Trudeau Admits He Was Wrong on Immigration

On October 25, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced cuts to Canada’s liberal immigration policies. Trudeau’s stated goal is to slow Canada’s unsustainable population growth. The PM’s political opponents claim his change of heart is a “frantic” effort to boost his waning popularity and to revive his diminishing re-election prospects. Canada’s election is scheduled for October 2025 but when the power-sharing pact between New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh and Trudeau collapsed, the way was paved for holding an earlier special vote. Singh’s and Trudeau’s shared goal is to block Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre from taking over. The immigration curbs followed earlier cuts to Canada’s temporary foreign workers resident programs and international student enrollments. Trudeau said the immigration influx helped the Canadian economy bounce back from Covid pandemic disruptions by ensuring that a robust labor supply would be available to Canadian employers. But he added that the time had come for what he called "adjustments." "We will reduce the number of immigrants we bring in over the next three years, which will result in a pause in the population growth," Trudeau said. Canada's population jumped 3.2 percent from 2023 to 2024, the biggest annual rise since 1957, and now stands at forty-one million, an increase driven in large part by immigration increases.

Trudeau is rightly worried about his political future. Conservatives have a 19-point lead over the Liberals and are projected to win a massive majority government if the election were held today. Liberals have been stagnant in the polls and stuck in the mid-to-low twenties, while the NDP is trailing in third place. Canada seeks to dramatically curb its unsustainable immigration agenda, a shift that Trudeau identified as essential since public support for immigration steadily declines. Canadian immigration includes international asylum seekers and worldwide refugees which Trudeau’s detractors feel need stricter vetting. A September poll by Environics Institute, an organization which has tracked Canadians' immigration attitudes since 1977, found that for the first time in a quarter century, a majority now say there is too much immigration. A month later another pollster’s results were more dire. In his October newsletter, Abacus Data pollster David Coletto said the idea that consensus around public support for immigration is cracking is an understatement. The consensus is broken, Coletto flatly stated. Nearly two-thirds of nationwide respondents disapprove of Trudeau’s performance as PM, based in large part on his unbending commitment to higher immigration levels.

Multiple reasons explain why Canadians are disenchanted with immigration. In a single year, the number of international students grew nearly 30% from 2022 to 2023, data the Canadian Bureau for International Education published. Canadian media has reported that some international students were using their temporary visa to claim permanent asylum in the country, a trend that Immigration Minister Marc Miller called “alarming.” Conversations between Trudeau and Miller concluded with an agreement that Canada would cut immigration by 20% in 2025. The roughly one million foreign nationals present in Canada on temporary visas will either leave on their own accord or, Miller said, they will be deported. Meanwhile, government data shows that the number of temporary foreign workers in Canada has doubled in the last five years. Asylum claims spiked in 2016 and continued in future years after Canada removed visa requirements for Mexican tourists. The ill-conceived idea of lifting visa mandates for Mexican nationals forced Canada to reimpose visa restrictions earlier this year.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris could learn an important lesson if she took a hint from her northern neighbor. Admitting her administration made a mistake is not shameful and might boost her campaign. Americans have grown disenchanted with immigration for decades and not because they are racist or because they do not like immigrants. If asked to summarize in a sentence or two what the U.S. immigration policy is, not a single U.S. Senator could give a concise answer. Immigration in the U.S. has no guiding principle---it is made up of adding more than one million lawful work authorized permanent residents annually, countless work visas, special interest visas, refugee resettlement, and asylee admissions. U.S. citizens have a growing and correct sense that the immigration system has lost its integrity. The huge Southwest border crisis confirms Americans’ worst fears. The Biden/Harris administration, unilaterally acting against the people’s will, have green-lighted throngs of unvetted illegal aliens into the interior.

The damage Trudeau has done to Canada with his extreme immigration measures cannot be undone. He allowed his government to lose control of immigration which led to a housing crisis that has adversely affected Canadians across the country where a shortage of available homes has driven both rent and home prices up. Critics may charge Trudeau’s immigration change of heart as a cynical ploy to appease disgruntled Canadians.

Trudeau’s tough immigration talk may not be able to save him; his Liberal coalition is urging him to resign to avoid an embarrassing defeat. But along his way, Trudeau admitted that his immigration course was harmful to most Canadians. As Trudeau said, “Far too many corporations have chosen to abuse our temporary measures, exploiting foreign workers while refusing to hire Canadians for a fair wage.”

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org