Trudeau’s mass migration cult is destroying Canada

When wokeness, the making sacred of historically-disadvantaged minorities, takes control of a society like Canada, the effects go far beyond plans to stock tampons in men’s bathrooms. There, taboo-driven mass immigration is not only resulting in cultural tensions but in economic paralysis and soaring housing costs.

You know things have gone crazy when even economists at the National Bank of Canada are sounding the alarm. They say the country has entered a “population trap” in which savings are sucked into providing infrastructure and capital for new arrivals, impairing economic growth. More than that, the immense pressure of the 1.2 million new residents the country added in 2023 is driving the cost of housing through the roof. To put this number into scale, it’s larger than the population of most Canadian cities and 8 of the country’s 13 provinces and territories.

Yet these policies are endorsed not only by the Left-wing coalition government of Justin Trudeau but by the so-called “populist” conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who only speaks about building homes, not reducing immigration. This is partly because he is a neoliberal who cares about little beyond economics. But he is also alive to the sword of “racism” that the progressive media holds over the neck of any Canadian politician who dares to question mass migration.

He should worry less. After Trudeau announced record-breaking immigration targets, surveys showed 67 percent of Canadians opposed. With just one housing start for every four people entering the workforce and rents and house prices soaring, especially in metropolitan areas, even liberal Canadians have had enough.

Canada’s elite suffers from a syndrome known as “Canada’s pro-immigration consensus”. This has its origins in Canada losing its identity with the death of the British Empire in the 1950s and 60s. British loyalism had been the country’s dominant ideology and raison d’etre since the American Revolution, but lay in ruins. The vacuum was filled with 1960s vintage left-liberalism, with Canada reinvented as a kinder, gentler United States.

Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father, ushered in more liberal immigration and the country’s disastrous 1971 Multiculturalism Act. Its 1988 successor, created an official duty to “promote the understanding that multiculturalism is a fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity”, and the new 1982 constitution allowed for naked racial discrimination in hiring and criminal sentencing. Any questioning of immigration is viewed as offensive to minorities, hence out of bounds.

Père Pierre has passed his worldview down to his son Justin, who gushed to a New York Times reporter upon attaining office in 2015 that Canada has “no core identity, no mainstream.” This boast, that the country is post-national and therefore more modern and morally superior to others, is rooted in the same cultural left set of beliefs (“majorities bad, minorities good”) that has given rise to speech policing and reverse discrimination, the hallmarks of woke. Wokeness in turn helps shut down debate over immigration.

Canada is a sterling example of how cultural leftism meshes with the expansionist ethos of global capitalism. Nothing symbolizes this progressive neoliberal synthesis better than Toronto’s 18-lane, perpetually snarled, Highway 401, accompanying the unchecked urban sprawl that is a feature of the country’s major metropolitan areas. In Vancouver, when locals resist expansion, developers cry “racist” and “xenophobe” to relax zoning and planning restrictions. EThere is constant pressure on established neighbourhoods, lowering the quality of life for existing residents.

The lie that immigration is a solution to the ageing problem (apparently immigrants don’t age) is routinely trotted out, with no opposition, to justify higher numbers. The apotheosis of this thinking is the Century Initiative, an elite lobby group straddling the corporate world, academia and non-profit sector which is pushing for a supersize Canada of 100 million people, up from 40 million today. This will produce a nation of sprawling mega-Dubais bloated out of all proportion to the traditional landscape of small cities and towns.

Quality of life, per capita income and social cohesion must be sacrified to reach this maximum migration utopia. It may be too late for Canada to step back from the brink. Britain still has a choice. Let’s hope it makes the right one.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month, then enjoy 1 year for just $9 with our US-exclusive offer.