What’s the difference between an advocacy movement and a radical ideology? The Century Initiative makes an ideal case study. The group bills itself as a “national nonpartisan movement”—and perhaps it once was back in 2011, when its founders first set their minds to tripling Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100. After all, there were once physicians who thought smoking was healthy.
These days, it would be utter insanity for your family doctor to suggest picking up a pack of Marlboros. The connection between smoking and lung cancer, among other ills, is clear. Yet so is the connection between rocketing immigration numbers beyond the stratosphere of sustainability and harms like housing unaffordability, collapsing infrastructure, wage suppression, and rising unemployment. Recognizing this, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre openly called for negative near-term population growth in an exclusive interview with The Hub.
Still, despite all evidence that their experiment has failed, the Century Initiative persists. One would expect, if not a public mea culpa, at least some prolonged reflection and a shift to advocacy focused on responsible long-term growth. Instead, they published a new June 2025 report, “The Social and Economic Implications of Reducing Canada’s Immigration Levels in Unstable Times,” that continues to push for immigration surges we know the country can’t handle.
The report argues against even the Liberals’ modest immigration pullbacks that would still see over 415,000 new permanent residents per year. This doesn’t include non-permanent residents, which will be capped at 5 percent of the population by 2028. These are by no means radical targets. For context, we welcomed 341,000 permanent residents per year as recently as 2019, and Harper-era numbers were closer to 250,000. In 2021, non-permanent residents made up 2.5 percent of the population.
What is radical is the Century Initiative, whose dogged ideology rejects reality, denying and distorting evidence to pursue their vision, regardless of who else it hurts. There are many examples of this, but some are more egregious than others.
First is the Century Initiative’s claim that any reduction in immigration will harm housing affordability. Of course, it’s actually soaring immigration numbers far in excess of the housing stock that largely contributed to the housing crisis. In 2022, the federal public service warned Trudeau’s government about this consequence. In 2024, BMO economist Robert Kavcic wrote in a client note, “We’ve been firm in our argument that Canada has an excess demand problem in housing…non-permanent resident inflows, on net, have swelled to about 800k in the latest year, with few checks and balances in place, putting tremendous stress on housing supply and infrastructure.”
Yet somehow, the Century Initiative hasn’t gotten the message. Rather, their report argues, “housing supply shortages may be exacerbated due to the important role of immigrants filling critical labour shortages in Canada’s residential home construction industry.” They claim “the construction industry continues to rely heavily on immigrants to fill critical labour market gaps” and cite that “more than 1 in 5 general contractors and builders are immigrants.”
That figure may be true, but it’s also misleading because the immigrants who work as contractors and builders include those who arrived years, if not decades, before the recent immigration surge. In fact, a December 2023 Bank of Canada report on the matter notes, “A rise in immigration to Canada may contribute more to housing imbalances than found in studies of other countries. This is because Canada already has imbalances between its housing supply and demand and because relatively few newcomers join the construction industry.”It goes on to explain, “even with rising immigrant participation, total employment in [the construction] sector still lags behind 2019 levels.”
Construction workers in Toronto on Tuesday, September 29, 2020. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press.
At the same time, the authors state immigrants tend to boost near-term demand for rental accommodation while using funds brought from their home countries to achieve similar home ownership rates to those born in Canada within just a decade.
The bottom line: we know mass immigration greatly boosts housing demand, while data showing any meaningful boost to supply—and certainly enough supply to offset said demand—does not exist.
The Century Initiative also makes the argument that continued mass immigration is essential to Canada’s economic growth and prosperity, writing, “reduced immigration levels will reduce Canada’s nominal GDP by $37 billion over the next 3 years and accelerate Canada’s trajectory toward economic decline.” However, using nominal GDP instead of GDP per capita to measure prosperity conveniently glosses over some stark realities.
Nominal GDP measures the total value of goods and services a country produces. It is easily juiced with higher population numbers and doesn’t account for the distribution of wealth within an economy or individual living standards. This is what GDP per capita, which divides GDP by the total population of the country, does. Canada’s GDP continues to hover around pre-pandemic levels, despite enormous population growth, as we fall further and further behind the U.S. and other peer economies. This is why Canadian economists have called using GDP in this context “a mirage of economic prosperity.”
The Century Initiative’s report goes on to make many, many mentions of “significant labour shortages” in “critical industries” to justify reversing immigration curbs. Yet, most of its attention is spent on attracting U.S. researchers and academics with a vague mention of IT and cybersecurity workers related to national security. There may be opportunities to recruit some true stars in these fields, but it’s unclear why the Century Initiative feels these very rare, exceptional talents couldn’t possibly be accommodated within Mark Carney’s 415,000 new permanent residents per year?
Otherwise, the Century Initiative is pretty mum on so-called labour shortages, because there aren’t many in Canada these days, let alone those that could be solved through more immigration. Rather, reckless immigration policies have suppressed wages in many sectors and contributed to soaring unemployment, especially for younger Canadians.In Alberta, 17 percent of those aged 15-24 are unemployed. Canada’s largest economic centres, which are typically home to more jobs but also receive the most immigrants, are seeing decades-high unemployment outside of the pandemic. In Toronto, the unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, with at least 379,900 people out of work.
Canada couldn’t keep up with the mass immigration targets set by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, and recent reductions are only a first step on the path to correcting the tremendous harm done. This is no longer a controversial statement for most Canadians, regardless of political stripe, because data, lived experience, and a basic understanding of math make it blindingly obvious. If you are already struggling to find enough homes, doctors, and jobs for five people, there’s going to be a problem when you try to accommodate 10.Not to mention the danger of souring Canadians on the issue altogether: a recent Pollara survey finds that over half of Canadians believe immigration has increased unemployment either “a little” or “a lot,” up from 40 percent in 2002.
Instead of recognizing this and correcting course, the Century Initiative chooses instead to double down on its singular worldview at the expense of reason and the welfare of Canadians—particularly younger ones. They are not big thinkers, but extremists in pursuit of a narrow goal at the expense of all else.
