Ottawa opened the immigration floodgates and Canadians are paying the price

Canada did not stumble into today’s immigration crisis by accident

For decades, immigration in this country was tied to economic need, integration and national interest. Then Ottawa abandoned that model and opened the floodgates in the name of ideology, cheap labour and political advantage.

Now Canadians are living with the consequences.

They see housing costs spiralling out of control. They see overcrowded hospitals and strained schools. They see food banks overwhelmed, public infrastructure stretched to the limit, and civic trust beginning to fray.

Then they are told none of this has anything to do with immigration. That is no longer believable.

Canadians were never opposed to immigration itself. Immigration helped build this country and remains essential to its future. What Canadians increasingly oppose is an immigration system that no longer appears connected to the country’s ability to absorb people successfully or preserve the social cohesion that made Canada work in the first place.

For most of Canada’s modern history, immigration operated on what was often called a “tap on, tap off” model. Immigration levels rose when the economy needed workers and slowed when the country faced economic strain. Governments understood there were limits to how quickly the country could absorb newcomers into housing, schools,  health care systems and the broader culture.

The goal was nation-building. But after 2015, immigration policy stopped being tied to the country’s capacity to absorb newcomers. Temporary foreign worker programs expanded rapidly, while international student streams increasingly became backdoor labour pipelines.

Before the pandemic, temporary residents made up less than three per cent of Canada’s population. By 2024, that figure had surged to roughly 7.5 per cent. Ottawa knowingly opened temporary streams on a scale the country could not absorb.

In 2023 alone, Canada’s population grew by more than 1.2 million people, the fastest growth rate in nearly 70 years. No housing market, healthcare system or public infrastructure could absorb that kind of surge.

Mass immigration also became politically useful. Governments increasingly treated population growth as both an economic talking point and a long-term political strategy, while critics were marginalized as intolerant or anti-immigrant.

But the consequences extend far beyond economics. Canada was increasingly presented, in the words of former prime minister Justin Trudeau, as a “post-national” country where preserving separate identities mattered more than building a shared national culture. Today, even discussing integration into a common civic culture rooted in democratic traditions, mutual responsibility, and social trust can provoke accusations of intolerance.

A country cannot remain cohesive if millions of people arrive faster than they can realistically integrate into the institutions, traditions and civic culture of the nation receiving them. A country also needs a shared sense of identity and trust. Without it, fragmentation grows.

Canadians are now witnessing imported foreign conflicts spilling into their streets, rising social tensions and increasing pressure on police, courts and public institutions. Too often, political leaders appear more concerned about offending activists than defending the principles and social norms that once held the country together.

Even more troubling is the growing fear around speaking honestly about immigration itself. Canadians were shamed into silence while the country was fundamentally transformed around them.

No healthy democracy can function that way.

This is not about shutting the door on immigration. It is about restoring control, balance and common sense.

Canada absolutely needs immigration, but immigration must serve the country, not overwhelm it.

That means sharply reducing temporary resident streams, ending the abuse of foreign worker programs, tying immigration levels to housing and infrastructure capacity and restoring integration and citizenship as core expectations of Canadian immigration policy.

Most importantly, it means rejecting the idea that borders, national identity and social cohesion are somehow outdated concepts in a modern country.

They are not outdated. They are the foundation of national stability.

A sovereign country has both the right and the responsibility to decide who comes in, in what numbers and under what conditions. That should never have become a controversial statement.

Immigration can strengthen a nation, and Canada itself is proof of that, but immigration without limits, integration or national purpose weakens it.

And the longer Ottawa refuses to admit the damage, the harder it will become to repair what made Canada work in the first place.

David Leis is the President and CEO of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and host of the Leaders on the Frontier podcast. A seasoned commentator on Canadian public policy, he focuses on restoring accountability, economic common sense, and civic health to the country’s national, provincial and municipal institutions.