
Immigration fuels Atlantic Canadian 'economic renaissance,' authors argue
But in Atlantic Canada, those irritants are largely overshadowed by a much different story: the transformation of moribund and stagnant economies that made the region Canada's poor cousin.
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The authors of a new book detail the dramatic improvements newcomers are bringing to the East Coast — and argue this is no time to swerve. They argue only for a more strategic immigration policy, one that reflects the region's economic needs.
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Nova Scotia seeks to double its population to two million by 2060, and New Brunswick, where the population was pegged at 854,355 last year, is aiming for one million people within the decade, according to their 2025 book published by Halifax-based Nimbus.
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'Most of the region's largest municipalities now have their own population growth strategies as well,' Mills and Campbell write. 'All these population strategies acknowledge the critical role of immigration to drive labour force and population growth.'
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Last year, after three years of especially rapid growth in Canada's immigration population, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau announced they were reducing the number of permanent residents admitted to the country by 21 per cent. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to cap the total number of temporary workers and international students to less than five per cent of Canada's population within two years.
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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this month called for 'very hard caps' on the number of newcomers allowed into the country. He told reporters the country has struggled to integrate newcomers and he wants to see more people leaving than coming in 'while we catch up.'
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'We have millions of people whose permits will expire over the next couple of years, and many of them will leave,' Poilievre said. 'We need more people leaving than coming for the next couple years.'

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Toronto Star
3 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Let's fix it: Old City Hall has finally reopened. What's next for the Toronto landmark?
By Contributing Columnist Shawn Micallef is a Toronto-based writer and a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Bluesky: @ The short block of Queen Street between Yonge and Bay Streets is having a tough time. Prominent, both a crossroads and a destination, it's closed for Ontario Line construction, forcing streetcars to detour while pedestrians scuttle through narrow passages. On top of that, the block is bookended by two massive historic buildings sitting empty. The demise of the Hudson Bay flagship store is keenly felt here and its absence is like a hole in the downtown fabric. At the other end of the block, Old City Hall remains grand but it, too, is empty of purpose now that the provincial courts moved to their new building behind New City Hall. Opinion articles are based on the author's interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details


CBC
9 hours ago
- CBC
Trudeau radically overhauled the Senate — will Carney keep his reforms?
Former prime minister Justin Trudeau upended 150 years of Canadian parliamentary tradition when he dumped Liberal senators, named Independents to the upper house and generally stripped the place of partisan elements. The experiment produced mixed reviews, with some old-guard senators — those who were there well before Trudeau — arguing the Senate is now irrelevant, slower, less organized and more expensive. Some of Trudeau's appointees say the reforms have helped the Red Chamber turn the page on the near-death experience of the expenses scandal, which they maintain was fuelled by the worst partisan impulses. Defenders of the new regime say partisans are pining for a model that's best left in the dustbin of history. The Senate has been more active in amending government bills and those changes are not motivated by party politics or electoral fortunes — they're about the country's best interest, reformers say. As the debate rages internally over whether the last 10 years of change have been worth it, Prime Minister Mark Carney has said almost nothing about his vision for the upper house. Under the current model, would-be senators are recommended by an outside panel but the decision is still up to the prime minister. Most of Trudeau's early picks were strictly non-partisan but, as polls showed his party was headed for an almost certain defeat, he increasingly named Liberals to the chamber. Carney has already scrapped Trudeau's carbon tax, introduced legislation to bypass Trudeau-era regulations, repaired once-frosty relations with the provinces and taken a different approach to the trade war. All that has some senators wondering whether the non-partisan push in the Red Chamber will be the next domino to fall. In an interview with CBC Radio's The House, House leader Steve MacKinnon signalled there may indeed be more changes coming. "I think the Senate is very much a work in progress," he said. "We continue to work constructively with the Senate in its current configuration and as it may evolve. I know many senators, the various groups in the Senate and others continue to offer some constructive thoughts on that." Asked if Carney will appoint Liberals, MacKinnon said the prime minister will name senators who are "attuned to the vagaries of public opinion, attuned to the wishes of Canadians and attuned to the agenda of the government as is reflected in the election results." Carney is interested in senators who "are broadly understanding of what the government's trying to achieve," MacKinnon said. As to whether he's heard about efforts to revive a Senate Liberal caucus, MacKinnon said: "I haven't been part of any of those discussions." Alberta Sen. Paula Simons is a member of the Independent Senators Group, the largest in the chamber and one mostly composed of Trudeau appointees (she is one of them, appointed in 2018). Simons said she knows the Conservatives would scrap Trudeau's reforms at the first opportunity. What concerns her more are those Liberals who are also against the changes. "There's a fair bit of rumbling about standing up a Liberal caucus again. And I am unalterably opposed to that," she said. When the last Liberal caucus was disbanded, some of its members regrouped as the Progressive Senate Group, which now includes senators who were never Liberals. "To unscramble that omelette, whether you're a Liberal or a Conservative, I think would be a betrayal of everything that we've accomplished over the last decade," Simons said. "I think the Senate's reputation has improved greatly as a result of these changes. I think the way we are able to improve legislation has also increased tenfold. It would be foolish and wasteful to reverse that." Still, she said there's been pushback from some Trudeau appointees. Senate debates are now longer, committee hearings feature more witnesses and there's more amendments to legislation than ever before, she said. Not to mention Independent senators can't be whipped to vote a certain way. All of that makes the legislative process more difficult to navigate. "Partisan Liberals don't like the new independent Senate because they can't control it as easily," she said. Marc Gold, Trudeau's last government representative in the Senate who briefly served under Carney before retiring, said his advice to the new prime minister is to keep the Senate the way it is. "The evolution of the Senate to a less partisan, complementary institution is a good thing. I think it's a success, and I certainly hope that it continues," Gold said. On the other side of the divide, Quebec Sen. Leo Housakos, the leader of the Conservative Senate caucus, welcomes the idea of injecting some partisanship. He said, under the current model, the chamber is less influential. "The place has become, unfortunately, an echo chamber," he said. Housakos said the old Senate was more honest, when members were more transparent about their political leanings. Many of Trudeau's Independent appointees are Liberal-minded and their voting record suggests they often align with the government, Housakos said. "Look at how often they've held the government to account," he said. "Look how often they've asked the difficult questions in the moments when the government needed … their feet held to the fire." Simons sees things differently. "It's really difficult for people who've been brought up in a partisan milieu, whether they're Conservative or Liberal or New Democrat, to understand that it is actually possible to be a political actor without a team flag," she said. "It's not my job to stand for a political party." Saskatchewan Sen. Pamela Wallin is a member of the Canadian Senators Group, which is made up of non-partisan senators including some who, like her, formerly sat as Conservatives. She said the current process has produced some senators who are political neophytes, unfamiliar with the Senate's traditional role. "I don't care if somebody belongs to a political party.… I think people need to be better educated about what they're signing up for," she said. "Our job is to be an arbiter of legislation and laws put forward by the House of Commons. It's not a place where we can all ride our individual hobby horses." That's a reference to the proliferation of Senate public bills — legislation introduced by senators themselves. These bills often have no hope of passing through both chambers, while still taking time and resources to sort through. There is data to support Wallin's contention that there are more of these bills than there were before the Trudeau reforms. During Stephen Harper's last term, there were 56 Senate public bills introduced and nine of them were passed into law, according to a CBC News review of parliamentary data. By comparison, Trudeau's final session saw 92 bills introduced over a shorter time period. Only 12 of them passed — a worse success rate. In the first few weeks of this new Parliament, more than 32 such bills have already been introduced, some of them a revival of those that died on the order paper. Wallin said those bills often reflect senators' "personal interests or the interests that they've shared over a lifetime." She wants the Senate to take a "back to basics" approach. "Our job is sober second thought," she said. Wallin is also calling for better regional representation in the Senate, which may be a tricky proposition given the constitutional realities. A change in seat allocation would require cracking open that foundational document, a politically unpalatable idea. Still, Alberta separatists are agitating for change, calling the current breakdown grossly unfair. Housakos said depriving some parts of the country of meaningful representation needs to be addressed. In B.C., for example, the province's nearly six million people are represented by just six senators. P.E.I., by comparison, has four senators for about 180,000 people — an allocation formula that dates back to Confederation. "Western Canada has a legitimate beef. They are not fairly represented in the upper chamber," Housakos said. "It's probably the biggest problem that needs to be addressed." But the government isn't interested in that sort of change, MacKinnon said.


Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Warpath to profitability?
Opinion The defence industry is often overlooked by investors. It's perceived as boring compared with technology or worse, it's just an unethical way to put profit in the portfolio. Since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, however, the defence industry has drawn significant investor interest. Notably, the perception has changed. That includes some of those who might have felt investing in defence was distasteful; they now see it as a needed buttress against rising authoritarianism. Of course, another shift is financial — based on the forecast injection of hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending by NATO members. Pexels NATO members (including Canada) are forecast to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in additional annual spending in defence in the years to come. Canada alone is expected to increase military spending about $70 billion annually to meet its most recent defence commitment of five per cent of gross domestic product. The big question for many intrigued investors is whether they've already missed the warship. 'Our view is that type of information gets incorporated into market prices really quickly,' says Ben Felix, chief investment officer with PWL Capital in Ottawa. 'The implication of that is by the time you read about it in a Free Press article, any advantage that you may have got by investing in that theme is already gone.' That said, the defence industry landscape and recent performance are still of interest to inquisitive investors who might consider putting their money to work when prices pull back periodically. For the time being, however, many defence company share prices have hit lofty heights, including a handful of Canadian firms such as satellite technology company MDA Space Ltd. Its share price is up more than 50 per cent year to date. As well, aerospace company Bombardier's share price 'has almost doubled in recent months, so obviously, all of the talk that has been going on is certainly helping,' says Brian Donovan, New Brunswick-based president of provider of valuation models for investors. 'It tells you that there is an interest shift into this space.' StockCalc tracks performance of thousands of North American equities, including about eight Canadian firms with defence industry revenues. One even has a footprint in Winnipeg: Magellan Aerospace Corp., which makes components for military aircraft. Its share price is up more than 80 per cent YTD. If those gains sound lofty, consider some firms listed in the United States and Europe. Notably, artificial intelligence firm Palantir is up 106 per cent this year. Even more impressive, its share price is up nearly 1,600 per cent over the last five years. A key driver is its defence contracts with the U.S. and partnerships with other technology and manufacturing companies involved in defence. That includes L3 Harris Technology, which, like Palantir, operates in many industries. Its drone technology business is a big defence revenue driver. (That said, its share price growth YTD is much less than other defence stocks.) In Europe, the most notable defence growth story is manufacturing conglomerate Rheinmetall AG. Among the many defence technologies it manufactures are Challenger and Leopard tanks. Its share price is up about 200 per cent YTD, and more than 2,000 per cent in the last five years. The big driver is Germany planning to spend more than a trillion dollars on defence in the next five years. That investors are now turning onto the defence sector is understandable (given the headlines) and somewhat ironic at the same time because it has not been a lacklustre industry for long-term performance. Publicly traded companies involved in the U.S. defence industry have collectively provided returns on an annual basis that have outpaced the S&P 500, says Scott Sacknoff, manager of the SPADE Defense Index in Washington, D.C. 'There is a long history of defence outperforming.' And it very well could continue to outperform, given the U.S. defence budget is expected to surpass US$1 trillion annually for the first time in history, he adds. If anyone has deep knowledge of the defence sector, it's Sacknoff. The SPADE Index, which he manages, consists of leading U.S.-based defence companies and has outperformed the S&P 500 by roughly more than 1,000 basis points (or 100 percentage points) over the last 25 years. Yet until Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine in 2022, defence was a profitable but sleepy market corner. The explosion in defence spending has changed that, leading to greater investment and even a rush of new investment products, notably exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Prior to 2022, investors largely had three ETFs to choose from, including one of the longest running: Invesco Aerospace & Defense ETF. For investors looking for exposure, the Invesco product is worth a look. Since launching in 2005, it has had steady growth. Investment data firm Morningstar data shows US$10,000 invested in 2005 would be worth nearly US$120,000 today. In turn, the ETF has Morningstar's highest rating. Sacknoff notes the ETF's performance is driven by the underlying SPADE index, which uses a modified market cap weighting to address the downsides of passive investing that lead to over-concentration in overvalued stocks. 'In simplest terms, this involves ensuring that large companies aren't too large, and small companies aren't too small.' He adds the index's annualized return over 15 years is 17 per cent. 'You have never lost money in any product tracking our index if you invested and held onto it for at least three years.' Yet one might ask, would that still hold true today? 'The big question is whether earnings and revenues will catch up to the high valuations,' Sacknoff says. Only time will tell. Yet not all companies on the index are surging in price, including Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-35 fighter that Canada and other NATO countries have contracts to buy. Its share price is actually down slightly this year. Wednesdays A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom. What's more, U.S. President Donald Trump's scattershot economic policy is likely to lead to downside market volatility, presenting buying opportunities for defence companies. Yet their long-term tailwind is likely not going away soon. For the time being, however, this high-flying sector seems more of a minefield than a warpath to profitability. Joel Schlesinger is a Winnipeg-based freelance journalist joelschles@