B.C. lawyer suspects federal Liberals using immigrants as scapegoats

The federal government announced Thursday it’s slashing immigration targets, and one Lower Mainland lawyer thinks the timing of the Liberals’ ruling is purely political.

The government had targeted bringing in 500,000 new permanent residents in both 2025 and 2026.

Trudeau now says next year’s target will be 395,000 new permanent residents, which will continue to fall to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027, adding that the government did not get the balance right following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Will Tao of Heron Law Offices in Burnaby says the timing is suspect, especially right after Trudeau faced a very public revolt within his caucus due to slumping poll numbers.

He says the idea might also be to scoop the federal Conservatives on any possible policy announcements they might want to make, as an early election begins to look more likely.

Tao says cutting immigration doesn’t immediately mean the affordability and hosuing crises will be solved.

“You’re going to see a lot of negative spillover effects. You’re going to see a lot of people lose their jobs at universities — [people] who work in the student space — and you’re going to see tuition increase,” said Tao.

“I just hope Canadians are prepared for those negative externalities, because none of these decisions is a clear-cut good answer.”

Tao says the government is pointing to international student caps lowering rents in some communities as one reason for the move, but he’s not sure that captures the full picture.

“The clients that I’m working with are all figuring out alternative cash-only rent situations. And I’m wondering, ‘how does that even show up on the data?’ So I think that the government was right: we need more data, and we need to work with the partners and try and gather that data so we can make data-informed decisions that focus on that element, as opposed to necessarily pandering to whatever the flavour of the political day is.”

He says, while politicians may try to scapegoat immigrants for the affordability and housing crises, they actually alleviate pressure on Canadians in many ways, from keeping tuition for domestic students lower to staffing restaurants and many of the lower-income jobs.

Portraying immigrants as the problem, Tao says, acts often as a “proxy for racism,” oversimplifying narratives and creating distrust.