Liberals have been in power for 9 years.

The Democrats have been there for almost 4 years after Donald Trump. She was referring to the American Visa's not being able to be renewed.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Beedok

When our country's wealth and living standards were built upon plundering the rest of the world and the country's low population densities actively hurt the economy by forcing us to pay more per capita on infrastructure it seems rather nonsensical to be anti-immigration to me.

Also, the reason temporary workers and undocumented folks have to work in terrible conditions akin to scab labourers is a lack of legal protections, which, y'know, Left leaning folks fight agains?

It's conservative leaning types who want more foreign labourers in the labour market without proper rights so they can have cheap labour. Sure, they talk up about cruel deportations to make their base happy, but they generally don't actually want to stop the flow. Look at how American conservatives chant about building a wall, when people crossing the border by land are only a tiny fraction of the source of undocumented migrants and it's actually people who entered the country legally but then had their visas expire due to an understaffed bureaucracy that are the vast majority of undocumented people in the US.

I am pro-immigration. I am against illegal/uncontrolled immigration. Being upset that economic migrants can just walk in and move here by faking an "asylum" claim (getting enormous amounts of pampered services in the process) is not the same thing as being anti-immigrant. Do not make that equivalency.

You can't just let the world in without limits because of some pithy arguments about colonialism. We can't have a system if it gets overwhelmed by new migrants. That's why we can't tolerate uncontrolled immigration - immigration needs to be controlled so the pace matches what is best for our country, and to ensure that potentially problematic individuals are screened out. That's what Canada did for decades before 2015 and it worked.

The US is different because they've been using their illegal population as a wink-wink nudge-nudge cheap labour system for many decades. But we don't do that.

Don't make the same mistake that the EU made. Canadians who struggle to pay rent and afford groceries are literally watching economic migrants enter without permission, file fake asylum claims, and get showered with all kinds of goodies from the state - free stays in hotel rooms, free food, free everything. That is extremely unfair and of course people are upset. If the response to this anger is to attack it as racist and try to sweep it under the rug, or to shrug it off and say "we have to do it this way because human rights & rule of law", you'll just radicalize people into hating all immigrants. That's what happened in the EU.

[1overcosc]

"If liberals won't enforce borders, fascists will" - David Frum.

Basically, if mainstream politicians refuse to do anything about this, public opinion will enrange to the public to the point that they start to support far-right parties.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I am pro-immigration. I am against illegal/uncontrolled immigration.

I’m more virtuous than you then, I’m just pro-immigration. I love Fresh New Suckers, and I’m soooo not racist that I’m thrilled at seeing my wealth continue to grow thanks to the massive importation of a desperate wage-depressing, rent-boosting, vacancy-rate-eliminating underclass of brown quasi-slaves / Indentured Servants from South Asia. Shame on you racists who want to reduce the flow!

As the Liberty poem (Canadian JT-Ponzi Version) goes,

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

It’s how we continue to enrich the Landed Gentry!

[zahav]

Huge growth all around as expected, but yes with the recent restrictions on immigration will temper this, the % increases were not sustainable and came very quick, so nice to see it normalize.

Not sure if it's a blip, but Q2 saw some funny natural increase stats. There appeared to be an east/west schism with the y/y growth in natural increase. It either declined or was static in the Maritimes and Quebec, with Quebec posting a dramatic decline in natural increase (+1,150 in 2023 to +400 in 2024, caused by an increase in deaths and a drop in births). ON, MB, SK, and AB saw increases in both births and deaths, but growth in births outpaced deaths, so natural increase went up y/y. BC was a bit of a surprise, swinging back to positive natural increase after several negative quarters. An 8.1% increase in births (the highest amongst the provinces) plus a surprising -3.9% decrease in deaths (the only province to record less deaths y/y). It's just one quarter, not reading any kind of trend here, just surprised to see it.

Moving onto interprovincial migration, I have been tracking demographics for many years, so have my own tables for each period. And for the first time, I noticed right away some significant discrepancies between the initial releases at the time, and the current figures (and it is totally legitimate, these are estimates only and StatsCan figures are always revised in subsequent releases). I just never paid much attention before, since I was always just looking at the latest quarter release. The interesting thing is the adjustments themselves. See below for the adjustments for the full year Q1 2023 to Q1 2024 (obviously the current quarter is the latest we have, so we won't have an adjustment until the next release:

Net Interprovincial Migration Adjustment , April 1 2023 - April 1 2024 (latest updated figures minus original estimates)
NL: +970
PE: +248
NS: -113
NB: -465
QC: -2,548
ON: +6,260
MB: +648
SK: +559
AB: -10,618
BC: +4,907
YT: +168
NW: +31
NVT: -47

Again, not drawing any long term trends or conclusive takeaways, simply showing the data. So this means over the 12-month period noted, StatCan overestimated the growth in net interprovincial migration in NS, NB, QC, and AB and underestimated the growth in NL, PE, ON, MB, SK, BC, and the territories. Unsurprisingly since ON, AB, and BC are the largest in and out provinces and represent a huge chunk of interprovincial movements, they had the largest adjustments. ON and BC on the positive side, and AB adjusted down. I know there are mathematical formulas and complex stat collecting going on at StatCan, I don't pretend to understand fully the process that goes into initial estimates and then revised figures. But interesting that they overestimated AB by so much over the full year, and conversely underestimated BC and ON, don't know if that was people intending to move but didn't, or moved and then moved back in the same quarter? Not sure, but I was surprised by just how much the numbers changed. For example, in Q2 2023, Statcan estimated BC lost net -300 people. The latest adjusted number shows a gain of +3,476. That's quite a significant update, and a very different situation for the province to go from a few hundred loss, to +3,500 gained. Fittingly, AB went from an initial net gain of +13,926 to an adjusted +8,701 (ON also had a significant upward revision like BC). And comparing Q2 to Q1 2024, net interprovincial migration growth slowed in NB, ON, MB, SK, and AB, while increasing in NL, PE, NS, QC, and BC (again quite drastic, going from a -2,050 loss last quarter to only -402 this quarter). Really, ON and SK were the only provinces to lose a notable number of people (more than -1,500). Although ON lost a much larger net total of -9,211, SK's -1,542 loss was proportionally more since it's so much smaller than ON. But hope isn't lost, this was the smallest quarterly net loss for SK since Q2 2016, so there is evidence of a trend there. Outmigration got worse until it peaked in Q2 2020, and has gone down more or less every quarter since then. So not all doom and gloom!

Will be interesting to see the numbers over the next year and see what happen. Again, my post is just musings and number crunching, and not some formal statistical analysis. There's so many factors here, and too short of time to make conclusions.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Roxham Rd was the very definition of an open border. We even set up infrastructure and assigned staff to make it happen.

Also of course see the PM's now famous tweet from a few years ago that made the message clear to the world. Mostly meant to one-up Donald Trump and the Americans of course. We just couldn't resist.

Anyone who crossed at Roxham Road was arrested and processed by the police. That is the literal opposite of an open border.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Anyone who crossed at Roxham Road was arrested and processed by the police. That is the literal opposite of an open border.

Except they were all allowed to stay in the country. They made asylum claims and were released after that, free to live in the country with massive public assistance, while their claim was heard. And quite a few whose claims turned out to be fake are now being allowed to stay one way or another through "regularization" schemes, instead of being deported.

That's what makes it effectively an "open border" policy. Anyone who showed up was allowed to stay in Canada. A non open border would have these people forced to leave the country after being arrested.

[1overcosc]

IMO, irregular crossers should not be allowed to make asylum claims, period. All people who enter the country illegally should be indefinitely detained until they can be deported. No exceptions.

People will stop coming pretty fast after it becomes known that this is our policy. And the problem fixes itself.

We need to do our part on refugees, but they should be accepted through recommendation from UNHCR from host countries directly.