Justin Trudeau has been out of power for a year but as his appearance at the recent Toronto International Film Festival showed, he hasn’t disappeared from view or from the public consciousness.
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he → show → consciousness
Star columnist David Olive’s new book, “Justin Trudeau: Power, Promise and the Fight for Canada,” looks back on his track record as prime minister; specifically, in this excerpt, on immigration:
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book → look → immigration
On Dec. 11, 2015, Justin Trudeau was at Pearson International Airport to personally greet the first 163 Syrian refugees to arrive by government plane from Lebanon.
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Trudeau → greet → Lebanon
Trudeau had arrived early that night to speak to the staff and volunteers.
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Trudeau → arrive → staff
“We get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations,” Trudeau told the group.
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Trudeau → get → group
In a classic photo op, Trudeau was filmed helping refugees into warm coats and telling them, “You’re safe at home now.”
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You → film → home
But he was also conforming with Canada’s decades-long open immigration policies.
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he → conform → policies
Worldwide, Canada’s immigration practices were among the best-known elements of its foreign policy.
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practices → know → policy
Then-prime minister Stephen Harper had pledged in early 2015 to bring just 10,000 Syrian refugees over three years.
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Harper → pledge → years
In the 2015 election campaign, however, Trudeau said that with so many of the refugees at death’s door, the time to rescue them was now.
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time → say → them
The Syrian intake, which would climb to more than 100,000 by 2024, was remarkably uneventful.
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which → climb → 2024
The new arrivals soon integrated.
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arrivals → integrate → ?
Many had been professionals and business owners in Syria before the country was consumed by war.
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country → consume → war
By 2020, nearly half of the world’s refugees came to Canada — the third consecutive year in which the country led the world in refugee resettlements.
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country → come → resettlements
Trudeau’s nine-year government began with an immigration challenge, and the issue of immigration would figure prominently in his governance from start to finish.
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issue → begin → finish
He could appear a bit starry-eyed in extolling his vision of a social “mosaic” that Canada’s immigration tradition had created.
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tradition → appear → that
“Countries with a strong national identity — linguistic, religious or cultural — are finding it a challenge to effectively integrate people from different backgrounds,” Trudeau told The New York Times in 2015, a few weeks after he first became prime minister.
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he → find → 2015
Canada doesn’t have that dynamic.
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Canada → have → dynamic
These qualities are what make us the first post-national state.”
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us → make → ?
In 2016, one-fifth of Canadians were foreign-born, twice the U.S. level.
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fifth → bear → Canadians
Canada was home to the most number of francophones outside of France, including the biggest portion of the Haitian diaspora; the largest number of ethnic Ukrainians outside Ukraine and Russia and the most Sikhs outside the Sikh homeland, the state of Punjab in India.
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Canada → include → India
Trudeau did not come to power with a population-growth agenda.
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Trudeau → come → agenda
But he equated immigration with greater prosperity and meant to build on Canada’s success in integrating newcomers of all backgrounds.
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he → equate → backgrounds
In 1957, Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker declared, “Canada must populate or perish.”
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Canada → declare → 1957
In that spirit, Canada scrapped the last of its ethnic criteria for immigration in 1962.
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Canada → scrap → 1962
Five years later it introduced a points system whose criteria included skills, work experience, education, proficiency in French or English, and family reunification — a formula without ethnic or racial biases that is admired around the world.
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that → introduce → world
“Compared to the citizens of other developed immigration-receiving countries, Canadians are by far the most open to and optimistic about immigration,” Irene Bloemraad, chair of the University of California Berkeley’s Canadian studies department, said in a 2012 study.
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Bloemraad → compare → study
In his 2016 book “The Fix: How Countries Use Crises to Solve the World’s Worst Problems,” Jonathan Tepperman examined government success stories around the world.
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Tepperman → use → world
“The results in Canada have been spectacular,” Tepperman wrote.
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Tepperman → write → Canada
According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, while immigrants make up about 26 per cent of the workforce, they account for 35 per cent of the country’s computer programmers, 43 per cent of engineers and 57 per cent of chemists.
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they → accord → chemists
In 2016, Trudeau’s Finance Ministry created an advisory council chaired by Dominic Barton, then a consultant at McKinsey & Co., to propose economic growth strategies.
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Ministry → create → strategies
It recommended that Ottawa increase the annual immigration level to 450,000, up from 260,000 in 2014.
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Ottawa → recommend → 2014
“Without making significant changes to counteract current demographic trends,” the Barton council warned, “the number of working-age Canadians for every senior is expected to drop from 4.2 in 2015 to 2.7 in 2030, adding significant fiscal strain to the system and threatening the health of the Canadian economy and the social safety net for Canadians.”
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number → make → Canadians
Trudeau moved in the recommended direction, but gradually.
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Trudeau → move → direction
Only with the acute labour shortages of the post-pandemic economic recovery did he set a target close to the Barton council’s recommendation — a record annual intake of 500,000 by 2025.
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he → set → 2025
That decision would soon be regarded as among the worst of any prime minister.
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decision → regard → minister
Economic conditions seemed ideal in 2021 when Trudeau set his higher immigration targets.
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Trudeau → seem → targets
Canada’s economic growth was outpacing that of its G7 peers apart from the U.S. And unemployment was at a four-decade low of 4.9 per cent.
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unemployment → outpace → cent
However, by 2024, Canada’s economy was slowing, and unemployment rising, as the country was hit by the double whammy of historically high inflation and record-high interest rates to subdue the inflation.
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country → slow → inflation
Many felt that the 3.2 million immigrants Trudeau had welcomed in just three years’ time were worsening a pre-existing housing shortage and putting additional strain on an overstressed health-care system.
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Trudeau → feel → system
…and 46 more, not listed.
The Aporia
