Is immigration out of control? A debate Canada wasn’t supposed to have

At several points, Coyne attempted to exclude temporary residents from the immigration calculus entirely, insisting that “when we talk about immigration, we are talking about permanent immigration.” That clean definition may be fine for a policy paper, but it does little to explain why housing markets, hospitals, transit systems, and classrooms experience the strain all the same. “When the public looks at this,” Kenney responded, “they’re not asking whether it’s a temporary or permanent resident. They are an addition to the population.” Coyne later acknowledged that most supposedly temporary residents are expected to remain, and argued that this was a positive outcome. That move revealed a deeper problem with his motte and bailey. It is difficult to argue that temporary residents should not count, while simultaneously celebrating their permanence. The sharpest disagreement came over social cohesion. Kenney raised it cautiously, but deliberately. “Social cohesion. Hard to measure, hard to quantify, and sometimes a dangerous thing to discuss. But we damn well should.” Coyne largely dismissed the concern, citing intermarriage rates and declining segregation. Those statistics are real, but their correlation with the speed and scale of recent change in Canada seems far too tangential to be able to make sweeping conclusions about the future. Social cohesion is not only measured in census tables. It is felt in neighbourhoods, workplaces, schools, and public spaces. When hundreds of thousands of underemployed people are imported in short order, concentrated in service work, housed in enclaves, and expected to sponsor extended families into an already strained welfare state, Canadians are justified in being concerned. You do not preserve social trust by pretending it cannot be strained, and relying on an appeal to history seems far too deterministic. The society we have is the one we choose to build each and every day, and assuming the permanence of what we have today, regardless of our choices, seems like a recipe for decline. On one point, there was little genuine disagreement. Whatever the ideal number may be, the current government has badly broken Canada’s immigration system. Exploding asylum claims, fraudulent student schemes, and the collapse of enforcement have dismantled what was once the envy of the developed world. “The single worst legacy of the Trudeau administration,” Kenney argued, “was taking a broad pro-immigration consensus and turning it on its head.” Coyne did not meaningfully dispute that diagnosis. He did not defend the student visa explosion, the asylum surge, or the erosion of system integrity. Where the two men diverged was not on whether the system had failed, but on how much the failure should reshape Canada’s approach going forward. The applause at the end suggested that more people in the room sided with Kenney. But the deeper victory belonged to the debate itself. Immigration remains a pillar of Canadian life. But pillars require maintenance, which will always mean hard work. A system that cannot bear scrutiny cannot be corrected. Canada is finally relearning how to argue about immigration without resorting to xenophobia or division, or accusing those arguing of doing so. One gets the sense that debate is essential if we want to avoid sliding into the heated, divisive rifts we see opening up south of the border and in much of continental Europe. Debating these serious policies with respect is a sign of civic maturity, and it’s essential that we continue to do so. A confident country can argue about its future without fearing the argument; hopefully, this Hub debate is a sign Canada is still that country.