The Media Roundup provides links to recent and archived articles, in both English and French, on immigration and diversity appearing in the national and local news. Some international content is also included. Articles are updated weekly.
Radio-Canada – Population growth slows for first time since pandemic as federal government clamps down
Government has taken several steps to scale back number of temporary residents. Population growth in Canada slowed slightly in the second quarter of this year as the federal government made efforts to reduce temporary migration into the country, Statistics Canada revealed Wednesday. It’s the first time quarterly growth has slowed since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the number of people coming into the country ground almost to a halt as the government closed Canada’s borders. International migration accounts almost entirely for the increase in Canada’s population.
Le Devoir – Statistique Canada revoit sa méthodologie et baisse son décompte des immigrants temporaires
Le nombre de résidents non permanents au Québec ne serait pas aussi élevé qu’on le croyait dans les derniers mois. Ces données très suivies dans les derniers mois sont révisées à la baisse par Statistique Canada, qui publie mercredi ses plus récentes estimations démographiques. La province comptait ainsi 588 000 immigrants temporaires au 1er juillet dernier, dont 163 000 demandeurs d’asile. Ce nombre est inférieur à l’estimation précédente, qui était de 597 000 résidents non permanents au 1er avril dernier, en raison d’un changement de méthodologie. L’instance fédérale indiquait alors compter près de 190 000 demandeurs d’asile sur le territoire.
Radio-Canada – Canada needs to do a ’stronger job’ of curbing misuse of visitor’s visas, Miller says
Minister says Ottawa is also taking a closer look at visa applications from India. The federal government needs to do more to prevent misuse of visitors visas by people coming to Canada, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports it encountered 21,929 migrants between border posts on the American side of the Canada-U.S. border between October 2023 and August 2024 – 17,810 of them in the Swanton Sector, which runs along Quebec’s border with New York and Vermont.
Global News – Nearly 13K international students applied for asylum this year, data shows
Nearly 13,000 international students have applied for asylum in Canada in the first eight months of the year, data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada shows. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31, a total of 119,835 refugee claims were made in Canada. Of these, 12,915 were claimants who were on either study permits (11,605) or study permit extensions (1,310), the department data said. Global News asked the department for a breakdown of how that compares with applications from claimants on study permits dating back to 2015-16 but officials said they needed more time to provide that data. According to a report from the Globe & Mail in April, that number stood at 1,515 applicants in 2018, which appears to show an increase of 600 per cent.
Radio-Canada – Piqué au vif par Legault sur l’immigration, Ottawa riposte à Québec
Dans une lettre adressée au nouveau ministre québécois de l’Immigration, Jean-François Roberge, deux ministres du gouvernement Trudeau souhaitent « remettre les pendules à l’heure ». Le ministre de l’Immigration, des Réfugiés et de la Citoyenneté, Marc Miller, et le ministre de la Sécurité publique, des Institutions démocratiques et des Affaires intergouvernementales, Dominic LeBlanc, écrivent s’être engagés à travailler de façon constructive avec Québec dans le dossier de l’immigration. Les ministres Miller et LeBlanc enjoignent par ailleurs au gouvernement Legault de ramer dans le même sens qu’eux en faveur d’un plan de déplacement des demandeurs d’asile hors Québec.
City News – Restaurants Canada predicting severe consequences following changes to foreign workers policy
The federal government’s latest changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program take effect on Thursday. While the government insists the alterations are designed to reduce Canadian employers’ reliance on the program to fill vacancies, Restaurants Canada is predicting severe consequences. The agency says there are currently 73,000 openings in the industry, with positions in rural, remote, and tourist regions the hardest to fill. The updated program will restrict workers to one-year contracts, down from the current two, and will limit workplaces to fill only 10 per cent of total positions with foreign workers. That is down from a 20 per cent cap.
