El Nino weakening doesn't mean cooler temperatures this summer, forecasters say
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Since the global onset of COVID-19, Canada has been gradually closing the gap with the United States when it comes to attracting and keeping an important economic prize: new permanent residents.
The annual number of permanent residents admitted to the U.S. was well below pre-pandemic levels in 2021, while Canada welcomed the most newcomers ever in a single year, analysis by the Association for Canadian Studies shows.
Last year, the number of new permanent residents in the U.S. barely budged to 738,199, up slightly from 707,362 in 2020, the year the pandemic began.
But in Canada, the number soared to more than 405,000 -- more than twice the number who arrived in 2020, and still nearly 20 per cent more than in 2019.
It's a record that will likely be beaten more than once in the coming years, as a Canadian federal immigration plan released earlier this month aims to admit 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023 and 500,000 a year by 2025, with a particular focus on bringing in people with needed skills and experience.
In Canada, "immigration is the single factor driving economic growth, and the market right now is calling for more immigration to meet labour market needs," said Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies.
"That's not the discourse in the United States -- not to the same degree."
The U.S. is, of course, just as aware of the link between legal migration and economic growth. But the American conversation is invariably dominated by politically loaded concerns about those in the country, or seeking entry, without legal status.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court began hearing a challenge from Republican-led Texas and Louisiana to the more selective approach President Joe Biden's administration wants to take when it comes to enforcing immigration laws.
Rather than the zero-tolerance approach of the Trump administration, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wants enforcement efforts to focus instead on direct threats to public safety and national security -- an approach known as prosecutorial discretion.
No fewer than 18 state attorneys general, Republicans all, are backing Texas and Louisiana, describing the selective approach as "brazen disrespect" for U.S. immigration law that's costing the states billions in law enforcement, education and health care expenses.
At the same time, recent census data shows population growth in the U.S. has been flatlining, thanks to lower net migration levels, a decline in fertility and a spike in the mortality rate fuelled by an aging population as well as COVID-19.
The annual growth rate reported at the end of 2021 was just 0.1 per cent, the lowest since the country's founding, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Not only is Canada attracting crowds of newcomers, meanwhile, those new permanent residents are contributing to the highest levels of workforce education in the G7, new census numbers from north of the border show.
More than 57 per cent of workers in Canada aged 25 to 64 have a college or university credential, while nearly one in four have a college certificate, diploma or similar credential, Statistics Canada reported Wednesday.
But obstacles to unlocking that potential -- housing and a persistent disconnect in how Canada acknowledges foreign credentials chief among them -- remain stubborn.
Provincial regulators, professional governing bodies and trade associations "too often assume international credentials are inferior to our own," Business Council of Canada CEO Goldy Hyder wrote in a Financial Post column Tuesday.
"This narrow-minded attitude ignores the fact that most other G20 countries have skills training and education programs that are equal to, if not better than, their Canadian counterparts."
Finding room presents its own challenges. Newcomers have long preferred to settle in or near their own ethnic communities, which in Canada often means gravitating toward one of three major cities: Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.
Jedwab's research found that in 2021, Toronto topped the list of North American destinations for new permanent residents, outranking the New York City area for the first time ever, with Vancouver a distant third.
"I think there's some significance in the way the pattern of settlement of immigration in the two countries has been very different," he said.
"The extent to which Toronto is the central point in Canada, and now North America, for immigration -- it's going to be very significant."
New York, a city where the suburban archetype of backyards and picket fences has long been dismissed as fantasy, could be a helpful model, said Sharry Aiken, a law professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., who specializes in immigration policy.
"People live and die in New York as middle class, upper-middle class, and don't expect to necessarily own their own home," Aiken said.
"There's a need to rethink the housing strategy in Canada, because very short-term, that's the key need for newcomers: they land in Canada, they need a place to live. If there's any real challenge around absorption right now, it's housing."
Aiken also dismissed as "wrong-headed" the Ontario government's controversial efforts to spur housing developments in part of a protected area north of the city known as the Greenbelt.
"I don't think the answer is necessarily to be taking over greenbelts, in Ontario or elsewhere, to provide that housing. I think it has to be to rethink the way people are housed."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 1, 2022.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
A 15-year old boy who was critically injured after a stabbing in Nepean on Thursday has died of his injuries, Ottawa's English public school board said Sunday.
Police say it’s fortunate no one was injured or killed in a collision at North Vancouver’s Park and Tilford shopping centre Saturday evening that sent one vehicle careening into a flower shop and another into a set of concrete barriers outside a Winners store.
The Maple Leafs battled back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Boston Bruins with consecutive 2-1 victories - including one that required extra time - in their first-round playoff series to push the club's Original Six rival to the limit before suffering a devastating Game 7 overtime loss.
Amid scientists' warnings that nations need to transition away from fossil fuels to limit climate change, Canadians are still lukewarm on electric vehicles, according to a study conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News.
Three people have died and two have been hospitalized after a speeding car struck a tree and landed on another vehicle in Fredericton Sunday morning.
A Montreal man is warning Tesla drivers about using the Smart Summon feature after his vehicle hit another in a parking lot.
Madonna put on a free concert on Copacabana beach Saturday night, turning Rio de Janeiro's vast stretch of sand into an enormous dance floor teeming with a multitude of her fans.
Thieves killed two Australians and an American on a surfing trip to Mexico in order to steal their truck, particularly because they wanted the tires, authorities said Sunday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.