Asylum seekers to Canada have reached a record high and will cost Canadian taxpayers billions of dollars each year to house and accommodate them.
Deputy Chair of the Refugee Protection Division, Roula Eatrides, said it currently takes 14 months for a case to be processed with the division. However, she said that the division was funded for 60,000 cases this year, but intake has risen to over 200,000 claims, resulting in a wait time of 44 months.
“About 70% of our inventory is about a year old, or less than a year,” she said.
Eatrides confirmed this was the highest volume the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada had ever seen.
The revealed data followed Conservative MP Arpan Khanna questioning immigration officials in the House of Commons.
He said that 14 months increasing to 44 is notable because it gives fake asylum claimants more than triple the amount of time to stay in Canada.
“They’re allowed to get a job, they’re allowed to get health care. They’re allowed to stay in our country. Out of the 200,000 new referrals, 70% are just within this year. So all the changes Marc Miller has made have actually led to this crisis,” said Khanna. “An average refugee costs taxpayers $82,000 per refugee per year.”
It was previously revealed that Canadian taxpayers paid $224 per day to accommodate illegal asylum claimants, which would equate to $81,760 a year.
“The refugee program was never supposed to be a backdoor entry into our country to get a work permit. It was supposed to be there to help those that were fleeing persecution, that had an act of war in their country of origin, and that wanted to save their lives,” said Khanna.
However, he added that from Jan. to Sep., 14,000 international students also filed for asylum in Canada.
“Marc Miller himself acknowledges that most of these cases are likely going to be fake asylum claims for folks whose statuses are expiring but want to stay in this country,” said Khanna.
Miller previously called the rate at which the level of temporary foreign workers and international students had grown unsustainably and said the whole system was “out of control.”
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has historically ramped up immigration levels and deemed anyone against the mass immigration agenda a racist, he recently admitted the system was out of control.
However, instead of shouldering the blame, Trudeau blamed “bad actors.”
“He blames bad actors for immigration problems. No. He is the bad actor,” said Khanna. “This is classic Trudeau: he creates a problem, then he says he should have solved it sooner.”
Let’s talk about the “bad actor” who broke Canada’s immigration system – Justin Trudeau. pic.twitter.com/LmoHD7d5R5
According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian income was $70,500 a year in 2022.
Asylum seekers receive $81,760 per person annually in legal assistance, housing, food, and medical care, $11,260 more than the average Canadian salary.
Paying for the 200,000 asylum claimants will cost Canadian taxpayers $16.35 billion a year.
The Royal Canadian Navy will do away with its official marching song after many years over concerns of its lyrics which refer to colonialism and lack examples of diversity.
Plus, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will abide by the International Criminal Court’s decision to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
And Montreal will end the practice of adding fluoride to its water system following a petition supported by Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Lindsay Shepherd and Isaac Lamoureux!
The Liberal government is asking Parliament for over $400 million in new funding for a program that provides healthcare for asylum seekers despite the program receiving steady increases in funding yearly.
According to supplementary estimates for increased funding for the fiscal year 2024/2024, the government is asking for $411.2 million in new spending to fund its Interim Federal Health Program which provides healthcare benefits to asylum seekers and refugees.
The IFHP covers some pre-departure medical services and health care for refugees and asylum seekers. It also covers the cost of medical exams, vaccines, and medical support for travel for claimants before they arrive in Canada. The program also pays costs associated with health measures during disease outbreaks.
For refugee claimants, resettled refugees, and protected persons in Canada, the Canadian taxpayer covers hospital services, diagnostic and ambulance services, and services from healthcare professionals licensed in Canada, including pre-and post-natal care.
With some limits, the program also covers dental and prescription drug costs.
As reported by the CBC, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada credits the need for a rise in funding to the program to Canada’s elevated asylum claims volumes.
From January to September of this year, Canada processed 52,985 refugee claims, surpassing the amount processed in all of last year. In the same period, Canada processed 132,525 asylum applications, nearly as many as the 144,950 claimed in all of last year.
Just last week, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced an abuse in the asylum claim system as record numbers of international students apply for refugee status in Canada. Miller suspects many of the students are being counselled to lie about their needs as a shortcut to gain permanent residency in the country.
In 2016, the Liberals restored the IFHP, which Prime Minister Steven Harper initially cancelled, though the program’s cost totalled only $60 million.
Year after year, the government continued to call for additional funding for the program, which ballooned by hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 2019/20, the Liberals requested $125.1 million in yearly spending for the IFHP. By 2021-2022, the program had gone from $327.7 million to the government requesting $411.2 million in yearly spending.
This comes after Trudeau admitted his immigration policies have put a strain on health care, housing, and the economy. And his immigration minister, Marc Miller vowed to reduce immigration volumes.
Also in a bid to support the high volumes of newcomers, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration is requesting $314.5 million in annual spending for the Interim Housing Assistance program.
The IHAP is designed to help provinces deal with the “downstream impact of asylum flows” by providing housing.
In total, the Liberals are asking for $951.5 million in additional funding for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration for 2024/25.
Three Mile Island: now there’s a name only us retired folk will remember. On March 28, 1979 the Unit 2 reactor in the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Middletown, Pennsylvania incurred a partial melt-down. This was and remains the most serious accident in U.S. nuclear power-plant operating history. Although nobody was killed or injured, the near-catastrophe gripped Americans for months (that was when the term “melt-down” entered the public lexicon). It further energized the powerful anti-nuclear movement – eerily, the movie The China Syndrome concerning a fictional reactor melt-down had been released just 12 days before the actual Three Mile Island event – and shifted public opinion further against generating electricity by splitting the atom. Construction of new facilities slowed dramatically and eventually the number of cancellations – 120 – exceeded the approximately 90 nuclear plants that actually operate; not one was built for 30 years.
Now, 45 years later, comes announcement of a deal by tech giant Microsoft Corporation with Constellation Energy, owner of the infamous Three Mile Island facility, to restart the mothballed nuclear plant’s sister reactor, Unit 1. It will be the first such restart in the U.S.
After all these years, why now? The answer is electricity demand for artificial intelligence (AI). Like many things in the tech realm, AI is a sneakily prodigious consumer of electricity, and AI’s use is exploding. The Microsoft/Constellation project is one of several such deals recently unveiled by tech giants.
A Goldman Sachs report from May of this year illuminates the issue, observing that, “On average, a ChatGPT query needs 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search.” ChatGPT is a popular AI tool for information research and content creation (college kids particularly love it); a related and even more power-hungry tool spits out sophisticated digital imagery. And ChatGPT is only one of the burgeoning AI applications, which include everything from order processing and customer fulfillment to global shipping, generating sales leads, and helping operate factories and ports. Consequently, says Goldman Sachs, “Our researchers estimate data center power demand will grow 160% by 2030” – representing a remarkable one-third of all growth in U.S. electricity demand. “This increased demand will help drive the kind of electricity growth that hasn’t been seen in a generation,” says the report, which it pegs at a robust 2.4 percent per year during this period.
That’s a lot of juice. So where will all this additional power come from? In the U.S., 60 percent of electricity comes from natural gas and coal. Nuclear energy supplies 19 percent, hydroelectric facilities 6 percent, while wind and solar provide the remaining 14 percent. But wind and solar are intermittent, difficult to scale quickly, geographically limited – and, above all, cannot be counted on for the large-scale, uninterrupted, secure “base load” that AI requires.
And while there is something of a nuclear revival happening in the U.S. and around the world, it will be four years before Three Mile Island comes back on-stream (at an anticipated cost of US$1.6 billion). Such a time-frame even to restart an existing facility underscores the long lead times afflicting the design, construction and commissioning of any technically complex, large-scale and politically controversial infrastructure. There’s a lot of talk about shortening that cycle by focusing on a new generation of “small modular reactors” (SMR), which generate about one-quarter the power of the regular kind. But SMRs remain largely untested and, here too, their lead times are long. Alberta and Saskatchewan, for example, have been talking with other provinces for the last four years about the concept, but haven’t even begun writing the governing regulations, let alone holding public hearings. The most optimistic scenario has the first SMR coming online in 2034.
Realistically, then, most of the growth in power demand for AI will have to be met by fossil fuels, however distasteful this will be to America’s tech moguls, who want to be seen as hip and earth-friendly even if not all of them are actually left-leaning. (A laughable detail of the recent Constellation/Microsoft deal is that Three Mile Island is being renamed the “Crane Clean Energy Center”, as if it’s some kind of Google-style campus.)
Those tech moguls will have to come to terms with natural gas. Natural gas is by far the lowest-emission fossil fuel. It is readily transportable by pipeline around North America. Large-scale gas-fired generating facilities can be built quickly, at reasonable cost and at low risk using mature technology, and can be located almost anywhere. And, fortunately for Americans, natural gas is in robust supply, with production setting new records nearly every year, and is currently cheaper than dirt. Indeed, the Goldman report itself forecasts (too conservatively, in my view) that the growth in electricity demand will in turn trigger “3.3 billion cubic feet per day of new natural gas demand by 2030, which will require new pipeline capacity to be built.”
In Canada, 60 percent of our electricity comes from hydro power, but very few viable new dam sites are left (Quebec recently commissioned a new dam after years of delay, and does have a few additional candidate sites, but these are the rare exceptions). Ontario’s nuclear plants supply 16 percent. Expansion of this is under consideration but, as noted, any new capacity is many years away. Coal and coke supply 8 percent (and are being further scaled back), natural gas 8 percent, and solar and wind 6 percent. So Canada’s growing electricity demand, much of it driven by AI and other tech requirements, will also need to be fuelled by natural gas. Fortunately, Canada too has enormous untapped natural gas reserves, and is also setting new production records.
In contrast to the United States and Canada, Europe is struggling just to meet existing electricity demand after natural gas imports from Russia dropped from 5.5 trillion cubic feet in 2021 to 2.2 trillion cubic feet last year. Europe’s only option is importing liquefied natural gas (LNG). Germany, previously the largest importer of Russian gas – and which in the face of the resulting energy shortage chose to shut down the last of its nuclear plants – is constructing LNG import/regasification terminals on an urgent basis. Regrettably, the situation could get even worse for Europe; China is in talks with Russia that could lead to complete stoppage of remaining gas flows, further escalating Europe’s need for LNG.
That makes meeting the electricity demands of the EU’s smaller but also growing AI sector even more challenging. Moreover, Europe’s power grid is the oldest in the world at 50 years, so it needs both modernization and expansion. The above-quoted Goldman Sachs report states that, “Europe needs $1 trillion [in new investment] to prepare its power grid for AI.” Goldman’s researchers estimate that the continent’s power demand could grow by at least 40 percent in the next ten years, requiring investment of US$861 billion in electricity generation on top of the even higher amount to replace those old transmission systems. The situation is complex and challenging, but one thing is clear: the electricity Europe requires for AI can be fuelled in large part only by natural gas imported from friendly countries.
The AI frenzy may still seem incomprehensible to most Canadians, so it’s important to understand how its applications are spreading through more and more of the economy. Toronto-based Thomson Reuters is a well-known company that provides data and information to professionals across three main industries: legal, tax & accounting, and news & media. A recent Globe and Mail article about Thomson Reuters’ journey from reticence to embrace of the AI world provides helpful perspective. After spending a year of assessment, management concluded that AI was key to the company’s future. Thomson Reuters pledged to spend US$100 million annually to develop its AI capacity. Knowing that this is the cost for just one medium-sized Canadian company puts into perspective the potential scale of AI’s electricity-hungry global growth.
Almost forgotten in the electricity-devouring list are cryptocurrencies. In 2020-21 Bitcoin “mining” (the data centres that compete to solve the encrypted blockchains as quickly as possible) consumed more electricity than the 230 million people of Pakistan. Meeting the tech sector’s voracious and – if the growth forecasts are accurate – essentially insatiable demand for electricity will be challenging enough, but there’s another major source of electricity demand growth: electric vehicles (EVs). An International Energy Agency report estimates that EV power needs in the U.S. and Europe will rise from less than 1 percent of electricity demand today to 14 percent in 2030 if electric vehicle mandates are to be met. This C2C article examines the specific implications for Canada.
Who could have imagined that these celebrated new technologies – billed as clean, green and “sustainable” – would end up being the biggest drivers of fossil fuel growth! With our incredible endowment of accessible natural resources, our nation should seize this enormous natural gas export opportunity by getting rid of the bureaucratic time-consuming processes and other roadblocks that have so long discouraged getting new LNG export terminals built and operating.
Gwyn Morgan is a retired business leader who was a director of five global corporations.
According to the Rally Report 2024: A Call to Reimagine Sport So All Girls Can Play, 63 per cent of girls from ages 6 to 18 are taking part in team or individual sports weekly. In comparison, 68 per cent of boys. Does this have anything to do with the fact that biological men are allowed to partake in girl’s sports in Canada?
Rachel Parker is joined by women sporting advocates Meghan Murphy and Linda Blade to discuss why fewer girls are entering sports than boys. Murphy also has a prediction on the future of trans ideology.
Toronto police arrested Rebel News founder and journalist Ezra Levant while he attempted to record a pro-Hamas protest taking place in a Jewish neighbourhood in Toronto.
Levant was covering a now weekly anti-Israel counter-protest against pro-Israel supporters who gathered at the same time at Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue when police pulled him away from recording the group.
BREAKING VIDEO: While reporting on the ongoing pro-terrorist demonstrations in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Toronto, @EzraLevant was arrested.
If you want to contribute to help us pay for Ezra’s legal defence and assurance, please donate here.… pic.twitter.com/W9Nh2XXcrG
In an email, Levant told True North that he had since been released from jail and would sue the Toronto Police for violating his Charter rights. “Police arrested me for ‘causing a disturbance’ when I was silently filming a pro-Hamas protest in a Jewish neighbourhood in Toronto,” Levant told True North. “The cops said that my mere presence was causing a disturbance because the pro-Hamas people didn’t want me there.”
Before police pulled him away from documenting the protestors, Levant was attempting to record one protester who was dressed as Hamas Leader Yahya Sinwar in his final moments before being eliminated by the Israeli Defence Force.
Hamas is a listed terrorist entity in Canada. The terror group’s charter has the goal of “vanquishing” its “enemy,” the Jews, written into its constitution.
If I were to describe how monsters look, those idiots would perfectly fit.
Levant likened the man role-playing Sinwar in the Jewish neighbourhood to someone dressing up as Adolf Hitler in the area where Holocaust survivors lived.
In the video, several protesters can be seen donning inverted red triangles on their clothing, a symbol used in Hamas propaganda videos to indicate targets of the group’s gunfire and rockets.
One protester, wearing a black Guy Fawkes mask, waved at Jewish supporters across the street- taunting them by flashing and pointing at the red inverted triangle symbol.
Levant called his arrest outrageous. He has no prior arrests.
“Since when do foreign provocateurs promoting a banned terrorist organization get to veto who can and can’t walk on a sidewalk?” he said.
Rebel News and independent journalist Caryma Sa’d’s team recorded the moments leading up to and including his arrest.
As seen in a video released by Rebel News, as police escorted Levant away from the protesters for “inciting the crowd,” several Palestinian flag-bearing protesters followed them, shouting at Levant.
Police escorted Levant to a “media zone,” saying if people wanted to be interviewed by Rebel News, they could go to that area. Levant claimed that he didn’t want to conduct interviews and that his purpose was to document what he and many of the Jewish protesters viewed as a hate crime.
Levant refused to stay in the area, but he was told to remain.
After Levant confronted Toronto Police Services and accused them of arresting journalists instead of the pro-Hamas protesters, a police officer placed him under arrest.
“In the interest of keeping the peace here and in the interest of public safety, you are under arrest,” the officer said.
Rebel News journalist David Menzies was arrested at Bathurst and Shepphard just weeks before, the same day an anti-Israel protester cosplaying as a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist was arrested.
Following requests for comment and information on whether any of the other protesters were placed under arrest, TPS did not respond.
Doug Ford came into power promising a change from the Kathleen Wynne Green Energy Act fiasco – the one which saddled Ontario taxpayers with costly green energy contracts, driving up the price of power. Ford promised to scrap those wasteful contracts, lower hydro rates, and restore affordability to Ontario. But as we take stock of his energy policies today, it seems Ford is steering Ontario down a path that feels a bit too familiar.
For all his talk about energy affordability, Ford continues to pander to the environmentalist “Net Zero” ideology that got Ontario into this mess in the first place. The idea is that somehow Canada will be a net zero emitter of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. We have seen this play out at the Federal level, with the Trudeau Liberals implementing a host of reckless and punitive policies in the vain hopes of achieving this preposterous goal. You can thank Net Zero for Carbon Taxes, Emissions Caps, the Clean Fuel Standard, Electric Vehicle Mandates and on and on.
Instead of backing away and distancing himself from this scam, Doug Ford has embraced and doubled down on it. Recall that during a provincial leaders debate in June 2022, Ford stated that he will not be happy until Ontario achieves a 100% zero-carbon electricity grid, buying into the Net Zero electrification nonsense that the Trudeau government is pushing. This would mean moving away from fossil fuels like affordable and reliable natural gas as energy sources in Ontario.
Stephen Lecce, Ford’s minister of the recently renamed Ministry of Energy and Electrification, is full steam ahead on this project. And the ministry’s new name is significant, pointing towards an “energy transition” for Ontario, such that eventually everything – cars, home heating, etc. – will be run on electricity rather than traditional fuels.
Currently, about 20 per cent of Ontario’s energy needs are met by electricity, so where will this electricity come from, without fossil fuels? At a recent Empire Club event, Ford gave a fireside chat where he discussed Ontario’s electricity plan (you can hear the interview here). He spoke about the energy sector and his commitment to all low carbon options for Ontario’s electricity grid, including wind and solar. This marks a reversal of his earlier skepticism about these technologies. The irony is that Ontario taxpayers are still paying for the expensive legacy of earlier wind and solar government spending. Wasting more taxpayer dollars will mean more of the following: higher energy costs, decreased grid reliability, and growing public debt.
As energy expert Parker Gallant has pointed out, the costs of wind power alone have been staggering, with taxpayers footing the bill for inefficient projects that deliver intermittent power. Doubling down on these same strategies, even under a different name, does little to address affordability or reliability.
Ford has hitched his horse fully to the Net Zero wagon. According to his government’s policy documentPlanning for electrification and the energy transition: “Much of the world – including many of Ontario’s major trading partners – have committed to achieving economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2050.” Consequently, it recommends that Ontario adopt similar Net Zero strategies, as doing so allegedly contributes “to the global climate solution and thereby sets the province up to succeed and prosper in the emerging global clean energy economy.”
These claims didn’t make sense when they were made five years ago and they make even less sense today. Afterall, Ontario’s largest trading partner to the South has just elected Donald Trump whose policy approach to energy can be summarized by the phrase, “Drill Baby Drill.” We can expect that one of Trump’s first acts as president will be to (once again) exit the Paris Agreement. Trump has no intention of drinking the Net Zero KoolAid, though he will no doubt be happy to have America’s competitors like Canada burden themselves with unnecessary environmental commitments and regulations, which will drive up the cost of doing business and make “made in America” a much more attractive brand. Competitiveness and affordability in Canada can go out the window as manufacturers and businesses will start looking South as the more attractive business environment.
While Trump seeks to unleash the United States’ energy potential, Ford will only stifle Ontario’s. Which is to say, Ford is setting Ontario up for failure. Now that is a real net zero.
Dan McTeague is the President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
Montreal will no longer add fluoride to its water system after municipal officials heeded the call of a petition launched by an island resident and on recommendation from the city’s water department.
The petition was also supported by Robert F. Kennedy, who was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be the next US health secretary.
The decision was made by a council representing Montreal and its suburban municipalities on Thursday, ending a practice of water treatment since the 1950s.
However, some suburban mayors say they weren’t consulted during the process and some residents are calling the decision undemocratic.
“The City of Montreal took this decision to be coherent,” said councillor Maja Vodanovic ahead of Thursday’s vote. “We’re doing it in the best interest of all.”
The Montreal water department said it first received a “citizen petition” about the issue launched by resident Ray Coelho in 2020.
Beaconsfield Mayor Georges Bourelle disagrees with Coelho, calling him a “far-right extremist,” adding that he doesn’t put “a lot of credibility on petitions.”
Despite Bourelle’s view of Coelho, only two of Montreal’s six water treatment plants use fluoride, which serves 5% of the island’s population across six suburbs in the city’s West Island.
“I’ve spoken to RFK on a few occasions, he congratulated me on ending fluoridation in Montreal,” wrote Coelho in a social media post earlier this month.
Kennedy alleges that fluoride is an “industrial waste” that can be linked to several health problems and that he plans to remove the mineral from the U.S. water supply entirely under the Trump administration.
According to the city water department, it costs around $100,000 annually to fluoridate the water at the two treatment plants and it has resulted in several shutdowns over health concerns for workers handling the chemicals.
Additionally, only one other municipality in Quebec adds fluoride to its water.
However, Montreal is not alone in its decisions as the town of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia also recently announced plans to remove hydrofluorosilicic acid from the water supply following a council vote.
The council cited that there are no studies that indicate conclusive data on the use of fluoride in delivering safe, potable drinking water.
The Government of Canada states that some “scientific findings have corroborated the preventive effects of fluoride on tooth decay,” which “helps reduce the cavity-causing effect of foods and bacteria.”
This was most notably championed by U.S. dentists F. McKay and G. V. Black who in 1909 initiated a 15-year follow-up study in one Colorado town and “observed very low caries rates among residents who had access to drinking water with a naturally high level of fluoride.”
Community water fluoridation is the process of “monitoring and adjusting the fluoride level in drinking water to the optimal level for caries prevention.”
The government reported that approximately 14.4 million Canadians (38.8%) were drinking from CWF water systems in 2022, meaning the majority of the population was consuming water without this process.
“We don’t think that something like fluoride should be put in 100% of the water,” said Vodanovic, who noted that Montrealers only drink 1% of the portable water produced by the city.
The majority of Canadians now believe that there is too much immigration into Canada, driven by a rise in economic concerns, over-population, the worry that the government is not screening immigrants properly, and an increase in crime.
According to a survey from Focus Canada, the rise in concern was most pronounced among Conservative supporters; the increase was mirrored, though less prevalent, among Liberal and NDP supporters.
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office in 2015, only 48% of Conservative Party supporters thought there was too much immigration to Canada. The level has now risen to 80%. The concern among Liberal supporters rose from 33% in 2015 to 45% in 2024. NDP supporters saw the smallest rise, growing from 31% in 2015 to 36% in 2024.
Among all Canadians, 58% believe that the country accepts too many immigrants, a 14% rise since 2023, following a 17% increase the year prior, the most rapid change since Focus Canada began tracking this question in 1977.
“The latest findings suggest the balance of public opinion about the volume of immigration currently being admitted into the country has effectively flipped from being acceptable (if not valuable) to problematic,” reads the report.
Economic concerns have not been rising across the board.
In 2023, 38% of respondents felt that immigrants were placing pressure on housing prices and supply, which fell to 33% by 2024. However, the number of Canadians thinking that immigrants result in a weak economy and take jobs from other Canadians grew from 25% to 29% between the two years.
The survey did not seem to preface any questions by providing respondents with the level of immigration to Canada.
True North previously reported that approximately 2.2 million people were immigrating to Canada each year when accounting for temporary foreign workers, international students, illegal immigrants, and permanent residents.
“For the first time in a quarter century, a clear majority of Canadians say there is too much immigration, with this view strengthening considerably for the second consecutive year. This trend is evident across the population but is most significant in the Prairie provinces, while least so in Quebec,” reads the report.
The number of respondents who felt there were already too many people in Canada and immigration resulted in overpopulation rose from 19% to 25% between 2023 and 2024.
The Liberals announced in Oct. that immigration levels would be reduced by 135,000 between 2025 and 2027.
According to the survey, the number of Canadians who felt immigration was poorly managed by the government, resulting in a lack of screening, rose from 10% to 21% between 2023 and 2024.
Respondents were concerned that immigrants coming to Canada may not be assimilating properly.
“Along with rising concerns about immigration levels, an increasing number of Canadians are expressing doubts about who is being admitted to the country and how well they are integrating into Canadian society,” reads the report. “The public places most value on immigrants with specialized skills and those with a good education who settle permanently, and less on temporary foreign workers and international students.”
As of Sept. 2024, 57% of Canadians felt that immigrants were not accepting Canadian values, which has steadily risen since around 2020. However, this is not a new phenomenon, as 72% of Canadians felt that was in 1993 — the highest level since.
Between when Trudeau took office in 2015 and 2023, crime severity has increased by 14%. The total number of crimes committed has risen by 25%. The number of violent crimes saw a larger increase of 28%, while their severity increased by 32%.
“Not surprisingly, Canadians expressing concerns about the impact of immigration on crime are also more likely to believe there is too much immigration and that too many newcomers are not adopting Canadian values,” reads the report.
Over one in three Canadians feel that immigration is increasing the level of crime in Canada. The number of Canadians who felt this way increased by 12% between 2015 and 2024; however, this amount still falls below the peak of 47% in 1989.
The survey was conducted through telephone interviews with 2,016 Canadians ages 18 plus between September 9 and 23, 2024. It is considered accurate within 2.2 percentage points in 19 out of 20 samples.
Despite record-high education spending, British Columbia’s average academic performance in math, science and reading has declined significantly.
According to a new study by the Fraser Institute, inflation-adjusted per-student education spending in B.C. has increased by 6.7% in ten years. From $13,839 in the fiscal year 2012/13 to $14,767 in 2021/22.
In the fiscal year 2024/25, B.C.’s NDP government plans to spend $9.6 billion on education, making it the second largest program spending area after healthcare.
However, B.C.’s academic performance has been declining over the last decade. The study examines internationally recognized testing standards, the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, to gauge this.
According to PISA scores, student performance in math dropped from 522 in 2012 to 496 in 2022, in reading from 535 to 511, and in science from 544 to 519 over the same ten-year period.
Michael Zwaagstra, a public high school teacher, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the study, told True North in an interview that this evidences a disconnect between higher program spending and student achievement.
In the study, the authors recommend several educational reforms they believe can help correct this issue.
Zwaagstra noted a series of curriculum changes in 2015, which he credits for much of the declining educational measures. Any public or private school was forced to implement these changes to access public funding and grants.
He said the change moved the curriculum away from having a focus on knowledge, content, and fundamentals and towards a “discovery” curriculum, which has been publicly criticized since its implementation.
“Instead of having students memorize facts in their brain, everything is more about these big picture, big ideas and the specifics don’t really matter a whole lot,” he told True North. “What that’s doing is it leads to a huge knowledge gap, and that’s a huge problem.”
Regarding curriculum, Zwaagstra advocates reversing those initial “experimental” curriculum reforms and implementing a curriculum that emphasizes memorization and practice, and a return to a “back to basics approach.” For example, he said students should chronologically learn Canadian history, identifying key events that “every student should know” and building on their knowledge.
“In a subject like math, it should be required that they memorize times tables at an early grade, that they learn the standard algorithms for math, science, multiplication and division,” he said. “Focusing on the basics, going in a more sequential way, and making sure the students have mastered important concepts before trying to introduce them to something more advanced.”
He said the monopolized curriculum, which he argues is flawed, has caused the entire province’s academic success to decline. The study also advocates for more educational choices for students and families to solve this.
The study recommends that B.C. allow access to charter schools, like those implemented in Alberta with high success rates, and establish a system allowing taxpayer dollars to “follow the student” should parents choose to enrol their children in an independent school.
Alberta is the only province in Canada that has charter schools. These schools are publicly funded non-religious schools that don’t fall under the jurisdiction of a local school board.
Zwaagstra said that access to charter schools would allow lower-income families who don’t have access to private schools to have more choice if they feel their child isn’t getting the education they need in the public school system.
“It shouldn’t only be wealthy parents that can take their kid out of a failing school and put them in an independent school that is more successful,” Zwaagstra said. “That choice, that option should be available to parents of all income levels.”
Currently, 86.4% of British Columbians are enrolled in government schools. B.C. has the highest number of students enrolled in private schools, and many of those schools receive public funding. Some receive 50% public funding, others 35%, while the rest are ineligible.
The study instead advocates for a system resembling Australia’s public funding of private schools. This system accounts for socioeconomic areas, giving less funding to schools in richer areas, enabling poorer families to still have a choice in the education their children receive.
