Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently warned that the flow of temporary immigrants entering their country must be “controlled.”
The liberal prime minister, who has been a staunch supporter of immigration, said the rate of temporary immigrants crossing their border had come at a rate faster than it could handle.
“Whether it’s temporary foreign workers or whether it’s international students in particular, that’s grown at a rate that’s far beyond what Canada’s been able to get,” Trudeau warned Tuesday.
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Trudeau said temporary immigrants now make up 7.5% of the population, up from 2% in 2017, adding that they need to get the numbers “back under control.”
“We want to bring those numbers down,” he said. “It’s a responsible approach to immigration that continues with our permanent residents, like we have, but also holds the line a little more on the temporary immigration that has put so much pressure on our communities.”
Trudeau’s change of tone came after he relied on immigrants to drive economic growth and narrow labor gaps, Reuters previously reported.
The influx of immigrants to Canada since the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a severe crisis in some areas and has also caused rising rent prices and strain on the health care system.
“One of the reasons we got here in the first place is that the (provincial and federal) governments just don’t want to touch this issue for fear of looking xenophobic,” Mike Moffatt, founding director of the Place Centre, told Reuters in February.
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The publication said Canadian citizens supported immigration at a historically high level in 2020, which has since fallen to a three-decade low at the end of last year.
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Trudeau’s shift toward current public opinion on immigration also comes after his challenger, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, is leading several national opinion polls.