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Comment by transcriptase | Hacker News Reader

> Canada's immigration policy is on the whole highly selective, focused on skilled immigrants

Was. At present nearly every min wage and gig economy position in the country is 99% early 20s males from India taking advantage of being able to enrol in a diploma mill to qualify for PR. The Feds knew of this shady pipeline for years and did nothing because it juiced GDP numbers that otherwise would have revealed a recession.

Even once reputable colleges/universities couldn’t resist starting part-time no-show “hospitality” programs with 0 work and 100% pass rate to siphon tuition as the table stakes for being able to circumvent other immigration streams.

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> At present nearly every min wage and gig economy position in the country is 99% early 20s males from India taking advantage of being able to enrol in a diploma mill to qualify for PR. The Feds knew of this shady pipeline for years and did nothing because it juiced GDP numbers that otherwise would have revealed a recession.

Australia has had the same problem and in the last few years the Australian government has cracked down heavily on education visas, diploma mills, etc. If Trudeau isn't doing it already, I expect Poilievre will. Which means this may turn out to be more of a passing problem.

Canada has begun cracking down on this. There are now caps on the number of visas issued. Foreign students are no longer allowed to work full-time jobs by default while studying. This is especially relevant, because the Comprehensive Ranking System for permanent immigration gives points for years of full-time work experience in Canada, as well as for diplomas earned in Canada.

Unwinding it will be a bit messy: lots of post-secondary institutions have to figure out how run programs with a lot less funding, and what to do with capital projects that no longer make sense in light of greatly reduced enrollment, etc.

The damage done to the average Canadian's view of immigrants will take some time to fade away. But I suspect it will, with time, especially since our traditional immigration system really does just skim the "good" immigrants -- the ones with money and the skills to succeed.

Yes cracking down. In a typical LPC “we’re going to reduce the number by 10% after tripling it, starting next year” fashion.

Are you my doppelganger? I made almost this exact comment word-for-word to a friend of mine a few weeks ago.

Trudeau's immigration video from December [1] was one of the most dishonest, condescending productions that I've ever seen, basically amounting to, "Yes, we destroyed our previous internationally respected immigration system and imported five million low skilled laborers over a couple years without adding any housing or infrastructure. Yes, that's hurt a lot of you and made you angry. No, we don't think that's a problem. But because you're so angsty, we'll throttle it back a tiny wittle bit over the next year or two before throwing the floodgates wide open again."

Not a shred of anything even resembling self-awareness or humility throughout.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOB7-dbYuCc

The most shocking thing to me is the heavy involvement of McKinsey consulting in all this[1]. Feels anti-democratic to let a foreign consulting firm set immigration targets.

[1] https://thewalrus.ca/shadow-government/

That's absolutely bananas. $3 million for a _report_ about suggestions for possible immigration reform (to speed it up of course). In the hole $62 billion a year, and a sizable chunk is going to overpriced MBA grads right out of school to produce PDF documents. How the hell do we reign these people in.

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