Poilievre barking up the wrong tree on immigration

I had really hoped that we were over the gravelly, whining voice of Pierre Poilievre, complaining about every little thing the Liberals do. But it seems we are stuck with him in opposition for a while longer.

Some of the issues he has latched onto are clearly not winners, but Poilievre is willing to argue that black is white and fudge whatever statistics need fudging if he feels that it will pander to his right-wing base. One such issue is immigration.

Poilievre takes a tough stance on immigration, because that's what he thinks his base expects from him. Recently, he called for very hard caps on immigration, and specifically asserted that "We need more people leaving than coming for the next couple years". Even more recently he has called for the complete termination of the temporary foreign worker program, which industry and agriculture analysts say would be disastrous for the country.

But the point is that Poilievre is behind the times, and merely parroting talking points from his failed election bid that are no longer relevant or appropriate. After action taken by the Liberals, net immigration today is pretty much zero, and the Canadian population, once growing at a rapid and unsustainable clip, has already stopped growing. The uncontrolled influx of both overseas students and temporary foreign workers have already slowed to a much more manageable level.

Poilievre, as in his wont, is also misquoting some statistics on immigration, claiming that 105,000 temporary foreign workers have entered the country in just the first half of 2025, while the government's target was 83,000 for the full year. But in fact, most of that 105,000 were work permit renewals, and only 34,000 were new arrivals, well within the target. Similarly, new permits under the International Mobility Program, were well within targets, and not "out of control" as Poilievre claims. 

The Liberals are well into a program of reducing the numbers of temporary residents. According to Statistics Canada, population growth in the first quarter of 2025 was precisely zero, and the government's immigration plan is indeed for more people to leave Canada in 2025 than arrive. Poilievre is hopelessly out of touch.