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U.S. Vice-President JD Vance made a series of posts criticizing Canada’s political leadership, public broadcaster and immigration system, saying our living standards are “stagnating” because of all the “foreign-born” people living here.
In posts to his X account Friday, Vance says Canada’s elected leaders have created “immigration insanity” by leaning into diversity.
“While I’m sure the causes are complicated, no nation has leaned more into ‘diversity is our strength, we don’t need a melting pot, we have a salad bowl’ immigration insanity than Canada,” he said.
The posting includes a chart from Ice Cap Asset Management in Halifax that shows the growth in living standards of Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. from the beginning of 2016 to the present.
One of Ice Cap Asset Management’s financial analysts, Richard Dias, added a one-word comment to the post saying that he “agreed.”
The chart does not contain any information detailing what metrics are used to determine the growth rate in living standards across the three countries over time.
CBC News has written to the company to ask for more detailed information regarding the metrics used and the degree to which immigration policy played a role, but has yet to receive a response.
Vance also said that any suggestion that Canada’s current living standards are the fault of U.S. trade and economic policy is patently false.
“With all due respect to my Canadian friends, whose politics focus obsessively on the United States: your stagnating living standards have nothing to do with Donald Trump or whatever bogeyman the CBC tells you to blame,” he said. “The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.”
While I’m sure the causes are complicated, no nation has leaned more into “diversity is our strength, we don’t need a melting pot we have a salad bowl” immigration insanity than Canada.
It has the highest foreign-born share of the population in the entire G7 and its living… https://t.co/PtlesqPJJl
The government under former prime minister Justin Trudeau had begun cutting immigration after it rapidly increased during the post-pandemic labour shortage.
Prior to Prime Minister Mark Carney taking office, the Liberals had already indicated they were aiming to shrink temporary residents’ share of Canada’s population.
In advance of the budget, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the government is aiming to bring immigration to “more sustainable levels.”
“I think Canadians understand that we had reached our capacity — or sometimes even exceeded our capacity — to welcome [newcomers],” he said.
The budget went on to say that Canada will aim to admit only 385,000 temporary residents next year — about 43 per cent less than the 2025 target — and 370,000 in the following two years.
The target for 2026 is down by about a quarter compared to the immigration plan released last year, which had said Canada would welcome more than 516,000 temporary residents.
The unemployment rate for recent immigrants was 11.1 per cent last year, about double the rate for those born in Canada — and according to Statistics Canada, immigrants are more likely to be working in a field “unrelated to their education or training than their counterparts who were born in Canada.”
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Lena Metlege Diab’s office declined to comment on Vance’s posts.
Diab’s office said the Liberal government “is restoring control to the immigration system” in a way that will bring it “back to sustainable levels.”
In an emailed statement, Diab’s office Canada’s immigration will be refocused to attract the world’s “best and brightest” in order to “fill critical labour gaps in high-demand occupations … while aligning immigration targets with community capacity.”
