Mike Moffatt is the Senior Director of Policy and Innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Business, Economics and Public Policy group at Ivey Business School, Western University. He is the host of the Missing Middle podcast.

1:20       Mike’s speech to the Liberal Cabinet in August 2024 re. the impact of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) on housing.

5:15       Mike’s thoughts on recent changes to the TFWP.

6:45       What is the impact of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program on housing in Canada?

8:00       Discussion re. zoning and development fees.

13:00    What level of immigration would be ideal in order to reduce the impact on housing?

18:30   Consequences of promoting pathways to PR for international students.

24:00    Are recent changes to Canada’s international student program the end for private colleges?

28:00    Is the recent decline in rents attributable to the international student program changes?

34:00    Should there be a hard cap on Canada’s foreign worker programs? Also discussion re. stats manipulation.

48:00    Distinctions between new foreign workers and companies trying to retain existing ones.

54:00    How does Mike respond to allegations that he is anti-immigrant. 

Jason Kenney was Canada’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration from 2008-2013.

1:30 – The story behind Jason Kenney showing up unannounced at a CBA Immigration Law conference.

4:30 – The difficulties of being an immigration minister and Minister Kenney’s relationship with the bureaucracy and Deanna’s thoughts on Jason Kenney’s tenure. 

9:30 – Marc Miller’s attempts to introduce a program to regularize the status of undocumented workers, and his public statements that he was overruled by Cabinet. 

16:20 – Prime Minister Harper’s teenager looking for work and the overnight imposition of the 2014 moratorium on new LMIAs in the Food Service Sector.

23:00 – Record immigration levels, wage suppression, the collapse of the general consensus on immigration, and whether Canada’s record population growth was deliberately planned or unintended.

32:15 – The introduction of Ministerial Instructions.

37:30 – Diploma mills.

41:00 – What the scariest thing Jason Kenney did as Minister.

44:15 – Ending the ability of people to simultaneously claim asylum and submit an H&C application, and soaring asylum claim numbers.

49:50 – Is there anything Minister Kenney wishes he had used the notwithstanding clause on and revisiting the 1951 Refugee Convention.

57:15 – Advice to people who are disillusioned with politics.  

Amandeep Hayer and Lisa Middlemiss join to discuss maintaining permanent resident status and upcoming changes to citizenship by descent law, both of which were topics in their recently published book Maintaining Permanent Residence Status and Acquiring Citizenship.

Amandeep’s article in the Toronto Star about Bill C-71 can be found here.

Bill C-71 can be found here.

Cases discussed include Bi v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2012 FC 293.

Amandeep Hayer is an immigration lawyer at Hayer Law, based out of Vancouver. Lisa Middlemiss is an immigration lawyer at Middlemiss Immigration Law Inc, based out of Montreal.

Christopher Anders is a shareholder of Parker, Butte & Lane in Oregon (www.pbl.net), and a practicing lawyer who represents asylum seekers before the Asylum Offices of USCIS and in removal proceedings before the Immigration Courts of EOIR.

We discuss how record refugee flows are impacting politics and public opinion about refugees in both Canada and the United States. Also included is a sentimental sideline about the longevity of good pets (it’s a “tortoise and the hare” parable all over again…)